The Scandal of Images: Iconoclasm, Eroticism, and Painting in Early Modern English Drama

260 Pages·2005·1.79 MB·English

by  Marguerite A. Tassi

The Scandal of Images:
Iconoclasm, Eroticism,
and Painting in Early
Modern English Drama
Marguerite A. Tassi
Susquehanna University Press
The Scandal of Images
The Apple-Zimmerman Series in Early Modern Culture
Susquehanna University Press
Editors: Phyllis Rackin, University of Pennsylvania
Carole Levin, University of Nebraska
This interdisciplinary series will include books that examine a wide range
of aesthetic works and moments in their original cultural milieu. This
would include, for example, the works of Shakespeare and his contempor-
aries as the products of the burgeoning theatrical industry, designed for the
entertainment of heterogeneous audiences who lived in a rapidly changing
world where politics, religion, national identity, and gender roles were all
subjects of contestation and redefinition. We solicit manuscripts from
fields including, but not limited to, literature, history, philosophy, religion,
and political science, in order to enable a truly multifaceted understanding
of the early modern period.
Titles in This Series
Marguerite A. Tassi, The Scandal of Images: Iconoclasm, Eroticism, and
Painting in Early Modern English Drama
Ann. A. Hurley, John Donne’s Poetry and Early Modern Visual Culture
The Scandal of Images
Iconoclasm, Eroticism, and Painting
in Early Modern English Drama
Marguerite A. Tassi
Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press
 2005 by Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp.
All rights reserved. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or
the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the copyright owner, pro-
vided that a base fee of $10.00, plus eight cents per page, per copy is paid directly to the
Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, Massachusetts 01923.
[1-57591-085-3/05 $10.00 + 8¢ pp, pc.]
Associated University Presses
2010 Eastpark Boulevard
Cranbury, NJ 08512
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National
Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials
Z39.48-1984
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tassi, Marguerite A., 1965–
The scandal of images : iconoclasm, eroticism, and painting in early Modern English
drama / Marguerite A. Tassi.
p. cm. — (The Apple-Zimmerman series in early modern culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57591-085-3 (alk. paper)
1. English drama—Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500–1600—History and
criticism. 2. Art and literature—England—History—16th century. 3. Art and
literature—England—History—17th century. 4. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—
Knowledge—Art. 5. Iconoclasm in literature. 6. Painting in literature. 7. Erotic art—
England. 8. Sex in literature. 9. Painting, English. I. Title. II. Series.
PR658.A73T37 2005
822′.309357—dc22
2004017599
printed in the united states of america
This book is dedicated to my husband, Shaun,
whose faith in my scholarship never waned,
and
to the memory of my father, Aldo Tassi,
who inspired my love of theater and painting
Here is her pi cture ....
Come, shadow, come, and take this shadow up,
For ’tis thy rival. O thou senseless form,
Thou shalt be worshipp’d, kiss’d, lov’d, and ador’d;
And were there sense in his idolatry,
My substance should be statue in thy stead.
—Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
In the Art called of Aristotle ... Graphice, and in English paynting
there be in this citie [London] cunning Maisters, for eyther shadowing,
purtraying, counterfetting, tricking, paynting, enlumining, or lymming.
But this is an Art now not accounted ingenuous or fit for a Gentleman,
by reason that it is much fallen from the reputation, which it had
aunciently, which whether it bee for the unworthinesse or unskilfulnes
of the persons exercising and practising it in this age, or for the abuses
and deceipts used by Paynters, or for the scandall of Images and Idols
(for the which Philo condemneth it) or for the foule deuise of the fayre
Cosmetica: or for what other cause I know not well, but sure I am it is
now accounted base and mechanicall ....
—George Buc, “The Third Universitie of England,”
Appendix to John Stow,
The Annales, or Generall Chronicle of England
Contents
List of Illustrations 9
Acknowledgments 11
Introduction
Ut Pictura Theatrum: The Dramatist’s Ambivalent Muse 15
1. The Power of Images in Early Modern England:
Prejudices Against and Defenses of Painting and Playing 29
2. John Lyly’s Campaspe and the Subtle Eroticism
of the Elizabethan Miniature 66
3. Dramatic Uses of Portrait Properties and Face-Painting
in the Boys’ Theater at St. Paul’s 98
4. Scandalous Counterfeiting:
Iconophobia, Poison, and Painting in Arden of Faversham 130
5. “Stretch thine art”:
Painting Passions, Revenge, and the Painter Addition to
The Spanish Tragedy 152
6. Images Lawful and Beguiling:
Ambivalent Responses to Painting in Shakespeare’s Drama 178
Notes 216
Bibliography 239
Index 253
7
This page intentionally left blank
Illustrations
1. Title page to Thomas Tuke, A Discourse Against Painting
and Tincturing of Women, 1616. 49
2. George Gower, Self-Portrait, 1579. 57
3. Nicholas Hilliard, Self-Portrait, 1577. 59
4. Jodocus a Winghe, Apelles malt Kampaspe, c. 1600. 75
5. Nicholas Hilliard, Alice Hilliard, 1578. 81
6. Bartholomaeus Spranger, Venus und Adonis, c. 1597. 83
7. Title verso to Arden of Faversham, 1633. 132
8. Frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy, 1623. 167
9. Artist unknown, The Life and Death of Sir Henry Unton,
c. 1596. 169
10. Livinus de Vogelaare, The Memorial of Lord Darnley, 1568. 172
11. Francesco Bartolozzi, Hamlet and his Mother, engraving after
a design by William Hamilton, 1796. 198
9