Last Saturday I went to the national gallery with my girlfriend to see
'Treasures from The North'. The exhibition, which included 60
'masterpieces' from the Ulster museum, was staged in Dublin because
the Ulster museum was undergoing refurbishment. The work spanned an
over two hundred-year period in Irish art from the eighteenth century
up to the late twentieth century. Because the national Gallery already
had the largest collection of Irish painting in the world by combining
it with those from Ulster it was a unique op****tunity for lovers of
Irish art to see the largest collection of Irish painting ever
assembled.
But what did such a spectacle prove? Well firstly it proved that from
the 1700's to the 1960's Ireland failed to produce any 'genius' like
Goya, Van Gogh, Picasso, Dali, Pollock, or Warhol. Secondly Ireland
failed to produce even one world-class innovator like Blake, Turner,
Monet, Matisse or Klee. Thirdly Ireland failed to produce any master
painter like Tiepolo, Fragonard, David, Manet, Sargent or Freud. And
finally Ireland failed to produce a master technician in drawing like
Watteau, Ingres, Degas or even Hockney. What we had produced was an
army of embittered, provincial, alcoholic, blow-hards who thought
themselves masters but lacked all of the qualities required except
arrogance. A handful of Irish painters like James Barry, Daniel
Maclise, Water Osborne, William Orpen, John Lavery, Jack B Yeats,
Paddy Graham and Brian Maguire had shown themselves to have had real
talent and sometimes great skill and passion, but for various reasons
they had fallen just short of international level never mind get their
foot on the first rung on the ladder of the immortals.
Oil painting on canvas was an art imposed by the British Empire on the
poverty stricken Irish populace, which is why until recently the Irish
art world was still dominated by a West Brit elite. It is also why it
was the Irish poets and musicians that were central to the battle for
Irish Independence and not its painters who were too closely tied with
the British establishment. Most of Irelands greatest artist had to go
to England or France to train, become familiar with the latest
innovations and acquire the patronage vital to their survival as
artists. The brief period of oil painting in Ireland saw artists fawn
at the English establishment, bow to the Catholic Church, mythologies
the land, become entranced by the Impressionist adventure in France,
become fevered with Irish Independence and record the solitary and
often lonely vocations of Modern painters unloved in their own
country. It was an art dominated by the male ****trait and the
landscape - saucy female ****traits never mind ****s were virtually non
existent even in mythological canvases.
I found the first one hundred and fifty years of Irish art from the
Ulster museum an utter bore - all powdered wigs, deathly serious
sitters and naive uninspired drawing and painting. This period in art
- when much of the art produced was the dull-witted commissions of
pompous aristocrats seeking to be flattered - is one of my least
favourites. Most of this art was the propaganda of a vain, *****uous
world of craven blue bloods. Technically it was a period of smooth
glass like finish - invisible brushmarks and a subdued pallet of earth
tones - pretty much everything my art and the art I admire is not.
Though a beautiful **** by James Barry the tortured and unrecognised
genius of early Irish painting stood out. My enthusiasm picked up
though when I came to five beautiful canvases by John Lavery. Now this
is painting! Some people swoon when they see the mark making of
Pollock or De Kooning - but although from a distance Lavery's painting
look quite conventional - up close they are a firesworks display of
swift and passionate brushwork. Lavery seldom painted a bad picture
and two of them in this show 'Lady Lavery Looking Out of The Studio
Window' and 'Lady Lavery' in a green dress really do deserve to be
called masterpieces. I love Lavery's pallet - of daring apple green,
lilac and rich mauve which features in many of his paintings. Also
well presented were Rodrick O'Conor, Jake B Yeats and William Orpen.
But Yet again I found Yeat's mid career painting far more effective
than his later work, which I often find repulsive and dangerously
incompetent. The last painters represented in the show from the late
twenith century - were an astoni****ng let down. William Scott, Patrick
Scott and TP Flanagan were all represented by some of their worst,
most incompetent painted abstract scrawls. Only Basil Blackshaw's
canvas stood up to even vague scrutiny - but he is nowhere near the
'master-painter' he is hailed by some in the Irish art world as
being.
Before leaving the National gallery we went to the French rooms were
some new acquisitions were on display. This included a ****trait by
Gabriele Munter, ****s in boats by Max Pechstein, a lunch by Bonnard
and a small view of Paris by Van Gogh. While I am delighted to see
that the national gallery is becoming more aggressive in collecting
twentieth century art - I am bewildered by some of these choices. That
none of these works are 'masterpieces' of world class level, is not
surprising, give the budget restrictions of the National Gallery, but
what is though is how minor most of them are. I have never thought
much of either Munter or Pechstein since the first thing I feel an
Expressionist artist must possess - is a volcanic intensity -
something neither of these mannerists possessed. As for the Bonnard -
while I enjoyed Bonnard's daring colours - I found his fuzzy lack of
focus in drawing and brush marks to be irritating and hard to look at
for long. But the little Van Gogh was a gem - maybe not a masterpiece
but a lovely optimistic painting recording the rooftops of Paris. I
remembered how I was twenty-one before I saw my first Van Gogh in
Amsterdam, and I felt a wave of envy towards today's children in
Dublin who can now see so much more art than the generation before
them. I hope they appreciate it!
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