To Transcend Reality and Function as

Symbol: Stage Design of Edward Gordon

Craig
February 15, 2014 by fosco lucarelli 1 Comment
Subscribe:

Born in 1872 as illegitimate son of an architect and of the revered actress Dame Ellen
Terry, Edward Gordon Craig was raised as an actor in the company of Sir Henry Irving, only to
discover later his true vocation as a theatrical designer.

Similar to Adolphe Appia in his struggle against the reproduction of reality, Craig envisaged
scenic environments designed to appel to the emotion through visual suggestion, evocation and
symbolist aesthetics. Without actually meeting until 1914, the two shared and promoted similar
ideas on the use of light and stage space: Craig used to lit the stage from above, rather than
adopting the traditional foot lighting. Colour and shadow played a strong role in his sets: Under
the play of this light, the background becomes a deep shimmering blue, apparently almost
translucent, upon which the green and purple make a harmony of great richness. (Craig in
Bablet, 1981).
His most important scenographic concept was the idea of using neutral, mobile, nonrepresentational screens as a staging device: a system of hinged and fixed flats quickly
arrangeable for internal and external scenes. His stage sets were more about a strong sense of
mood and atmosphere than naturalism. Movement, action, words, colour and rhytm was used a
strong means of conceptualization, combining in a dynamic form.
Early Italian painters and architects, such as Duccio and Sebastiano Serlio, as well as the
Japanese theatre, influenced Craig to pursue a total theatre, with an emphasis on dance and
colour symbolism. Another strong influence came from his mothers lover, director Henry
Irving, that Craig used to idolise and quote in his writings on stage design, masks, marionettes
and lighting.
Craig was particularly interested in masks, as paramount weapon of dramatic expression. He
believed in a theatre that asks for human face in order to take us beyond reality: the role of the
mask is to carry conviction and becoming part of the actor who is wearing it.
As an engraver and classical artist, Craig found inspiration in puppets: he asserted that the
director was the true artist of the theatre and, controversially, suggested viewing actors as no
more important than marionettes. In fact, he believed the marionettes to be the only true actors,
loyal interpreter with the virtues of silence and obedience: There is only one actor nay one
man who has the soul of the dramatic poet, and who has ever served as the true and loyal
interpreter of the poet, he proclaimed, and this is the marionette.
All of his life Craig promoted a visual theatre (he always argued audiences go to see, rather than
hear, plays). Design elements have to function as symbols and communicate deeper meanings,
rather than simply reflecting the real world.

Further reading:
On the Art of Theatre, by Edward Gordon Craig (on archive.org)
Edwart Gordon Craig Presentation
EGC on Wikipedia
Moscow Art Theatre production of Hamlet
An Idealist: The Legacy of Edward Gordon Craigs Formative Productions, 1900-1903
Subscribe:

Related Posts

Max Ernst, drawings

A selection of drawings by a Dada and Surrealism movement pioneer. A lot more works

Hisashi Okawa's Drawings

Hisashi Okawa is an artist living and working in Tokyo. Her illustrations appear very simple

Marie-Florentine Geoffroy, Drawings

Marie-Florentine Geoffroy was a young and talented illustrator based in Besanon, France, who
sadly passed

Definitive

Tim Eitel, A stage

Tim Eitel, German painter, usually traces solitary people in vast interior or exterior landscapes.
Enigmatic
Filed Under: Art, CultureTagged With: drawings, engraving, form of form, scene, set
design, stage design, theatre

Trackbacks
1.

Edward Gordon Craig | Scenic Picturae says:

January 10, 2016 at 8:29 pm

[] Under the play of this light, the background becomes a deep shimmering blue,
apparently almost translucent, upon which the green and purple make a harmony of great
richness. (Craig in Bablet, 1981) His most important scenographic concept was the idea of
using neutral, mobile, non-representational screens as a staging device: a system of hinged
and fixed flats quickly arrangeable for internal and external scenes. His stage sets were more
about a strong sense of mood and atmosphere than naturalism. Movement, action, words,
colour and rhytm was used a strong means of conceptualization, combining in a dynamic
form. http://socks-studio.com/2014/02/15/to-transcend-reality-and-function-as-symbolstage-design-of-edwar… []