I Have a Diploma in Dragon Mngmnt
Like Children Small Packages Sometimes Contain Big Treasures: An Unexpectedly Worthwhile Visit to the National Galleries of Ireland
When I visited the National Galleries of Ireland (NGI) more than half of its galleries were closed. The building was undergoing renovations, with the plan to reopen in two years (2013). Even with this prior knowledge, my thought was that I should still go and see what was on view. It would be a chance to roam through the galleries and get an idea of the NGI collection. Anyway, how could an art museum with most of its galleries closed to the public have much to offer? Well, like children, sometimes the small packages hold the big treasures. After two trips to the NGI, I did not feel that I had been short-changed (even though they don’t charge admission or not even a suggested contribution). Because seeing the paintings and sculptures they have on display gave me enough visual excitement to equal any museum I’ve been to at this point in my traveling experiences.
The original entrance accessed from Merrion Square entrance is closed, since it is closest to the refurbishment section containing the Dargan and Milltown Wings. I had walked this many times, but not all the way down to Claire Street where the entrance to the NGI rests. My gait possessed purpose. Checking my image reflecting itself in the shop glass windows, I was sure that today I played the part of a local well, along with the buildings that seemed to sway with me while locked in their long held positions on the Dublin streets. I turned onto Claire to greet the modern, discreet façade of the NGI. It appeared the width of a downtown Dublin townhouse that lines the street with its red brick front and proudly painted front door. The NGI appeared to have a wooden front. Honestly, my enthusiasm was past this part of the experience; as architecture was a subject my art history classes only brushed over. I had not thought of stopping for a second to observe the exterior of the building. At first sight, I only remember a section protruding outward that was supported by black metal bars.
I entered the space by pulling the heavy black wood door that looked like a piece of artwork itself open to release a line of elephants in the guise of tourists with prams and parents, one after the other with two or three motioning to me a thank you; one seemed to question, “Does she work here?” I am in the great hall, but the image of the door stays in my mind. I can’t remember the woman artist whose artwork reminds me of the door. Unable to remember the artist’s name (Louise B-something), I glance up at the escalating walls accented with black, the motif throughout the front area of the museum. To my right is the information desk, to which I sashay up to ready to accept my duties as new visitor. The two female employees are conversing, and I’ve stepped into the middle of their words. After a brief moment, one of the ladies looks up at me with a kind, inquiring face.
“Do I need a sticker or ticket?” I ask.
“No,” she says, “Just walk in.”
I wonder if she can see the sudden triumph in my pose. I don’t need identification. I don’t need to be marked with a circle or square or metal clip. A member of the community is my sense of myself poised in this hall of the NGI. This is liberating. I experience simple inner bliss. I move to the staircase with on each of its stairs stretched is a sign that indicating to the visitor the way to begin viewing the permanent collection. They have made sure to make their signage extra clear to avoid any confusion as to where the galleries are located.
This strategic placement is evident in the perfect positioning of the gift store: immediately to the left from the front door, with long glass windows displaying all the trinket temptations. The NGI store has a modern white and light wood interior. It sparkles with new exhibit catalogs, books, art postcards, posters, and like all museum and galleries today; everything and anything with its name on it, or as NGI explains that it offers “merchandise inspired by the NGI’s collection.” The NGI does let its patron know that the money from sales of all merchandise in their store goes directly to fund its collection and public programs, which is cool. I ended up buying a set of cards with ones of Rembrandt’s Flight to Egypt and the others of their Caravaggio. And postcards. I could not stop picking them up: mainly landscapes, which I generally don’t find that interesting. Paul Henry’s paintings caught my eye. He is one of the Irish landscape painters that I learned about in this museum. I had in my hand a Dutch still life with oranges and grape leaves, but I decided that I should stay with the Irish landscape. Did the Dutch get hungry painting their still lifes? I think a painting of someone snug in a bed would influence me most.
Out of the store, I pass The Gallery Restaurant. I noticed it is open daily for breakfast and lunch, usually until 3 p.m. and later on the weekend. The setting is a mixture of centuries. It has high bright white ceilings intermitted with grey stone work injected with colonial style windows that run your eye down to the rows of Norwegian design tables that are modern with black woven chairs accompanying them. At the entrance to the restaurant is a chalkboard with that day’s chef’s specials. The visitor may choose from a variety of hearty breads, made-to-order sandwiches, and soups, along with other selections, plus coffee and desserts. The light illuminating the room so fills the space that the people look like cut-out figures glued on white paper.
My attention returned to the gigantic area in front of me if I were to enter is closed now, so the public is directed to head upstairs. I continue to the second level of the Millennium Wing. At the top of the stairs is the second floor, Level 1. On this level, to the left, The Gallery Café is closed. This eatery advertises coffee, tea, cold beverages, and an array of midday sugar boosting treats.
