StKilian’s Community School

ART NEWS

Fifth and sixth year art students in St Kilian’s have been among the first to visit the ground-breaking Roderic O’Conor exhibition in the National Gallery, where they were guided through O’Conor’s painterly relationships with the other artists of the Pont-Aven group, during a brief and very productive period in the development of the Modern Art movements in Brittany.

Good friends with Gauguin, and very influenced by the work of Van Gogh (whose work O’Conor had the opportunity to see shortly after the formers untimely death), O’Conor, while influenced by both, was ‘his own man’ and produced beautiful portraits of the local women in their distinctive costumes, luscious landscapes and strong still lives, in his characteristic Zebrist style using stripes of complimentary colours, which though shocking on close inspection, blend in an imperceptible fashion at a distance.

Now, O’Conor is recognised as one of the foremost Irish artists. Not as highly recognised in his day as he deserved to be, since his personal wealth made it unnecessary for him to sell his work, his cache of work was later ‘discovered’ by a very perceptive dealer in a sale (after his death), of O’Conor’s studio, and his personal collection of the work of his artist friends.

Highly innovative during this period in his life, O’Conor is often ahead of his more famous contemporaries with his delicious fauvist colouring and sophisticated use of particularly red and green contrasting stripes in the distinctive faces of his models.

His gift of one of his portraits to Hugh Lane for his Municipal Gallery was the earliest appearance of one of his works in any National Collection, and leads us nicely to the next part of our visit. We had a most enthusiastic guide, in the gorgeous Charliament House the eventual home of the Hugh Lane collection, and the former home of the equally fascinating Lord Charlemont; where our fifth and sixth year students were introduced to two of the most important of Lane’s gift to the nation Renoir’s glorious ‘Les Parapluies’ and Morisot’s deeply Impressionist ‘summer’s day’. These paintings will return to the National Gallery in London next year, and will be replaced by the other half of Lane’s gift to us, in the contested compromise arrangement that still exists between the National Gallery in London and the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, so our students were lucky to have seen them ‘in the flesh’ so to speak.

Seeing some of the ‘ground-breaking’ Impressionist paintings at first hand, having discussed their influence on the work of O’Conor that morning, was eye opening for our students.

Of course the Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane is also internationally famous for the Francis Bacon Studio, which was gifted to them after Bacon’s death, and which was transported to Ireland after a truly outstanding archaeological assessment of almost every speck of dust and every discarded piece of torn newspaper, and reinstated in Dublin, as closely to the original as possible. Seeing his studio, was a creative shock for our students, many of whom likened it to their bedrooms that morning. Bacon one of the most important artists of the 20th century, was born in Ireland and came from a landed Irish family, though he spent most of his life in London.

In the beautifully designed, darkened interior of the specially designed stain-glass room, students were shown the jewel-like ‘Eve of St Agnes’ window, by the wonderful Harry Clarke, whose family home was in nearby Shankill village. Our students had also seen the larger but similar stain-glass room in the National Gallery that morning, and now had the opportunity to compare the two rooms, and to discuss their suitability for the display of some of the highlights of our internationally famous collection of glass from the early decades of the 20th century.

Our sixth years also spent time in the beautifully restored Jack Yeats room in the National Gallery, where they could experience at close quarters the work of probably Ireland’s most famous painter, who was not only the brother of one of our foremost poets (W.B Yeats), but also the son of a respected society portrait painter and the brother of two women who were instrumental figures in the Revivalist Movement.

Jack spent much time in the West of Ireland, where his deeply expressionistic landscapes, powerful confident brush strokes and layers of luscious impasto convey his vision of both the reality and the magic of Irish society. Standing in front of the works, our students were able to experience at close quarters, the sense of freedom and ‘aliveness’ in his outstanding portrayals of horses, and his deeply felt anguish concerning the futility of war, when confronted by his powerful ‘Grief’, and when encouraged to give this initially confusing painting time to reveal itself to them by simply standing and looking and ‘seeing’.

Our students could also compare the work of the son with the work of the father in the Hugh Lane gallery, and see first hand just how innovative Jack Yeats was.

‘SCULPTURE IN CONTEXT’ - It is now a tradition to take some of our students to see the equally innovative annual ‘Sculpture in Context’ exhibition in the Botanic Gardens, so with that in mind Ms Hume and Ms Murray brought three junior classes recently. We had a lovely day drawing and photographing the often ‘thought provoking’ works in the context of their location in the wonderful setting of the gardens and the beautiful Victorian glasshouses.

NEWGRANGE TRIP - Later in October, the fifth years will visit Newgrange and Knowth. In light (excuse the pun) of this summers major discoveries of further Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments all over the country (due to the unprecedented drought); it is particularly important to let our students know what a rich and wonderful prehistoric heritage we have here in Ireland.

This annual trip to Newgrange and Knowth for our seniors is always an eye-opening highlight for them, as they experience the magic of the light creeping up the passage in Newgrange, and discuss the mystery of the largest collection of Neolithic Art in Europe, at Knowth.

Later in the year, the fifth years will visit the national Museum where they will see the wonderful Knowth Mace head and the outstanding collection of Bronze Age gold, the mysterious and magnificent ritual deposits of the Iron Age, and the truly world famous broaches, chalices and relic shrines of our second golden age in the outstanding Treasury collection the early Christian and Viking era artefacts.

On this trip the students will also visit the excellent book of Kells exhibition in the beautiful Trinity library, where yet again they will be exposed to what was described in medieval times as ‘the work of Angels’.

Much food for thought for our students, and hopefully the seeds of innovation have been planted in their fertile minds. Many of these senior students are already excellent artists and will hopefully benefit more and more from their recent exposure to the on-going innovation in the arts in Ireland. A subplot of this recent visit for our students was the realisation of the growing importance (and acceptance) of women in the arts.

All these ideas will be further developed and explored in class (and in the evenings during extra classes), throughout the year by St Kilian’s Art teachers Ms Hume and Ms Murray.

For a flavour of what goes on in the St Kilian’s Art rooms, and throughout the school, please visit us on our upcoming Open Night on Thursday, October 11. Students will be making masks and printing in the Art Rooms, and there will be displays of art work around the building. Work from Ms Murray and Ms Ring’s very successful annual Junk Kuture projects will also be displayed. An eye opener for future Fashion Designers.

We look forward to seeing you in our school on October 11. Article: Adrienne Hume (St Kilian’s)