BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Folger Shakespeare Library -- Exhibit: A Monument to Shakespeare

DC -- Folger Shakespeare Library -- Exhibit: A Monument to Shakespeare:

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Description of Pictures: A Monument to Shakespeare
Apr 13, 2019 – Jan 05, 2020
Henry Clay Folger and his wife Emily wanted to create a monument to Shakespeare in the U.S. capital. This would be their gift to the American people, an architectural presence on Capitol Hill, and an anchor to the nation’s cultural mile. This exhibition shows how Henry, and after his death, his wife Emily, worked with architect Paul Philippe Cret to create a marble building that looks like a book, and speaks to the hope that Washington DC would become a cultural center.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FOLMON_190529_015.JPG: A Study in Contrasts The Folger is an extraordinary building, an American monument to another country's national hero in the heart of Capitol Hill. Its modernized classical exterior and English Renaissance interior (the contrasting styles are lovingly referred to as "Tudor-deco") earned it a place on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969. This designation was expanded in 2018 to include the original interior of the building. As soon as it was built, the Folger became a prototype for a wide range of public buildings and monuments across America that maintained a classical spirit while simplifying, modernizing, and abstracting many of classical architecture's most distinctive features. Home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare-related books, manuscripts, art, and artifacts, the building was a collaboration between Paul Cret, a French �migr� trained in the Beaux-Arts style, and Henry and Emily Folger, a New York couple who shared a lifelong passion for Shakespeare and collecting. By locating their monument to Shakespeare and his age at the heart of civic life, the Folgers and Cret made a bold statement in marble and wood: that the wisdom of literature and history are indispensable to the life of a democracy. A Monument to Shakespeare: The Architecture of the Folger Shakespeare Library tells the story of how their combined vision and attention to detail resulted in a building that Emily Folger later described as "The First Folio, Illustrated."
2. FOLMON_190529_023.JPG: Bas-Relief Artwork
3. FOLMON_190529_040.JPG: Before the Folger A Very Brief History
4. FOLMON_190529_063.JPG: A Close Call A Crucial Assist from the Librarian of Congress
5. FOLMON_190529_072.JPG: Demolition of Grant's Row
6. FOLMON_190529_084.JPG: Building the Team Paul Cret (1878-1945) and Alexander Trowbridge (1868-1950)
7. FOLMON_190529_087.JPG: Paul Phillipe Cret (1876-1945)
8. FOLMON_190529_105.JPG: Design Study Getting the Facade Right
9. FOLMON_190529_125.JPG: A Building for the 20th Century Air Conditioning, Automobiles, and Asbestos
10. FOLMON_190529_144.JPG: Designing the Interior Stepping from the Present Into the Past
11. FOLMON_190529_159.JPG: Color drawings of the Reading Room, Great Hall, and Theatre
12. FOLMON_190529_172.JPG: There is not anything of human trial That ever love deplored or sorrow knew, No glad fulfilment and no sad denial, Beyond the pictured truth that Shakespeare drew. WILLIAM WINTER
13. FOLMON_190529_177.JPG: The Gail Kern Paster Reading Room
14. FOLMON_190529_192.JPG: Designing the Great Hall "Americans Have Always Loved Him"
15. FOLMON_190529_220.JPG: Memorializing Mr. Folger An Unexpected Addition
16. FOLMON_190529_244.JPG: Thrice happy the nation that Shakespeare has charm'd More happy the bosoms his genius has warm'd! Ye children of nature, of fashion, and whim, He painted you all, all join to praise him. DAVID GARRICK
17. FOLMON_190529_254.JPG: Designing the Theatre To Globe or Not To Globe
18. FOLMON_190529_278.JPG: The Gail Kern Paster Reading Room
19. FOLMON_190529_298.JPG: A Monument to Shakespeare The Architecture of the Folger Shakespeare Library
20. FOLMON_190529_304.JPG: Opening Day "Dream is Achieved in Folger Library"
21. FOLMON_190529_308.JPG: Photograph of President Herbert Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover, the First Lady April 23, 1932
22. FOLMON_190529_312.JPG: The Washington Post supplement April 23, 1932
23. FOLMON_190529_320.JPG: Two Works of Art The Folger Shakespeare Library and the First Folio
24. FOLMON_190529_328.JPG: A Vision for Washington A Federal and Cultural Capital
25. FOLMON_190529_343.JPG: The Future The Next Chapter
26. FOLMON_190529_379.JPG: Thrice happy the nation that Shakespeare has charm'd More happy the bosoms his genius has warm'd! Ye children of nature, of fashion, and whim, He painted you all, all join to praise him. DAVID GARRICK
27. FOLMON_190529_383.JPG: Drawing Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream September 11, 2018 | By Paul Glenshaw Titania and Bottom This is the second post in a series by artist Paul Glenshaw about drawing the bas-reliefs by John Gregory on the front of the Folger Shakespeare Library building. The series will examine the bas-reliefs one by one; each sculpture depicts a scene from a different Shakespeare play. Today's post is about the bas-relief of a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. There's a document in the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art dated August 28, 1929, that lists the scenes that Gregory was to depict, according to Henry Folger's wishes. The first is "Titania with Fairies," from Act II, Sc. 2 of A Midsummer Night's Dream. But Gregory carved instead a moment from Act IV, Sc.1 -- when Titania invites Bottom, still with the head of an ass, to sleep entwined her arms, like "…the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle/Gently entwist; the female ivy so/Enrings the barky fingers of the elm./O, how I love thee! How I dote on thee!" It would appear Emily Folger changed the scene after her husband's death. Gregory wrote