Painting of the Swiss artist Angelica Kaufman “Portrait of David Garrick”. The size of the picture is 84 x 67 cm, canvas, oil. Unusual for his time, this private portrait conveys the subtle and sensitive nature of the great English actor.
The relaxed position of Garrick, his gaze – soft and penetrating – are strikingly different from the generally accepted manner of portraying the actor in a tragic role, as if on stage. Great as an actor, David Garrick acquired himself in the history of the theater an immortal name and as a converter of the English scene, pointing to the artistic truth as the first and basic law of scenic creativity.
David Garrick performed on the theatrical stage what he did in dramatic poetry, the subject of his reverential worship – Shakespeare, whose works were found in Garrick’s first interpreter, who understood much better the scientists of the poet’s commentators. David Garrick was a very educated man and a respectable dramatic writer, whose works were repeatedly staged on stage in his time. The most famous biography of David Garrick, written soon after his death, belongs to Murphy.
Angelica Kaufman was born in Switzerland and at the age of eleven she began to paint portraits of Italian celebrities. On the advice of the illustrious English painter Sir Joshua Reynolds and the insistence of the wife of the English ambassador in Italy, Lady Wentworth Kaufman moved to London. Soon the artist became known for her historical and mythological compositions, as well as numerous portraits. In the 1770s, Angelica Kaufman carried out orders for painting mansions built on the projects of the Adams brothers; gentle coloring and the classical style of these buildings fully corresponded to the spirit of her creativity
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