Shakespeare Antics

Shakespeare Antics: A Collaboration by Henry Fuseli, Peter Liashkov, and Don Saban

David S. Rubin

Peter Liashkov has long admired the paintings of the Swiss Romantic artist Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), who is best known for theatrical imagery based on his vivid imagination as well as literary sources that include classical mythology, the plays of William Shakespeare, and the poems of John Milton. Like Fuseli, Liashkov is a figurative artist who has often depicted the sensuous female nude. Drawn to that aspect of Fuseli’s oeuvre, as well as to the at times over-the-top dramatic intensity of his compositions, Liashkov conceived the idea of interpreting them in the form of new artworks made in collaboration with his friend Don Saban, who is an accomplished photographer and an expert at working with digital technology. 

Liashkov began the process by making photocopies of a number of Fuseli paintings. Two are based on Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” while another derives from “Macbeth.” Other Fuseli paintings from which he appropriated imagery were inspired by Homer’s “Iliad” and Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” Liashkov responded to each of the Fuseli compositions using painting, drawing, and collage to add in his own imagery, including some self-portraits. He then made photocopies of the new compositions and sent them to Saban, who employed various techniques to alter Liashkov’s interpretations further using digital processes that enable coloring, layering, distorting, and embellishing.  Printed with lush inks that yield a seductive luminosity, the series is a dazzling translation of Fuseli’s original visions, as seen through 21st century eyes.