A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

The program from Her Majesty's Theatre London January 10, 1900

 From: The Victoria and Albert Museum

When William Shakespear's Midsummer Night's Dream was printed in 1600 there were many enchanting forests in England. Sadly much of them have vanished now and England is the least forested place in Europe. Yet if you look you can still find remnants of a few places where it is not hard to imagine the Queen of the Fae frolicking on this longest day of the year.

A lesser known painting of Titania and Bottom, by Edwin Landseer.

I admit that it was Shakespeare who introduced to me to the folklore of the longest day.  Later I looked deeper into the subject and discovered a wealth of art and text about it and despite the ensuing years it retains all of the old magic which bewitched me as a child. Midsummer evokes modern and historic imagery, scents and sounds.

Beautiful table setting from HERE:

 Long evenings alfresco, Rose wine, music festivals in the park, the heady scent of incense and roses. Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market, The Secret Garden, Mermaids, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, Pirates and those Faery rings we accidentally come across which seem to appear overnight.

J.M. Barrie and one of the Davies boys
 playing 'Neverland' in Kensington Gardens

Arthur Rackham illustration for Undine, 1919

Midsummer Eve by Charlotte Bird 

Detail from Midsummer Eve by Charlotte Bird 

But it is Shakespeare's depiction of the night which is the best known and beloved.

Henry Meynell Rheam (1859-1920) - Titania welcoming her fairy bretheren

When we lived near London I watched many sunsets on this night from Richmond Terraces overlooking The Thames. In younger days I did dare to wander in the forest and enjoyed being spooked by the animals that lived there, imagining them to be one of the Faery Folk. Maybe they were.

A special place to be on this night is the Open Air Theatre in London's Regents Park and I had the pleasure of seeing The Royal Shakespeare Company perform A Midsummer Night's Dream there. There have been many illustrious actors grace the stage and the setting is always intimate and enchanting.

Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren in 1968
, and I remember when Toyah Wilcox played Puck. 

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Demetrius in 2001.

I'm very partial to Puck, especially when drawn by Arthur Rackham. 

But I probably love Bottom best of all. There is something 'Beauty and The Beast' about him. Awhile back I found a copy illustrated by Arthur Rackham at a charity book sale to aid a crumbling church. This is my favourite illustration of Bottom. 

I hope everyone is having a lovely summer and that some enchantment sneaks into your dreams on the longest day. Just remember that all is not what it seems on Midsummer Night!

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Puck delivers this epilogue:

” If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber’d here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend:

if you pardon, we will mend:

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearned luck

Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,

We will make amends ere long;

Else the Puck a liar call;

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.” (V, i. 440-455)

The Marriage of Titania and Oberon by John Anster Fitzgerald 

ARTHUR RACKHAM THE MASTER ENCHANTER

 

Arthur Rackham (19th September - 6th September 1939)

I cannot allow September to leave us without paying tribute to Arthur Rackham who was born and died in this misty month. In England September seems to be more than just a month, it's a Season of it's own, in between Summer and Autumn. English Septembers are wet, chilly, windy and yet also warm. Occasionally enfused with a bright light which seems to penetrate the mist. It's not quite dark, not October, it hangs on the threshold, like Twilight, just hinting at the spooky things that will come later.

Last night our village was bathed in a thick fog that the few street lamps just penetrated. The trees on the village green, nearly bare now, took on a twisted and gnarled appearance. Shapes scuttled about in the dim glow of the lamps. The light in the windows of the old Inn on the main road looked inviting and figures hurried along towards it's safety.

This was the world which Arthur Rackham inhabited and which I have always loved.

Everyone has their favourite childhood books, stories read to them by their elders and illustrations looked at again and again. Some prefer the 'kind Faerie' sweet countenance of illustrators like Margaret Tarrant or Molly Brett to the 'scary Faerie' world of Arthur Rackham.  But not me.

When I was a child Disney was all the rage. Children's books were modern, brightly coloured and suitable for those of a nervous disposition under the age of six.

 

The images were flat and one dimensional. There was no one to be frightened of, the Wicked stepsister,  Queen or Witch simply wasn't wicked. Nothing was hiding under the bed, in the wardrobe or behind that tree. It was safe to go down to the woods. But I missed the Wolf.  It was as if the world of Faerie which I had come to know from the old, tattered and dusty books from the school library had been censored and tamed.

It was the old books which enchanted me, made me respect Fairy Tales and look deeper into their meanings. They were often the last thing I put down at night and the first which was picked up the next morning. They filled my dreams, and yes, nightmares. But they gave me a grounding for the terrors and triumphs of real life too.

Several illustrators captured the characters I shared the twilight hours with in the way that I imagined them - or, did I imagine them in this way because those illustrators gave me the visions? I'll never know, but for me Arthur Rackham was The Master Enchanter.

And it seems entirely appropriate that other artists have also fallen under the Rackham spell. Illustrator Nicola Bayley lived in the studio at the top of his North London house when she began her career and remembers it as all black wood and leaded windows.

The Mousehole Cat illustrated by Nicola Bayley. This is the Great Storm Cat.

Nicola and her husband shot by Mercer Design.
mercer design

Today the same house is owned by Film maker extraordinaire Tim Burton and his beautiful and eccentric wife Helena Bonham-Carter. I'm sure Arthur would have approved very much.

The Wiki page for Arthur Rackham