Now, Mr. Craig's art resembles that of Turner. He has a sense of beauty and restraint, with a poet's insight into the meaning of landscape and atmosphere which stamps him as an artist, and distinguishes him at once from the scene-painter of Globe Alley. With him, as with Turner, it is the sun that is the centre of the universe. His passion is for airy landscape, unsullied by the presence of the concrete; and Turner's palaces, boats, and men seem shadowy things beside the splendour of Turner's sunshine. But the central interest of drama is human, and it is necessary that the figures on the stage should appear larger than the background, or let the readers of Shakespeare remain at home. To see Mr. Craig's "rectangular masses illuminated by a diagonal light" while the poet's characters walk in a darkened foreground, is not, I venture to think, to enjoy the "art of the theatre." There must be some sane playgoers who still wish to see in the playhouse Juliet smile upon Romeo, and Othello frown on Iago. "What a piece of work is man!" says the poet; but there is no room for man in Mr. Craig's world. It is because Mr. Craig's art exposes to view a background which is effective and suggestive apart from the needs of drama, that it fails in its purpose. Had he studied the methods of Rembrandt, instead of those of Turner, something practical for the stage might have been forthcoming. With Rembrandt, whether it is a windmill, a temple, or a man, it is always the object, not the landscape, that arrests attention. The light coming from the front, and not from the side, first illuminates the objects before reaching the background. The spectator, as it were, turns on a bull's-eye lantern, and is thus able to see the story written on the men's faces. Then the artist contrives that the mind shall pass by an easy transition from the faces to the more sombre background. But unless this transition is gradual and the background is sombre, interest in figures is proportionally weakened. * * * * * Now, Mr. Roger Fry's sympathetic appreciation of Mr. Gordon Craig's designs for "Macbeth" may predispose his readers to believe that they form a suitable background for a representation of Shakespeare's tragedy. Some years ago I saw Mr. Craig's production of "Acis and Galatea," followed by a masque. It was a stagery of great beauty, and seemed to initiate new possibilities. But then both were musical entertainments which gained appreciably by a picturesque background. The action never clashed with the quaint setting. Unlike the demands of tragedy, the representation made no direct appeal to the reason, and no obvious attempt to purify the emotions. Its main business was to delight the eye.