Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by Jonathan Morrill
Original - Sold
Price
$350
Dimensions
16.000 x 20.000 inches
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Title
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Artist
Jonathan Morrill
Medium
Painting - Acrylic On Canvas
Description
This acrylic painting pays tribute to multiple tellings of a classic tale.
The inspiration for this painting lies in Robert Louis Stevenson's original 1886 tale,
Fredric March's 1931 cinematic performance,
and the Aurora Monster Model released in 1965.
Dr. Henry Jekyll and his alternative personality, Mr. Edward Hyde,
is a fictional character in Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella
"The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde".
The original pronunciation of Jekyll was "Jeekul", which was the pronunciation used in Stevenson's native Scotland.
Dr. Henry Jekyll feels he is battling between the good and bad within himself,
thus leading to the struggle with his alter ego, Edward Hyde.
He spends his life trying to repress evil urges that are not fitting for a man of his stature.
He develops a serum in an attempt to mask this hidden evil.
However, in doing so, Jekyll transforms into Hyde,
a hideous creature without compassion or remorse.
Jekyll has a friendly personality, but as Hyde, he becomes mysterious and violent.
As time goes by, Hyde grows in power and eventually manifests whenever Jekyll
shows signs of physical or moral weakness, no longer needing the serum to be released.
Stevenson never says exactly what Hyde does on his nightly forays, generally saying that it is something of an evil and lustful nature. Thus, in the context of the times, it is abhorrent to Victorian religious morality. Hyde may have been reveling in activities such as engaging with prostitutes or burglary.
However, it is Hyde's violent activities that seem to give him the most thrills.
Paramount Pictures released "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" nationally,
in the United States, on January 2, 1932.
Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, and starring Fredric March,
who plays the possessed doctor, who tests his new formula
that can unleash people's inner demons.
March's performance has been much lauded, and earned him his first Academy Award.
The film was made prior to the full enforcement of the Production Code and is remembered today for its strong sexual content, embodied mostly in the character of the bar singer,
Ivy Pierson, played by Miriam Hopkins.
When it was re-released in 1936, the Code required 8 minutes to be removed before the film could be distributed to theaters.
This footage was restored for the VHS and DVD releases.
The secret of the transformation scenes was not revealed for decades
(Mamoulian himself revealed it in a volume of interviews with Hollywood directors published under the title The Celluloid Muse).
Make-up was applied in contrasting colors.
A series of colored filters that matched the make-up was then used
which enabled the make-up to be gradually exposed or made invisible.
The change in color was not visible on the black-and-white film.
Wally Westmore's make-up for Hyde — simian and hairy with large canine teeth — influenced greatly the popular image of Hyde in media and comic books.
In part this reflected the novella's implication of Hyde as embodying repressed evil,
and hence being semi-evolved or simian in appearance.
The characters of Muriel Carew and Ivy Pierson do not appear in Stevenson's original story but do appear in the 1887 stage version by playwright Thomas Russell Sullivan.
John Barrymore was originally asked by Paramount to play the lead role,
in an attempt to recreate his role from the 1920 version of Jekyll and Hyde,
but he was already under a new contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Paramount then gave the part to March, who was under contract
and who bore a physical resemblance to Barrymore.
March had played a John Barrymore-like character in the Paramount film
"The Royal Family of Broadway" (1930),
a story about an acting family similar to the Barrymores.
When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer remade the film 10 years later with Spencer Tracy in the lead, the studio bought the negative and the rights to both the Mamoulian version and the earlier 1920 silent version, paying $1,250,000.
Every print of the 1931 film that could be located was recalled and destroyed,
and for decades the film was believed lost.
he Tracy version was much less well received, and March jokingly sent Tracy a telegram thanking him for the greatest boost to his reputation of his entire career.
The opening credits use Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
by Johann Sebastian Bach.
This painting was first unveiled at the Carter Sexton Gallery on Laurel Canyon,
in Studio City, California, on Saturday, October 13, 2018.
It was one of three entries by
Jonathan Morrill that was accepted into their annual Halloween exhibition.
The original painting was sold, and is now in the permanent collection
of a prominent Hollywood gallery.
Uploaded
September 22nd, 2018
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