to her on May 16, 1930, saying, "I will at once set about preparing another version of the Dream, incorporating your plan…" It's a perfect moment to represent the play. We're in the woods where all the mayhem takes place, with Titania and Bottom representing the misplaced, drug-induced affections in the play. In contrast to the frenzied, tangled-up emotive energy of many of the other scenes in the woods, this one is quiet. Titania is happily smitten with her donkey man, and Bottom is charmed, blithely unaware of his grotesque transformation (but hoping for some oats). It's the moment before the knotty mess of infatuations begins to get resolved. It's a quiet scene in terms of narrative, but visually, it's exploding with activity. Gregory plays with symmetry throughout the series. In Midsummer, he sets up a deceptively simple-looking scene. It's bisected right down the middle, with the two figures sitting sideways on either side of a semicircular rock, leaning their shoulders together, with a tree behind each at the outer vertical edges of the square. But that's where the symmetry ends. The biggest difference between the two halves is the size of the two figures. Bottom is huge. His ass head is gigantic, dominating the top half of the sculpture. His hands and feet are enormous; his arms, torso, and legs muscular. His elbow crosses the centerline into Titania's space. The other arm has a sleeve of foliage. An oak tree (not an elm as the text suggests) emerges behind his foot from the base of the square and wraps itself around the outer edge, its leaves overlapping in clumps, dotted with acorns. Titania is much smaller. Her crown almost dwarfs her face, and her fingers are raised up in a delicate, graceful gesture. Gregory renders her gossamer garment (despite being marble) in delicate folds. The folds both cling to her and drop gently down. Yet she sits firmly on the rock -- she's a queen after all, not a Kleenex. She sits next to a tree whose leaves resemble the honeysuckle, as the text indicates. Like the oak leaves, they spread out in fan-like shapes to the upper corners, as if they're magically growing before our eyes. Finally, Bottom looks down toward Titania, and she faces out. Is she looking at us? Or is she lost in her reverie? The greatest challenge in drawing Midsummer was the leaves. They hold together visually as very active areas, but each leaf has a part to play in the overall busy pattern -- and there's a lot of them. The accumulated grime on the sculptures, particularly the leaves above Titania's head, served me very well graphically. The darkness of the grime enhances shadows and provides contrast, which typically makes things more visually dynamic.
28. FOLMON_190529_392.JPG: Drawing Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet October 26, 2018 | By Paul Glenshaw Romeo and Juliet. Paul Glenshaw. This is the third post in a series by artist Paul Glenshaw about drawing the bas-reliefs by sculptor John Gregory on the front of the Folger Shakespeare Library building. The series examines the bas-reliefs one by one; each sculpture depicts a scene from a different Shakespeare play. Today's post is about the bas-relief of a scene from Romeo and Juliet. Henry Folger originally wanted this scene to show Romeo wooing Juliet at her window. After he died, John Gregory wrote to Paul Cret, the building's architect, that the six-by-six-foot format of the reliefs could not accommodate the two full-size figures; he was pleased that Mrs. Folger had agreed to this scene instead. He later wrote to Mrs. Folger, "I was delighted to hear that Juliet makes a good impression, she was a hard girl to bring up." After I finished all the intricacies and fussy details of drawing Midsummer, I looked over to my next target, Romeo and Juliet, with a sense of relief. How much easier it looked. I wouldn't have to draw any leaves. Just three figures in a row, boom, boom, boom. How wrong I was. By drawing this sculpture, I learned with humility how nuanced John Gregory's storytelling is -- and how much I had to learn about the story itself. The scene Gregory depicts is from Act III, Sc. 5. It's the last moment Romeo and Juliet share together alive, an excruciating, beautiful, terrible moment of letting go. The romantic timeline is so compressed in Romeo and Juliet -- they meet on a Sunday evening, get married on Monday afternoon, and then die that Thursday -- that each moment the two doomed lovers connect is profound and fleeting. Gregory gives us arguably the most potent moment of all: just after their one and only night together, and just before or just after their last kiss. As the night gives way to dawn, they linger before they part forever. Romeo is leaving Juliet's chamber and fleeing Verona. It's agony for each of them. They argue, banter, tease about the song of a bird -- it's a nightingale (it's still night, we have a few more minutes); no, it's a lark (it's morning, and our time is up). Juliet's Nurse enters and prods them into reality. The beauty of the sculpture is that it holds this fleeting moment forever -- and yet Gregory loads it full of dynamic, contrasting motions. The Composition and Drawing Challenges Reading the action left to right, the furthest things to the left (which are barely visible in the bottom left corner) are Romeo's foot, turning away, and his right hand. He's already leaving. But he and Juliet almost seem to erupt toward one another. The folds of their capes lift away as if each has suddenly moved toward the other. The pattern the folds create -- like an upside-down fan -- visually compresses the two together. The hands echo the tensions of the evaporating moment. Although Romeo's right hand points away, his left hand clasps Juliet's right, hidden between them. Juliet's left hand is flung behind her. The Nurse leans on a walking stick and touches the feathered fan that hangs from her waist. Gregory also gives us both inside and outside. There are hints of