Ancient and Modern: and Gerard DiLLon

The twilight years of the have demonstrated that nineteenth century and the the art and culture of early part of the twentieth a country's past being in Ireland is often pressed into service as referred to as the Celtic legitimising 'proof of Revival, a period in which antiquity', and a glorious artists such as George antiquity at that, is often Russell (A.E.), Harry central to the process of Clarke and W.E. Yeats found 'nation-defining'. This is the antiquities of Ireland especially true in the case a rich and energising of a post-colonial culture, source of inspiration. in which the demonstration In the 19705 and 19805, of a separate and distinct a similar renaissance of culture from that of the sorts took place, with former colonial power is of artists including Brian paramount importance.2 O'Doherty/Patrick Ireland, Patrick Collins, Michael The literary and artistic Farrell, Brian King and magazines and journals of Anne Madden taking Celtic, the 19305, '405 and '50s or early Christian forms suggest that many felt and transforming them uncomfortable with the through their work. close alliance of art and nation-building. In 1950 In the intervening years, the critic Edward Sheehy however, the relationship wrote in Envoy that Ireland between contemporary was "part of modern Europe, culture and the past was and not, as some would closely bound to political pretend, an exotic and views that many found miraculous survival from a U 3 problematic, with the old Celtic middle age • Sean nationalist symbols of Q'Faolain, founding editor the fin de siecle having of The Bell, and one of the hardened into narrow and most vociferous critics of exclusive meanings. Patrick narrow cultural nationalism Collins pithily summed railed against a view of up the situation as "the Irish identity that "boiled Harp and Shamrock school down to an homogenously U1 of art • Studies of the defined Gaelic Catholicism" dynamics of nationalism and suggested in his

44 Hiqhlan.a Municipal Art Gallery

I :\ \

r

fiq.14

TITLE F~stthy ARTIST Ger,lId O.lio" MEDIUM Oil 00 canvas

DIMENSIONS 63 J( 75cm (REDIT Oroghl!'dil Mu"icipill Art (olll!'etio"

45 influential editorials garde artists throughout that Ireland's "rise was the world in the twentieth frustrated by a stubborn, century.' In Ireland, short-sighted policy of Norah McGuinness exhibited clinging to an outmoded, a stained glass piece antique past".4 in the 1940s called The Legend of St. Jarleth, In the midst of this, two which referred to a of Ireland's best-known monastery in Tuam founded modernist artists, Nano in the sixth century.S Reid and Gerard Dillon, identified did seek inspiration in her preoccupation with the Celtic and early "the harmonious filling Christian Irish past of a space with rhythmic throughout the 1940s and forms" as being directly 1950s.' After one of her linked to the "ancient exhibitions in the 19405, Celtic, or what we call a critic wrote of Nano Early Irish Christian Reid: art", and Jack B. Yeats found Irish myth "She is the interesting a powerful source of phenomenon of an artist inspiration in his work.9 who, though a modern, is still painting in the The Past in the Celtic tradition. Her Present occupation with pattern reminds one of ancient Reid and Dillon, who were work here, with its friends and admirers of carelessness in individual each other's work, went detail, and she never out along the Boyne Valley allows a surface to remain together, sketching, Hi static. looking, and bringing back ideas which they Although it might have used repeatedly in their been considered a work. Touring the lush 'phenomenon' by this Boyne Valley region, critic, it is important they would have seen the to note that Dillon and Hill of Tara, the Hill Reid were not alone. The of Slane, the ruins of immediacy and energy of the great Cistercian the art of early human monastic foundation of cultures was to prove Me11ifont Abbey, the great an important source of passage graves of Knowth, inspiration for avant- Dowth and Newgrange, Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery

TITLE Tht!N~riVlty ARTIST Gerard Dillon MEDIUM Walt crayon DIMENSIONS 44.5 It48.Scm CREon Private Collection. Courtesy of Karen Reihill Fine Art

47 fig.9 TITLE CII~ofrheArbQlg ARTIST Nano Reid MFDIUM Oil on board DIMENSIONS 59. 74cm CREOn Collection of the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaion

