Shakespeare’s use of sound and colour.

Drama is the one art that can call upon almost every device of the sister arts. All the various methods by which an artist may express himself are combined in the art of the drama, for it is a blending of literature, painting, dancing, music and sculpture. But, whereas in the past the art of literature alone was emphasized, today the other arts are regarded as equally important in the production of plays. From 1660, when movable scenery was introduced on the stage, to the present day, the art of' the theatre has greatly developed. It wasduring the Restoration period that the picture-frame stage was introduced and with it came many of the elaborate Italian methods of staging. The English theatre retained this form throughout a great part of the eighteenth century, but in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries a passion for realism resulted in an effort to reform the stage. [...