Haymarket Theatre Visual Elements
Visual Elements
This watercolor painting examines the southeast corner of the Boston Common in the 1790s. Three buildings are shown in the picture: the Haymarket Theatre, Hatch's Tavern, and the William Foster house. Behind the buildings is a gradient sky while humans are shown laboring on the landscape in the foreground. This patch of land is enclosed by fences and the trees of the Mall. Beyond this point is the edge of the Boston Common. Titled Haymarket Theatre, Boston, September 28, 1798, this picture highlights the largest building in the image. Although it does not occupy the majority of the image, it is portrayed to be much taller than Hatch's Tavern or the William Foster house. In 1796, the Haymarket Theatre was the largest theater built in America, capable of hosting around 2,000 people (Stoddard 1975, p. 65). Because of its historic capacity, the building likely was quite large in comparison the the tavern and house adjacent to it. As a large theater, it is curious that it is located on a remote corner of the Boston Common in this period.
The theater's background is tied to a larger history of Bostonian spatial and cultural growth. In the early American republic, many Bostonians opposed theater; theater was illegal in the city because the playhouse was seen as a "school of vice" to dominant Puritan religious groups and many prominent political figures (Nathans 1993, p. 113). The anti-theatrical law was in place for the first two decades of the early Republic. In the 1790s, the city's first theaters were founded as public movements to repeal antitheater laws emerged (Nathans 1993, pp. 114-115). This includes the Federal Street Theatre, that opened in 1794. The theater's owners sought to use the theater to disseminate Federalist political beliefs, endorsing the view that the government should be controlled by a rational group of elites that was detached from "the people" (Nathans 1993, pp. 126-130). From this political backdrop, the foundations of the Haymarket Theatre were in place; the Haymarket Theatre was established by a group of pro-French Jacobins who were antagonized by the Federalists in the Federal Street Theatre's performances (Stoddard 1975, p. 63). The Jacobins purchased a parcel of land from Israel Hatch that was across from the Mall on the southeastern corner of the Common (Stoddard 1975, p. 63). The theater engaged in spirited competition with the Federal Street Theatre, creating a rivalry that proved detrimental to both groups (Stoddard 1975, p. 68).
Along the edge of the Common at the turn of the 19th century, the landscape was largely rural and pastoral. With only a few commercial businesses, the land was mainly used for gardens and pasturage (Herndon & Challu 2013, p. 73). As the city grew in population in the 1790s, it grew in territory, as people began to move southward and westward from the urban center; people began to settle along the outskirts of the Common as the area near the State House was appropriated by the city's elites (Herndon & Challu 2013, p. 66).
Haymerket Theatre drops the fantasized approach from Needlework Picture and creates a more literal impression of the landscape instead. As is evident from the choice of watercolor, the artist likely sought to spontaneously record the atmosphere while. The use of mature watercolors to create a landscape painting also signifies a shift in artistic thought about nature (Wilton, Lyles, & Royal Academy of Arts 1993, p. 18).
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- Haymarket Theatre, Boston, September 28, 1798 Fahim Rahman