architecture in the upper corners, but there are smoky forms in the center, suggesting how the dawn of "envious streaks do lace the severing clouds in yonder east." Taken together, they create the tension between needing to move and not wanting to move. Drawing Romeo and Juliet was all about balancing the bold dynamics with the tiny moments -- neither sacrificing the implied movement nor losing the bits of storytelling in the details. For example, Romeo's one visible knee and lower leg jut out from the folds of his cloak. The cloak loops over his thigh, creating an upside-down U-shape, which is then answered in reverse by the curve of Juliet's outer garment falling over her skirt. It's all motion -- visual action and reaction. By contrast, the Nurse's skirt has no dynamic motion. It's a symmetrical, domelike shape, broken only by the almost regular vertical folds that reach the floor and the feathered fan that also hangs vertically, implying that she is practically motionless -- a visual goalie preventing any going back. When the drawing was done, I felt growing confidence that I could complete the series, that doing Midsummer was not a one-off. I also began to learn more deeply how Gregory could distill each story to a richly layered moment. It was clear to me that each sculpture would have styling consistencies with its companions, but that it would also be a unique composition. When I looked over to the next sculpture, I saw a drawn knife, a central figure keeping two very angry figures apart, buckled shoes, books, and a globe. Something very serious was going down next door with The Merchant of Venice. The Drawing Process: Because the sculptures are on the north wall of the library, they remain in shade much of the day. This is a great advantage for drawing, since the natural light on them remains fairly consistent for long periods of time. But as we'll see in later posts, sometimes the raking light of early morning and late afternoon reveals details the shade hides.
29. FOLMON_190529_404.JPG: The Book and The Building
30. FOLMON_190529_428.JPG: Drawing Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice November 20, 2018 | By Paul Glenshaw The Merchant of Venice. Paul Glenshaw. This is the fourth post in a series by artist Paul Glenshaw about drawing the bas-reliefs by sculptor John Gregory on the front of the Folger Shakespeare Library building. The series examines the bas-reliefs one by one; each sculpture depicts a scene from a different Shakespeare play. Today's post is about the bas-relief of a scene from The Merchant of Venice. It is the climactic moment of the play. We're in the court of Venice. Shylock the moneylender has come to collect on his bond -- a pound of flesh from the Venetian merchant Antonio, cut from the "area nearest his heart." Shylock and Antonio hate one another, yet Antonio has agreed to put up his own body as security for a loan for his dearest friend Bassanio, allowing Bassanio to court and marry Portia, a wealthy heiress. When Antonio cannot repay the loan, Shylock, long the object of anti-Semitic prejudice by Antonio and other Venetians, demands the payment. A young lawyer (who is really Bassanio's wife Portia in disguise) stands between Shylock and Antonio. First, she declares Shylock's bond legal. But then she turns to him and says, "Tarry a little." This is the moment at which sculptor John Gregory puts down his chisel and we are left to imagine the rest of the scene. Within moments, Shylock's world will be turned inside out. Portia holds him to the exact wording of the bond -- "a pound of flesh." No more, no less. No blood. Anything but the flesh and Shylock will be guilty -- as an alien, because he's Jewish -- of attempted murder. Shylock suddenly loses everything and is ordered to convert to Christianity. Portia has saved Antonio, whose only happiness has come through his love for her husband, Bassanio. Through it all, Bassanio has not recognized his wife standing in front of him. Creating Dramatic Tension In depicting this moment, Gregory plays with symmetry to subtly heighten the drama. Portia dominates as the central figure. Shylock and Antonio are pushed to the two edges of the square. Portia's arms extend out to each, staying Shylock's knife in one, holding out the written bond in the other. Gregory makes her a visual pillar of strength, with the folds of her robe coming down vertically right in the center of the square, like the fluting of a classical column. But Gregory breaks the symmetry to make the moment come alive. She raises one knee, resting her foot on some books, and turns her head toward Shylock as she unwinds his plan. Visually, Shylock and Antonio echo and oppose one another. Like mirror images, they face one another, each about the same size and visual weight. They incline their heads toward one another at almost the same angle, expressions focused, intent. But Shylock is headed for Antonio; Antonio braces himself, his legs set one in front of the other. Their fists are clenched -- Shylock holds the knife; Antonio angrily grips nothing. The other figures flanking Portia visually separate Shylock and Antonio further. Shylock's companion looks out passively at us. But Gregory depicts the complex relationship between Portia, Bassanio, and Antonio in one deft move. While Portia turns to Shylock, her husband Bassanio turns his head to Antonio. As the married couple's heads look away from each other, the longer, deeper relationship between Antonio and Bassanio is revealed -- their heads seem about to touch. Drawing Challenges The challenges in drawing Merchant were many. Gregory compresses the figures from left to right, but they're also all pushed to the front. There's very little depth suggested, so the overlaps and contrasts between forms must be very clear for that shallow space to be at all plausible. There were also many little details that help depict the characters -- Shylock scowls, Antonio looks grim. Their curly hair, beards, robes, and shoes have intricate twists, long swoops, and subtle swells in both line and shading. The trappings of the court -- the books under Portia's foot, the globe beside her -- although simple enough to draw on their own, were surprisingly hard to fit proportionally. I kept having to make each bigger than I thought. As always, it never hurts to draw lightly at first and have a good eraser. At left: The merchant of Venice. (act 4, scene 1). John Absolon. Etching by Edward Finden. 