48 Hiqhlane. Municipal AIt Gallery

and the remnants of the the attempt to depict the medieval city of Drogheda essential, distinctive, itself. Each utilised the and revelatory quality 12 imagery of the valley of a thing. Ironically, in different ways, with the actual effects of Dillon painting images of archaeology left Reid high crosses, sculpted cold. After the excavation tombs, and the austerely of the passage graves in beautiful Mellifont the 1960s, she said, in throughout his work, an interview with Harriet while Reid was inspired Cooke in the Irish Times, by the sense of myth and of the past contained "1 don't paint the Boyne within the landscape, and Valley any more. Somehow, especially in the passage the place isn't the same graves. Where Oengus Og since they've started Magnificently Dwells, c. all that excavation. 1963 is based on the To me, the mounds were megalithic tombs of the interesting when you Boyne valley, where Oengus didn't know what was lived. Oengus was the son inside of them ...To me, of one of the De Danann all that digging reminds chieftains and Boann, me of a curious child who who gave her name to the has to tear a doll open Boyne; he was abandoned to see what's inside, and at birth, and raised in then all the sawdust comes secret.10 The Cave of the pouring out."l) Firbolg, 1973, (fig.9) is based on the myths of D~clan Mallon has written the race of people who that Reid "perused the lived in Ireland before past from the present", the arrival of Tuatha De painting the experience Danann, and of Slaine, of confronting the past or Slainus, the king and and its mystery.14 Dillon's judge of the Fir Bolg." relationship to the past These paintings are a form was more literal, and of painted excavation of often quite humorous. In the sense of the place; paintings like Fast Day, Brian Fallon, in an c.1950, (fig.14) and The introduction to Reid's Holy Island (fig.13), he retrospective in the re-imagines and peoples Droichead Arts Centre the past with monks who (1991) has described this have distinctive, non- quality as 'inscaping', regulation handlebar

49 TITLE "'/Ji~_ch:S Cms$ "'on_$terboic~ ARTlsr Gerard Cillo" MEDIUM Ink and Gouache DIMENSIONS 35 x 22cm CREOIT Private Collection so Hiqhlanes Municipal Art Gallery

fig.23

TITLE Th~ High Cross ~tM()~sterlJo;c~ "RTIST Nano Reid MEDIUM Waten:olour

DIMENSIONS 31_ 2Scm CREDIT Pri'latl! Collection

51 moustaches .15 During a On the painted tie which visit to Reid's house in he wears in a photograph Drogheda in the early taken in 1957 (fig.15), 19505, Dillon wrote to Dillon again combines his friend the Australian various scenes together in art historian, Bernard apparently random order - Smith ~I've done a lot of for example, Adam and Eve watercolours from early eat the forbidden apple Christian carvings on an from the serpent-wound old Celtic Cross near tree after, rather than here, they are wonderful before, the Magi visit the - all the male figures have Virgin with the Christ got big walrus moustaches Child, another scene like Douglas Hyde, the taken from the east face last President" .16 of Muiredach's Cross. In a larger painting, High The Irish high crosses, Cross Panel, he plays with such as those at the subjects themselves Monasterboice, are among - David with the head of the most impressive Goliath is transformed sculpted monuments in into a naked woman holding the country. They are a bearded snake, which examples of 'scripture also has an impressive crosses', carved with walrus moustache, and scenes from the Bible, Moses smiting water from and are considered the a rock becomes a merry high point of early Irish band of musicians.17 This sculpture. In Muiredach's playful re-interpretation Cross, date (fig.23) of the subject matter Dillon has depicted a could perhaps be Dillon's panel which is actually response to the nature of from the West or Tall the crosses, with their Cross at Monasterboice, lively, detailed and vivid of David with the head sculpted figures. Indeed, of Goliath, impaled on the crosses themselves do a curiously wavy stick, not depict Biblical scenes beside a scene of Samuel in any kind of systematic anointing David by pouring order; they are carved oil on his head, and has with different subjects juxtaposed this panel with which would have chosen two sculpted monsters with for their spiritual or semi-human faces from the symbolic meaning. 18 lower part of the west side of Muiredach's Cross.

