Prospero And Ariel, A Scene From Shakespeare’s 'The Tempest' (Joseph Severn, 1793 - 1879)
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Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), by Joseph Severn. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Joseph Severn, Caulking the Schooner, Falmouth Harbour, date unknown. Watercolor
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Keats WIP drawings of my drawings of Severn‘s drawings that I attempted to draw in Rome:
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this isn't a question i've been specifically asked, but people have sent in questions about keats's appearance before, so i thought i'd share these little tidbits i recently learned at the keats-shelley house :') someone did ask about people going a little bit insane about keats's hair, so as an add-on to that, here's a bit of what bailey described as feeling like "the rich plumage of a bird":
someone also once asked about his proportions (spoilers: he was Small), and these are two little sketches i'd never seen before made by severn of keats reading. they were dated at around 1818, so he was healthy then, and appears to have been a "no two feet on the floor at any given moment" kind of person.
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"since his wife Mary tried hard to acquire all the portraits of him"
how many portraits are there of him? What are they? :0 The only one I know of that was made of him when he was alive, all the rest I've seen seem to just be attempts to make Currant's painting look nicer lmao
On Percy Shelley's appearance: portraits and descriptions
Existing portraits include: sketches by Edward Ellerker Williams, some reprinted in Newman Ivey White's Shelley biography, a drawing by Mary Shelley (sometimes said to be by Williams), some portraits of him as a child, some missing or unidentified portraits mentioned in Mary Shelley's letters, portraits by Marianne Hunt (Leigh Hunt's wife), the sketches and painting by Amelia Curran and their many copies you've seen.
Williams' sketches, from White's book:
Marianne Hunt's portraits (sculpture from the Eton College library, shadow silhouette portrait from I don't remember where, but these shadow silhouettes were made from tracing the subject's shadow, so it is the most accurate likeness):
Mary's supposed drawing (screenshot of a prior post of mine, source incl.), child Percy from the Morgan library:
child Percy by Antoine Philippe, duc de Montpensier (Bodleian library), a sketch by the same artist at the National Portrait Gallery, and a portrait of him by an unknown artist from the National Portrait Gallery - there are possibly other portraits of him as a child considering his family was rich:
Many of the portraits don't resemble each other, which as an artist myself I can only assume is a reflection of the skill of the varying artists, some of which were only beginners. Curran was a practicing art student and apparently threw her Shelley painting into her fireplace and nearly destroyed it at one point lmao. I personally struggle to capture likeness myself and if I made a portrait of Shelley it would probably look nothing like him.
Then there are some extended descriptions and anecdotes on him, his personality, and his appearance. The best ones are given in the memoirs of his friends Medwin, Hogg, Trelawny, Hunt, Hazlitt's essay "On Paradox and Common Place," the 1863 essay by Thornton Leigh Hunt (Hunt's son) titled "Shelley: By One Who Knew Him" (a favorite of mine), Claire Clairmont's letters and journals, a description from "the life and letters of Joseph Severn," Horace Smith in his 1847 essay series "A Graybeard's Gossip About His Literary Acquaintances" (essays No. 8 and 9), Benjamin Haydon's autobiography, Sophia Stacey's diary excerpts published in "Shelley and his Friends in Italy" (another favorite of mine), and letters by his sister Hellen Shelley published in Hogg's Shelley biography (some of the most interesting anecdotes).
Then there are miscellaneous reports mostly colleced in the Shelley biographies by Richard Holmes, Newman Ivey White, and James Bieri (these are the best and most comprehensive Shelley biographies with Holmes "Pursuit" in first place and Bieri a close second).
Mary Shelley's letters and journals are filled with memories of him, and she wrote about him in the editions of his works she edited: Posthumous Poems (1824), The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1839), Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments (1840). It's so fascinating to read her intelligent analysis of his work knowing she was there when he wrote most of it, and to see her share some of her anecdotes about their life and things that inspired specific works of his. She always focuses on his writing and philosophies more than his personal life because of how much slander they had received due to their scandals, etc. (adultery, radical politics, atheism, the custody battle with his first wife's parents, etc.) -- I can't recall if she ever wrote an extended account of his appearance. She saw him as a soulmate and exalted his powerful inner spirit above all else, and described his physical frame as being a weak sort of chain which had bound him to the world, reflected in his poor health and restlessness.
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🎨 + A Work of Art/Artist to represent your character for Sabrina?
The Siren by John William Waterhouse, 1900
In the aftermath of a shipwreck, an exhausted survivor struggles towards the safety of the shore. He clings to an algae-clad rock without the strength to pull himself from the dark waters that surge and ebb around him. The treacherous currents and undertows threaten to pull him under the waves and almost all his strength is gone. At this moment of crisis, he is surprised by the beautiful vision of a young girl sitting on the rock above him with pearly-white skin and with lips parted in song. Her passive expression is enigmatic and whether she will help him or harm him we cannot know but we can be sure that he is spellbound by her pale beauty and magic song. The lower part of her legs, splashed by the spray of the sea, are magically transformed into the glistening fish scales and fins of a mermaid. Her hair is the auburn hue that in the nineteenth century became a potent symbol of the femme fatale. But she is not the vicious predatory sea-creature painted in continental Europe by the likes of Arnold Bocklin, Franz von Stuck or Gustave Moreau. She appears innocent of the harm her singing has caused and continues to pluck at the strings of her harp and gaze down at the drowning sailor below, as curious of him as he is of her.
For Waterhouse the siren represented the same subject as Circe, la Belle Dame sans Merci, Medea and Lamia – women whose beauty and magical powers made them personify dangerous femininity.
The Siren captures the eerie and silent tension between the seductress and her devotee/prey and seems to be a far more personal vision concentrated on human emotion and desire.
Aside from the fact I absolutely think Sabrina would love the artwork, the message behind the composition seems quite fitting for her character, especially when it comes to how John regards her: her beguiling nature, her music/voice that draws him in, the slight mystery surrounding her visions and her as a person. While at the same time both are curious about the other and experience this pull they can't shake off.
Other similarities:
a wreckage where they meet -> "looming" dynamic where one of them has the upper hand/could save the other
the whole water symbolism and the color palette I assosiate with them and always pops up even unintentionally when I'm making edits (blue, brown, green, red)
the song that's a main inspiration for their dynamic (Spiracle) literally has a line where the love interest is called "sailor", which is a fun coincidence.
Sabrina's name meaning (nymph of the river Severn; river goddess)
The way Joseph sees her as dangerous
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