19th century. Folger Shakespeare Library. At left: The merchant of Venice (act 4, scene 1). John Absolon. Etching by Edward Finden. 19th century. Folger Shakespeare Library. Compressing the Scene When Gregory planned his bas-relief of The Merchant of Venice, he drew on other images of the same scene. The print above from the Folger collection shows clear precedents for his depiction. Portia's costume in his sculpture is an art deco-ish twist on the lawyer's costume that is often seen -- extra-long sleeves, prominent collar, and a lawyer's cap. But the square format of the bas-relief compresses the figures together, as opposed to letting them spread out across a stage. Gregory uses this alteration to his advantage, creating drama in a scene where his actors must communicate, but will never move nor speak. Completing Merchant meant I was a third done with the series: three reliefs down, six to go. Looking to the next sculpture, I instantly recognized the three witches, a cauldron, and the imposing figure of Macbeth. But I also looked with some trepidation at an amazing illusion Gregory managed to pull off, something I'd never seen before: smoke made out of stone. I'd never drawn anything like that.
31. FOLMON_190529_432.JPG: The Book and The Building "Thou Art a Monument"
32. FOLMON_190529_444.JPG: Drawing Shakespeare: Macbeth December 21, 2018 | By Paul Glenshaw Macbeth bas-relief. Drawing by Paul Glenshaw. This is the fifth post in a series by artist Paul Glenshaw about drawing the bas-reliefs by sculptor John Gregory on the front of the Folger Shakespeare Library building. The series examines the bas-reliefs one by one; each sculpture depicts a scene from a different Shakespeare play. Today's post is about the bas-relief of a scene from Macbeth. It is one of the most recognizable props in all of Shakespeare -- the We�rd Sisters' cauldron of "Double, double toil and trouble" fame. Yet in John Gregory's sculptural depiction of the famous scene from Act VI, sc.1 of Macbeth, the cauldron is small, sitting unobtrusively on the ground. But out of it spews a mighty column of smoke, which separates the witches from Macbeth. They're gesturing to him. It could be that he's just entered their cave, saying, "How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags? What is 't you do?" To which they reply, "A deed without a name." Or it could be that the apparitions they summon -- the Armed Head, the Bloody Child, and the Child Crowned, with a tree in his hand -- have just appeared, at which point Macbeth challenges the witches to tell him if Banquo's descendents will occupy the throne, to which they reply, "Seek to know no more." Either way, Gregory drops us into the moment when Macbeth's ongoing murderous power grab is about to backfire, as he misinterprets the meanings of the apparitions. Macbeth thinks they show he's secure, but they mean exactly the opposite. He doesn't know it, but his doom is sealed. As always, Gregory builds visual tension between the characters to bring the moment alive. The staging is asymmetrical. The three witches line up almost like Greek caryatids -- columns shaped like female figures -- but jammed together. They seem like a multi-headed, multi-armed monster, opposed to the solitary figure of Macbeth. One of them looks like an apparition herself and seems to rise out of the smoke. Gregory sends us on a visual roller coaster through the witches' frozen poses. Part of the motion is vertical. Their robes hang down with dagger-like folds and form crazy S-curves, moving up and down. Part of the motion is horizontal. Their bent arms -- with two of them pointing at Macbeth -- form a horizontal zigzag. Their grotesque faces send our eyes across to look at the killer who confronts them through the smoke. They take up more than half the square and, with the smoke, seem to almost push Macbeth off the edge. Macbeth himself is a brilliant depiction of contrary motion. From the waist up, he leans back. But his foot is firmly planted as if he's advancing. Only the uneven floor suggests the interior of the witches' cave. Drawing challenges Drawing Macbeth was great fun and a great challenge. The witches' faces reminded me of da Vinci caricatures with their broken noses, underbites and huge chins. They almost seem to disappear into the intricacy of their drapery, as opposed to Macbeth, whose form is defined by bold strokes. The hardest part to draw was the smoke. Somehow Gregory and the Piccirilli bothers, who did the actual carving, turned stone into something both ephemeral and almost violent. As was common practice at the time, John Gregory did not carve the sculptures himself. He created the reliefs in plaster, which were duplicated in marble by the Piccirilli brothers., who were renowned carvers. The edges of the billowing forms have distinct shapes, but also melt into one another as they leap up from the cauldron. At the bottom, they seem to come forward toward the viewer, then seem to recede behind the characters. I realized as I drew it that the smoke was as much a character in this setting as the witches and Macbeth himself. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Theodor Horydczak Collection, LC-H813-L04-031 (b&w film neg.). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Theodor Horydczak Collection, LC-H813-L04-031 (b&w film neg.). My practice this past summer was to arrive before the sun rose to draw in the cool, even morning light. One day, as I drew the witch rising out of the smoke, the sun peeked over the rooftops and trees and lit up the sculpture from the side. It was only then that I saw a diamond-shaped pattern of folds under her elbow. I discovered that when the wall is in shadow, you can stand inches away and it and many other such details are barely visible. They only appear when hit by a raking light. This photograph, probably from the 1930s, shows how sunlight and shadow vividly affect the appearance of the bas-reliefs. Completing Macbeth brought me to the sculpture in the center of the wall, and one for which I needed no introduction -- Julius Caesar. I could see daggers, a dead or dying Caesar, and a lot of togas. I looked at the maze of swooping stone drapery with premature confidence. I had no idea how hard drawing it would be.