5Z Riqhlanee Municipal Art Gallery

fig.1S Marianne and Bertie Rodgers, Erna Naughton and Gerard Dillon 1956 fig. 13

TITLE Th~Holy Is/~nd ART1S1 [email protected] MEDIUM Canvas witi'l oil paint and sand in glazed f~m@ DIMENSIONS 91 J{ 122cm CREDIl Private Collection Imag@counesyofWhyt@'s

S4 Hiqhlan.. Municipal Art Gall.ry

As well as borrowing and Little Girl's Wonder, motifs and scenes from c. 1955, (fig.24) the the high crosses - the position of the figures plump and carved cats and the treatment of the from the east face of folds of fabric simplified the shaft of Muiredach's to abstract, flat pattern Cross, mysterious, recall the figures in muscular beard-pullers illuminated manuscripts from the northern face of such as the Book of Kells. the shaft, and pairs of The profile pose of the opposing animals, creating seated woman in Little symmetrical patterns - Girl's Wonder is close the influence of their to the seated Madonna formal composition, with in the panel depicting each scene contained the visit of the Magi on within separate panels Muiredach's Cross. Dillon can be seen in Dillon's has flattened the folds works from the 1940s. of fabric, and created Examples include Little an abstract pattern, and Green Fields (1945)19 and ther~ is little sense Nativity and this influence of the anatomy beneath can also be seen in works the clothing. A similar that have very little to treatment of fabric can do with Ireland or early be seen in Fast Day, and Christian ornament, such both suggest the influence as Self-Contained Flat and of early Christian Demolition, a painting of manuscripts, in which both houses after the Blitz in description and dense, London.20 detailed pattern-making are held in balance James White suggests that the high cross carvings It is clear from the allowed Dillon to combine reviews which Nano Reid's narrative painting with work received in the modernist flatness - the Irish press during the importance of narrative in 1940s and the 1950s that his painting is something she was considered a which he felt was central very important painter; to his work, and to a both The Bell and Envoy sense of Irish painting. 21 published features on her Paintings from the 1940s work, and she contributed on also suggest the illustrations to The influence of illuminated Be11.23 While she was, manuscripts - in Fast Day apparently, wary of the

55 art that was 'literary', begun in the early 1960s, her circle of friends under the supervision of included many writers, archaeologist Professor and she also provided Michael J. O'Kelly. illustrations for Rogha Danta, a collection of The Past in the poems by one of the Present writers of the Irish language avant-garde, Architectural fragments Mairtin 6 Direain which and remains appear in was published in 1949. work by both Reid and Her illustrations for Dillon, from the 1940s I send my love along onwards. The distinctive the Boyne, written by silhouette of the gate Elizabeth Hickey and building at Mellifont published in 1966, provide appears as a leitmotif a beautiful counterpoint throughout Dillon's to her work in oil and work. In Cannistown watercolour. In the place Arch and Font, c. 1966, of her subtle and shifting th~ fine chancel arch of use of colour, the black the medieval church of and white illustrations St. Finian is depicted, have a graceful fluidity, and in Old Town Walls, economy of line, and the remaining fragments a strong sense of the of medieval buildings graphic whole. The book in Drogheda hold their is a descriptive tour own amidst the shifting of the Boyne, both of colours and forms. 24 its landscape, myth and Reid was angered by the history. The illustrations destruction of so much reflect this, with images of Drogheda's medieval of the medieval ruins of heritage, so much so that Slane, with a round tower, Dillon nicknamed her probably the free-standing 'Butter Gate Reid', after belfry of St. Patrick's her protest at the Butter Roman Catholic church, Gate in Drogheda being built in 1802, and the pulled down rather than suggestion of a traceried conserved.25 Dillon, in east window gracefully many of his works, paints outlined in spare, flowing small sculpted fragments, lines. There are also survivors of a past age, illustrations of the the past existing in the great passage graves, the present. In this sense, excavation of which had the work of both artists

S6 Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery

fig.24

titLE Littl~ Girl's Worn1~r ARTIST Gerard Dillon MEDIUM Oil on board DIMENSIONS 60x aOem CREDIT Pr,vate Collection, Courtesy of the Erner Gallery

51 reflects the tradition of antiquarian drawing and painting as it developed through the eighteenth dnd nineteenth centuries - antiquarians distinguished themselves from artists by virtue of the fact that what they studied and sketched was true - a fragment from the past, a silent witness, which held a kind of historical authority that written histories, which were always necessarily biased interpretation, could never possess.

