4 – Painter: Charles A. Buchel (British, Mainz 1872 1950) Date: 1904 Name of the painting: “Beerbohm Tree in fur, seaweed, and shells” Classification: Portrait of Herbert Beerbolhm Tree characterized as Caliban This image is also placed near the water. Here Caliban is dressed with some kind of leaves dress and has an ethnic necklace that makes him seem more human, someone primitive that belongs to that place and that culture. He has enough intelligence to have that kind of cultural things in contraposition to the other paintings that make him look more irrational or dehumanized. However, he continues having some animal characteristics like the sharp ears, the claws and the abundance of hair. 3- Painter: Sir Joseph Noel Paton (Scottish, Fife 1821 1901 Edimburg) Date: 1868 Name of the painting: “Caliban” Classification: Oil on canvas In this painting Caliban is in the beach surrounded by spirits (maybe one of them could be Ariel). It is a sunny day with no signs of the tempest. We can see that Caliban has a human body that seems to have some clothes, but his head and his expression has animal characteristics. Also he has little fins. His expression it looks like if he was a fish with the mouth open and a lost on thought look. It gives us the impression that he is not very intelligent, so he is more like an animal in that way. 2 – Painter: John Hamilton Mortimer (British, Eastbourne 1740–1779 London) Date: May 20, 1775 Name of the painting: “Caliban” Classification: Prints In that painting the fish characteristics are not found on him anymore because he is humanized. In that moment he starts to be represented more like a mammal, which is closer to a human being than a fish. The most obvious animal characteristics are the ears, that are extremely big, the claws and the abundance of hair. Here his face is not representing the evil personality that Shakespeare gives him in the play. He seems submissive because of the inclination of his head and his ears, which are down like a sign of sadness. Moreover this sadness is reflected on the expression of his face. This painting represents act II scene II when the sailor men found Caliban. This is the nearest to the description about the character that the play give us. The representation has fish qualities but it´s a mixture of different animal; we can see he has a cat face with whiskers and claws. In addition, he stands in two feet. 1 – Painter: Johann Heinrich Ramberg (German, Hanover, 1763 1840) Date: 1791 1803 Name of the painting: “Stefano, Trinculo and Caliban” Classification: Illustration.
Trinculo asks himself if it is a fish or a man. First he thinks that he is a fish because of the smell but then he notice that Caliban has arms and legs like a human being. He says “This is no fish, but an islander that hath lately suffered by a thunderbolt.” Lately Stefano says that he is a monster of the isle with frog legs and they are surprised by his talking skills. Although these detailed description, the representations of this character are diverse. CALIBAN: Since the Dramatis Personae, Caliban is presented as a savage and deformed slave. He is described as an evil character by Prospero and Miranda, who said that he is a villain. However they need him because he is useful. All the adjectives that the characters use to talk about him are pejorative. That can be interpreted like a device used by Shakespeare to put us against him from the beginning of the play. In the second act Caliban meets two sailor men and they provide us more information about him like his physical description.
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