33. FOLMON_190529_448.JPG: Designing the Great Hall Details on the Floor and Ceiling
34. FOLMON_190529_478.JPG: Drawing Shakespeare: Julius Caesar January 25, 2019 | By Paul Glenshaw Julius Caesar bas-relief. Drawing by Paul Glenshaw. Julius Caesar bas-relief. Drawing by Paul Glenshaw. This is the sixth post in a series by artist Paul Glenshaw about drawing the bas-reliefs by sculptor John Gregory on the front of the Folger Shakespeare Library building. The series examines the bas-reliefs one by one; each sculpture depicts a scene from a different Shakespeare play. Today's post is about the bas-relief of a scene from Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 2 As Casca strikes, the others rise up and stab Caesar. CAESAR: Et tu, Brut�? -- Then fall, Caesar. He dies. It's a moment that needs no introduction. Et tu. It's one of the most famous Shakespearean lines (and one of the most overused crossword answers around). I remember as a kid looking it up in an anthology we had lying around the house and seeing it in a wobbly classroom video in high school and in Jean-L�on G�r�me's painting at the Walters Art Gallery (now the Walters Art Museum) in Baltimore. I'm sure my familiarity with this scene is common. As always, drawing John Gregory's sculpture taught me to see the Caesar death scene fresh -- and it posed one of the more difficult drawing challenges I'd had. Gregory packs action into the six-by-six foot square so we can read the sculpture from left to right, top to bottom. It's as if we're seeing the immediate second after the last of the 23 daggers had been pulled out of the emperor's body. Architectural forms cover the top -- including niches that frame two of the assassins' heads -- telling us we're indoors. The assassins' heads and hands come next, suggesting what's just happened and what's going to happen next: the one on the far left turning away; the one nearest Caesar brandishing his dagger; the two to the right covering their daggers in their togas and moving away from their victim. Then there's Caesar himself, slumped in a klismos style chair, head back, as if he's about to slide out of it. The deed has been done. But other than Caesar, Gregory does not make it obvious who's who. Which one is Brutus? Casca? Cassius? Cinna? Gregory also doesn't lead us immediately into the next moments of the play: the assassins covering themselves in Caesar's blood to show the action they've taken and making their appeal to the public. The assassins don't yet know they're heading to their doom. Drawing Challenges Of all the Gregory sculptures, this was the most intricate puzzle to piece together. Three of the nine reliefs have five figures, but this one is the least symmetric. The initial line drawing took several sessions to get right. The figures interlock but also stand apart -- each depicting a different action in the moment after the killing. There's a barely controlled chaos to the way Gregory weaves all the lines created by the fabric, and they each have to fit with each other just so. Similar elements tell different stories. Consider the hands: from left to right, the assassins' hands are hidden, brazenly brandished, clutching, and concealing. The thing that struck me most is that there are bulging veins in Caesar's exposed arm. Is this the last beat of his heart? Creating the Scene Gregory exploits the shallow space of the relief to press the action forward and across the square. The assassins' heads are lined up evenly across the top, their bodies vertical. The visual dynamics come in their gestures and what they do to the drapery. The figure on the far left is almost completely obscured, having turned away and seeming to head out of the square. His robes form an arc behind him that get picked up by the next assassin's dagger, held up by a meaty forearm -- you can almost see him thrusting the dagger. His other arm rises with a fist, creating huge swoops in his toga. These seem to erupt out of the tangle of folds covering Caesar's collapsing body. His garments cling to him as though soaked in blood. The remaining figures on the right half of the square are almost like sequential frames in a film: the one closer to Caesar is moving left but looks back; the one on the far left is completely turned away and is heading out. It's as if Gregory created a perfectly composed fragment of an ancient frieze. Jean-L�on G�r�me. 'The Death of Caesar,' 1867. oil on canvas. Walters Art Museum (37.884): Acquired by Henry Walters, 1917. Death of Julius Caesar. As painted by Gerome. 1869. Folger Shakespeare Library. At left, The Death of Caesar, by Jean-L�on G�r�me, 1867; at right, an engraving of the painting, 1869. Taken together, the sculpture and the painting (and engraving) represent sequential moments of the story, as though the painting occurs just after the bas-relief. They have similar architecture and even the same type of klismos chairs. With relief and a sense of accomplishment, completing Julius Caesar brought me past the midway point of the wall. Looking to the right, I saw a scene of fury, lightning, wind, and rage. King Lear looked as if he was coming at me right out of the sculpture.