Both Dillon and Reid felt strongly about Ireland's cultural heritage, and their painted exploration of this heritage is beautiful, considered and deeply personal. Their work is an important facet of our record of the tangled, difficult and fruitful negotiation of cultural and individual identity in Ireland.

sa Highlanea Municipal Art Gall.ry

Palr1cK Coll1ns, 'George Campbell: Prohle of an Aetist' Envoy, Volume L Numbee, 2, , p.46. i These ideas are discussed by Declan K1berd 1n chaptee 1 of lnventlng Ireland, London, Vintage, 1996. Other important studies on the dynam1CS ot cultueal nationalism include The Invention of Tradition, by Hobsbawm and Ranger, and Imagined Communlties by Benedict Arnold. l Edward Sheehy, 'Recent Irish Painting', Envoy, Vol. 3, No. 10, September 1950, p.46. ~ Sean O'Faolain, 'The Death of Nationalism', The- Bell, 17, 2, May, 1951, p.44 - 53. ~ The Academy of Christian Art was spearheaded by, George Noble, Count Plunkett, It actiVely promoted the study of early Christian antiquities by 20th century Irish artists. See Sighle Bhreathnach-Lynch, Ireland's Art, Ireland's History, Representing Ireland 1845 to Present, Omaha, NE, Creighton University Press, 2007. ~ Review of an exhibition of Reid's work from the 1940s, signed A.P. Collection of undated press clippings, CSIA, National Galleey 01 Ireland. , Many modernist artists were inspired by the art of what they saw as 'primitive' cultures. This interest reflected the desire to rebel against the rules of academia and to harness the vivid and immediate sense of expression in 'primitive' art. 8 This information on Norah McGuinness is from an unpublished M Phil thesis by Avril Percival, in , titled ~The Contemporary Picture Galleries (1939 - 1945)N , Mainie Jellett, 'My VOYdge of Discoveey', Sources in : A Reader, ed. Fintan Cullen, Cork, Cork University Press, 2000, p.90. 10 The title Where Oengus Og Magnificently Dwells is taken feom 0 poem by an early 18th century poet, John McDonnell (1691 - 11S4), known as Clardgh. Claragh was noted for his teansldtion of Homer into Irish, and foe his Jdcobite poems, which take the form of the 'oisling', in which a ghostly woman oe vision dppears to a sleeping man, dnd shows him an ideal political vision of the future, and mourns for the fact that her people are currently not in that ideal state, but in slaveey. 'I visited that glorious dome that. stands/ By the colling waters of the Boyne/ Where AEuqus Oge magnificently dwells'. The poem was reprinted in Volume I, No. 26, December 22, 1832 Dublin Penny Journal, p.202. II John Carey, in 'Fir Bolg: A Native Etymology Revisited' in Cambridge Medieval Studies, 1988, attempts to unravel the nature dnd meelning of the Fir Bolg through eln exploration of the etymology of their name. Ii Brion Fallon, Nano Reid, A Reu"ospective Exhibition, Droichead Arts Centre, 1991, p.2. 13 Reid in conversation with Harriet Cooke, Irish Times, 14 April. 1969. l' Declan Mallon, Nano Reid 1900 - 1981, IDrogheda, Sunnyside Publications, 1994), p.8l. IS Feast Day, c. 1960, Drogheda Municipal Art Collection, Highlanes Gallery. 16 Letter from Dillon to Bernard Smith, CSIA, National Gallery of Iceland II High Cross Panel, private collection, oil on board, exhibited Leicester Gallery, London, 1946. 18 Roger StaIley, Irish High Crosses, Dublin, Countey House, 2000, p.16. 19 Little Green Fields, c. 1945, oil on convas, Maire McNeill Sweeny Bequest, in the collection of The National Gallery of Ireland. iO Self Contained Flat, exhibited in the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, 1955, Collection, Ulster Museum. Demolition, exhibited in the Dawson Gallery, 1959. il James White, Gerard Dillon An Illustrated Biography, Dublin, Wolfhound Press, 1994. 11 A eeviewer wrote 'It is not often that one can Soy of a youthful paintee like Nano Reid that she is a born artist and a born stylist ...This young aetist from Drogheda has to be saluted as a genius'. Irish Times, 27 Novembee, 1942. n Collection, McCann fitzgerald Solicitoes. i. On the 26 July 1958 the Drogheda Independent carried a letter from Reid peotesting about the destruction at the Butter Gate.

59