Joshua R.
Yelp
I don't do fine art or modern art. Not the art's fault. Mine. I get nothing out of staring at a canvas covered in paint with the face of some guy/gal/interpretive thingy on it.
This gallery may be changing my mind. With the awesome exhibit of John Lavery's work focusing on the personalities involved in Irish history of the first 1/3 of the 20th century that fills several galleries, I found myself being drawn into the painted eyes of both rebels and royals of that period and starting thinking that there may be something to this art thing after all.
I had less interest in the more modern-y modern stuff, because frankly I can't read a description of an exhibit that uses the word "teleological" without laughing so loud the guards give me dirty looks. And I'm kinda over my squiggles-as-art phase...but if that's your thing, more power to ya! You may also love the Manet/Monety blurry stuff that left me cold but my friends love to see "in person".
So more on the Laverly exhibit. ( NOTE: It's curated a little oddly, with story panels set up to be read chronologically arranged in galleries that don't flow in an orderly fashion, giving rise to a little confusion. It wasn't just me, I heard the guard/docent explain several times that it wasn't in strict chrono order and in some cases the panels didn't follow one another until you'd gone into the next room and read the panel there, kinda an ABDC thing, just go with it)
But the power of seeing the portraits of all the major players of the time, reading about how the artist and his wife acted as social go-betweens between Unionists and Free Staters and even the Brits themselves was fascinating. Laverly has some real power to his brush, and I felt the inklings of understanding quivering in my soul.
It's not just faces on walls, Lavery also painted fantastical/mythical settings, excellent funeral procession and courtroom portraits, and some very touching pieces from later in his life that he did of his wife in her final illness.
What DID hit me hardest was an excellent bit of story board quoting the Yeats poem written about some of the same pictures that I had just spent time getting to know. I AM powerfully affected by the written word, and I challenge anybody to spend hours with these portraits (including the portrait of Michael Collins after he was killed), and not be moved to tears upon reading
" Come to this hallowed place
Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland's history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends."
Beyond the Lavery exhibit, I was also quite moved by the stained glass work "The Eve of St. Agnes", and will be going back soon to spend more time with it.
Bottom line:
'This is not,' I say,
'The dead Ireland of my youth, but an Ireland
The poets have imagined, terrible and gay.'