35. FOLMON_190529_480.JPG: Designing the Exterior The Folger's Geometric Art Deco Window Grilles
36. FOLMON_190529_493.JPG: Drawing Shakespeare: King Lear February 22, 2019 | By Paul Glenshaw King Lear by Paul Glenshaw Bas-relief of a scene from King Lear. Drawing by Paul Glenshaw. This is the seventh post in a series by artist Paul Glenshaw about drawing the bas-reliefs by sculptor John Gregory on the front of the Folger Shakespeare Library building. The series examines the bas-reliefs one by one; each sculpture depicts a scene from a different Shakespeare play. Today's post is about the bas-relief of a scene from King Lear. To Please a Patron Henry Folger didn't live to see the sculptures he'd commissioned from John Gregory put in place on the exterior of the Folger Shakespeare Library. We don't even know what he thought of Gregory's particular designs – except the one for King Lear. Only a month before his death, Folger visited Gregory's studio, describing the visit in a letter to Paul Phillipe Cret, the architect of the library, who had personally recommended Gregory to Folger. "We spent a very happy hour yesterday afternoon in Mr. Gregory's studio," Folger wrote. "I will confess I have been much worried, fearing that he might not be equal to the task put upon him…" From the letter, we can tell that Gregory was at an early stage of the process and showed Folger preliminary studies of the sculptures, with Lear being the most complete. Folger's fears had already been allayed, and he devotes the bulk of the letter to his comments about Lear. He is certainly pleased, saying, "Just as it is, I believe the sculpture could go into place and be highly satisfactory," he writes. However, Folger couldn't resist weighing in on every aspect of his library's creation: "But there are two or three things, of minor importance, which I would like to submit to you [Cret] to use as you may think best." Folger thinks that Lear should be older -- more of "a foolish old man" -- and more distraught than in Gregory's preliminary study. Also, the Fool looks a little young. But he's most concerned that Lear "not be made any less strong and rugged, for he was by no means in physical decline; so that his upraised arms could be made a little more muscular than at present." But he is enormously satisfied overall. "The conception and grouping are splendid." Rage! Blow! The storm is raging. Lightning flashes in a thundercloud. The wind whips the figures' cloaks and bends the meager shrubs. Lear dominates, almost moving through the center from the right to the left, into the rush of the storm in full fury, fists clenched, arms raised, beard blowing, as if he's bellowing out the first lines of the scene: Blow winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow! The Fool cowers behind him, crouching as he peers up amongst Lear's madly swirling cape. Kent stands opposite Lear, despite not being in the first part of the scene. Gregory brilliantly evokes the storm through Kent's pose and costume. His cloak blows from behind him out past his legs, and he leans into the wind at his back. The mad zigzag of his garment looks more like a lightning bolt than the hard-edge stylization of a bolt next to him in the clouds. In the text, Lear and the Fool are alone at the beginning of the scene, and Kent enters halfway through. I read the depiction a few ways. Perhaps Gregory conflated the beginning of the scene and Kent's entrance later. Or perhaps Lear simply doesn't see Kent yet, but we do. Or it depicts a later part of the scene, when Lear cries out to Kent, "I am a man more sinned against than sinning." Regardless, Gregory's depiction captures the agony of Lear's torment -- and was enormous fun to draw. Paul Glenshaw drawing the King Lear bas-relief Drawing Challenges Drawing Lear was all about the lines. Racing through the garments, they pull off a neat trick. They evoke the storm and bring the wild moment to life, but they're highly stylized. The waves in Kent's cloak push out as if being blown by the storm yet have a sine-wave-like regularity. The mad folds of Lear's cape leap up behind him yet are crinkled just enough to fit in the square. The faces were great to draw. Most of the faces in the Gregory sculptures are actually quite passive. Not here. Kent's is hidden, brooding inside his hood; the Fool's is poking out nervously through his jester's costume; and Lear's is all beard and brow. The biggest challenge in drawing Lear wasn't the complexity; Gregory has visual action in every part of the composition. The hard part was making sure Lear himself didn't get lost in all the swirl. But Gregory frames Lear's face with upraised arms. After roaming through the chaos, our eyes can't help but start and stop there. On reflection, I feel a sense of poignancy about this sculpture. In the scene, Lear has lost his kingdom and been disowned by his daughters; losing his mind, he rages at the forces beyond his control. By comparison, when Folger saw the sculpture, he had gained his treasures, was building his palace to Shakespeare, and was in full command of bringing his vision to life. Yet he only had a month to live. Looking to the next sculpture, I saw a figure with an enormous wingspan engulfing two boys, flanked by imposing, pillar-like figures. The menace of Richard III was waiting.
