St Patrick's Day

Today is a day of drinking a celebration all over the western world. It is the day when “everyone's Irish”, and we have the excuse to drink beer and wear green with pride. I am maybe 1/8^th Irish, as these things go, but St. Patrick himself was actually from Britain, where he was kidnapped into slavery at the age of 16 by Irish raiders. I just learned this from love146 blog .

Irish art is often associated with literature and music, be it the modernest masters James JoyceWilliam Butler Yeats, or chart-toppers like U2 and Senead O'Conner. I am reminded of a quote I once saw in a pub “The curse of the Irish is not that you don't know the words to the song, but that you know all the words to all the songs”. There is also a great tradition of visual art in Ireland.

Francis Bacon is Probably the most famous Modern Irish painter. He lived between and 28th of October, 1928 / Died - 28th of April, 1992, and focused mostly on painting human figures and portraits. He work evokes great internal tension and turmoil. His most famous painting is perhaps “Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X” 1953.

Susanna Drury is a much less famous Irish artist, but she created an extremely influential work when she painted 2 views of the Giant's Causeway, in 1740. These paintings where later reproduced as engravings, and used in the famous french Encyclopédie of 1768. these reproductions of the original paintings, although unattributed, brought much attention to this natural wonder of the Irish landscape.

Another painter who's work is historically significant, but who's name is not very well know is Leo Whelan, (1892-1956). Whelan was know as a painter of portraits and of domestic scenes, and followed the traditions of the academy, which emphasized colour theory, composition and draughtsmanship. Whelan created a body of work which documents life in the early days of the Irish republic, and painted portraits of political figures and leaders of the rebellion. His paintings are an valuable historical record of the politics and life of the time

Thomas Ashe, one of the founder of the Irish Volunteers.

For a bit of variety, this last artist is an illustrator, not a painter. His name is Harry Clarke, and he drew the illustrations for books by Hans christian Anderson and Edgar Allan Poe. These days his work is often reprinted on posters, as people are still mesmerized by the detail of his line work and the elegance of his composition. Harry Clarke was born in 1889 and dies in 1931. he apprenticed as a stained glass maker, a trade that he pursued all his life along with his illustrations.