37. FOLMON_190529_497.JPG: Designing the Great Hall Green Men, Lions' Heads, and Hippocampi
38. FOLMON_190529_512.JPG: Drawing Shakespeare: Richard III March 19, 2019 | By Paul Glenshaw Richard III drawing Drawing by Paul Glenshaw This is the eighth post in a series by artist Paul Glenshaw about drawing the bas-reliefs by sculptor John Gregory on the front of the Folger Shakespeare Library building. The series examines the bas-reliefs one by one; each sculpture depicts a scene from a different Shakespeare play. Today's post is about the bas-relief of a scene from Richard III. A moment of villainy Shakespeare's Richard III is a bad guy. He tells us so in the very first speech of the play: "I am determined to prove a villain/And hate the idle pleasures of these days." Richard succeeds in wooing and marrying Lady Anne, even though she hates him for killing her father-in-law, Henry VI, and her husband. She later becomes one of his casualties as he murders his way to capturing the throne for himself -- killing his surviving brother Clarence and other rivals and comrades before meeting his own bloody end on Bosworth Field. Which brings us to John Gregory's sculpture. In the original list of scenes to be depicted in the nine reliefs, Henry Folger made specific recommendations. Two were changed by Gregory and Emily Folger -- the ones for Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet. I wonder if Gregory was puzzled by Henry Folger's selection for Richard III -- Act III, Scene 1. Of all the moments of villainy in the play, Folger chose the one moment Richard has with his nephews before he sends them to their doom in the Tower of London. The scenes chosen for almost all the other sculptures are ripe for dramatic illustration -- the murder of Julius Caesar or the storm in King Lear being great examples. But Richard and his nephews are simply talking. How to convey the play's violence, turmoil, and ruthless ambition in the depiction of a conversation between an uncle and his nephews? Gregory found a way: with menace. Why, what should you fear? Gregory's convention of a continuous architectural form caps the top of the sculpture, and creates a rather cramped space for the figures. Richard dominates the center, his head bent over and pressing up against the lintel, his shoulders arching (with one slightly larger than the other to suggest his ‘'deformed, unfinished" physique) as his arms encompass the two young princes. The taller boy is the dead king's oldest son, Prince Edward. He is to be crowned King Edward V. The smaller one is Richard, the Duke of York. By this point in the play, the boys are the final obstacles to Richard's attainment of the throne. The Duke of Buckingham, one of Richard's henchmen, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Boucher, box in the royal trio on either side. The princes have no way to escape. It is unclear exactly which moment Gregory is showing, but to me, it's when Richard has just told the boys that they're going to the tower -- as their protector, he says this is for their own good. York objects, saying he fears the ghost of Clarence, his dead uncle. Prince Edward makes a show of bravery, saying, "I fear no dead uncles," to which Richard replies, "Nor none that live, I hope." Richard's menace is enhanced by Gregory with the inclusion of a prop not mentioned in the play -- a royal crown, set in between Richard and Edward, with Richard's hand hovering above it. A moment later, the boys leave the scene, and never come back. Richard III drawing in process Photo by Paul Glenshaw Drawing challenges Drawing Richard III was challenging in unexpected ways. Unlike Lear or Julius Caesar, where there are huge baroque swoops and curves, Richard was all about subtle, malevolent pressure. Buckingham and Boucher look like columns, perfectly vertical, except for their inclined heads. The three adults tower over and close in on the boys. So the challenge was not to let the two princes get overwhelmed visually. Gregory does this by giving young Prince Richard the only hint at movement -- his one leg is crossed over the other, and he looks up to speak to Richard directly. But still, I had to keep enlarging the boys as I went. It was as if I was letting the others actually crush them out of the picture. The other challenge -- and sometimes it's the simple things that get you -- was Richard's hat. It's a very simple form. There's nothing at first glance that gave me concern. But I must have redrawn it about five times -- somehow getting its roundness and it popping off against the lintel at the same time was a bear. Richard III King Richard III, act 3, scene 1: The two Princes, Dukes of Gloster & Buckingham &c. [graphic] / painted by J. Northcote R.A. ; engraved by B. Reading. This depiction of the scene from the Folger's collection has many of the same elements as the Gregory sculpture, but with more exaggerated motion and emotion. Looking to the next bas-relief, I saw the one I'd been waiting to draw from the very first moment I saw the sculptures -- Hamlet. An angry ghost, a rattled and remorseful Queen, and a tortured Prince were waiting.
39. FOLMON_190529_519.JPG: A Monumental Timeline
40. FOLMON_190529_535.JPG: Drawing Shakespeare: Hamlet April 23, 2019 | By Paul Glenshaw Drawing of Hamlet bas relief on Folger Shakespeare Library building exterior Drawing by Paul Glenshaw This is the ninth post in a series by artist Paul Glenshaw about drawing the bas-reliefs by sculptor John Gregory on the front of the Folger Shakespeare Library building. The series examines the bas-reliefs one by one; each sculpture depicts a scene from a different Shakespeare play. Today's post is about the bas-relief of a scene from Hamlet. Waiting for Hamlet The first of the Gregory bas-reliefs I wanted to draw was Hamlet. It seemed the boldest of them all, the most challenging, the most exciting. And yet I decided to draw the sculptures one by one, in order from left to right. It took four months to get to Hamlet. Drawing has taught me many things, not the least of which is patience. Hamlet was worth the wait. By this point, I'd already drawn seven of the nine sculptures, and felt ready to take on Hamlet. To me it is the most richly layered of all the sculptures, a thrilling contrast of spectacle and nuance -- and it's kind of crazy. Enter Ghost Henry Folger chose the moment in Act 3, Sc. 4 when King Hamlet's ghost enters Gertrude's chambers to appear to his son. So much has already happened in the scene -- young Hamlet confronts his mother about her marriage to his uncle so soon after his father's death; then, upon hearing a noise, he stabs an eavesdropper hiding behind a curtain, only to realize that he's killed the courtier Polonius, Ophelia's father. Hamlet renews his unrelenting attack on his mother, and she crumbles under his withering accusations. And then the ghost appears. Gregory picks up his chisel here. Once again, Gregory is able to convey the essence of the play in a single moment, showing Hamlet facing the sources of his torment: his father's murder and his mother's betrayal. The two Hamlets frame the scene, with their backs to the outer edges of the square. On the left, the helmeted ghost steps forward, in regal armor and emerging from an otherworldly atmosphere of stylized fire and smoke. On the right, young Hamlet, dressed in simple garments and clutching curtain drawstrings and a book, stares forward but steps back. (More on the book in a moment.) They look intently at each other -- the ghost with head down, eyes up, determined; Hamlet with head up, eyes straight ahead, in awe. In between, Gertrude stares up at her son -- she is oblivious to the ghost and draws a terrifying conclusion about the prince: "Alas, he's mad." Photographs of drawing in progress outside the Folger Shakespeare Library Photos by Paul Glenshaw Drawing challenges Hamlet was a joy to draw, but not at all easy. The push and pull between the characters is conveyed in a dizzying visual paradox. Their poses are frozen, but almost frantic lines of motion swirl in between, through, and around them. Gregory forced me to read the moment left to right, and then back again. Take a couple of visual paths as examples. The ghost looks down, and the curve of his helmet gets picked up by the hard-edged arabesques of the flame-like form coming from behind him. Still moving right, the flame gives way to smoke pierced with angled, straight-lined forms, all of it punctuated by Gertrude's upturned face and her notched crown. We follow her gaze as the clouds disappear behind Hamlet's face, and we follow his gaze back to the ghost. Here's another: The ghost's cape and robes form tumbling s-curves. They get picked up by Gertrude's arching cape, which shoots over her shoulder to the cords in Hamlet's hand, then to his cape, over his shoulder and down his back. As with the other reliefs I'd drawn, the great challenge was to keep all the intricate puzzle pieces in proportion to themselves -- to take the push and pull apart and put it back together again. Much of the fun was drawing the little details that gave me insight into the characters. The ghost is doing his otherworldly battle, right down to his armor-clad foot. Gertrude has until this moment enjoyed the luxury of royalty, seen in the ornamentation of her crown and seat (I made sure I drew the exact number of tassels). And Hamlet is his deeply complex self. His top half leans forward, his bottom half steps back. And in his one hand are the curtain cords that refer to the demise of Polonius. But strangely in the other he has a book, not the rapier he thrust through the curtain. Why the book? Hamlet famously reads a book in Act 2, Sc. 2, but not in this scene. There's a clue in a letter in the Folger archives, written by Gregory in 1933 in response to a woman named Natalie White, who had complained about the book. "I am… rather disturbed by your very just criticism of the figure of Hamlet," he writes. "In defense I can only plead ‘artistic license' and carelessness… I can't think of Hamlet as a slaughterer with a sword… and because I instinctively visualize him with a book." But, he confesses, "I was unwise enough to suppose that nobody would bother." (Ms. White annotated the letter to say he'd also sent her an autographed picture of the sculpture with a handwritten sonnet on back.) After I finished the drawing, I looked right, and saw Falstaff with a pillow on his head. After the experience of wrestling with Hamlet, I was ready for something lighter. But I also faced The First Part of Henry IV with slight dread. It was the last sculpture in the line.
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