At the top of the stairs I am instructed by more signs to curve my steps to the left. There is a second door similar to the door to the building. It is black and wood with two slits that are glassed windows (Mondrian painting in its little black dress). And I remember the artist’s name, Louise Bougeois, the French artist and sculpture. The handle for the door is a solid plank of this wood, the top of it is pulled to open the door. This barrier between the galleries and me is intimidating, like a prison door or door that only curators are allowed to open. It could be a door in a children’s fantasy book! Open me! Inside the gallery my eyes shoot straight to the end of the gallery where a man who appears to be a gallery guard is lifting one bent leg up and then other one goes up. He’s doing an Irish jig. From here he appears lively and jolly, but not so later on, I will observe.
He is in charge of this long narrow gallery space that holds the National Gallery’s Irish Masterpieces. Where I stand this collection consists of seventeenth century paintings; the whole gallery is portrait and landscape paintings. I sit down on a white-washed bench in the middle of the gallery with them around me and capture all the words that are quickly forming in my mind to get them into my notebook to later type here on this page.
As I am hunched over doing so, a man with the same purposeful gait as I believed I had comes in the room, then another man, and another who is then met by his two female companions. The men are all at least in their sixties, and sorry but not attractive. My gallery romance is not beginning well. Three ladies enter the room. I observe them a second time and understand they group is made up of a mother and her two daughters all about the same height with medium length average brown straight hair. The young girl has a notepad and pencil. The other two have a large gallery guide that has been laminated. Where did they get that? These are the first visitors I encounter in this place.
I stand up ready to begin my journey when I look around at the people and realize I don’t have to carry my heavy bag! They actually have a coat room. This convenience is unique to a Floridian. I walk back out and donate my bag to the coat check man.
Returning to the first room, I glance over the portraits of men from the 1600s with their cotton ball wigs on their heads. I learned recently the bigger the wig the more important he is in his society. The style and subject of these paintings along the walls here do not muster much excitement for me, and never have; unless there is a fascinating, unbelievable story to them. The labels do not entice me either. They are at first sight confusing. The top is colored maroon, middle is grey and bottom with text on each part. What does each part refer to? Is the artist on the top or bottom? It is not clear who the artist is or the title. Then, it becomes clear to me: the middle grey area is in Irish and the top is the artist and bottom has the title and describes the work. An area that I have read about and is on my agenda is upstairs in the Yeats Museum.
In a town and country where literature holds rank over painting and other visual arts, I was impressed to enter the Yeats Museum. It contains works and materials by Jack Yeats, J.B. Yeats, Lolly and Lily Yeats, their niece Anne Yeats and cousin Ruth Pollexfen. No WBY—this is good. Anne Yeats donated the archive in 1996 to the gallery, which provides an indelible contribution to the works by providing “insights into the creative life of the artist.” The wing presents Jack B. Yeats’ accomplishments and record the development of his talent, skill and themes. These include society figures from the 1910-20s to his more personal, reflective and carnivalesque paintings from later in his career.
The National Gallery of Ireland on their website has additional information about J.B. Yeats and other artists from their permanent collection. It also has a spot that says list the top reasons to visit NGI. The Gallery is open 361 days a year, holds over 15,000 pieces of artwork: The gallery always offers family activity packets and audioguides even for your children. There are also art classes. Everything having to do with the museum seems to be thought out and done well. It is a good idea to go look through a museum’s website ahead of time to learn as much as you can about it. I have an idea of their collection, and now I seek my favorites.
I reach my first favorite in the collection: the Irish artist, Patrick Collins, Liffey Quaysides, 1957. I also choose it because Collins is from County Sligo. It is a modernist painting, a swirl of grey, white, and black paint that the artist has moved up and around the canvas. my eyes up and down like a seesaw over the image of the buildings and bridge with tiny sparks of orange. It is a moody and messy piece, and I admire the artist for it.
Next my vision falls upon Mary Swanzy’s Patterns of Rooftops, Czechoslovakia (c. 1920) because it resembles a Paul Cezanne, the post-impressionist painter. Many art historians consider his artwork to be the beginning of modern art. Swanzy appears to be very much influenced by another post-impressionist painter, Paul Gauguin. Her composition consists of houses swerving, pushing together in a tight pack, like drunks parading in the neighborhood. The roofs form the lines made of a hot red-orange placed around tropical green foliage. The painting reminds me of South America.
The most endearing painting I found on this trip is by the Irish painter, Paul Henry. I have since kept a postcard of his landscape tacked on the bulletin board in my dorm room. The title of this piece is Connemara Village from 1933-4. Henry’s landscape pursues the subject of the land and man, the sky and earth. The sky is filled with blooming clouds that are only held down by the outlines of the blue mountains. To give man back some strength in the painting Henry casts clear sunlight over the minute white-washed cottages and tilled land before them. In the foreground, mud mounds and rocks press down on the earth. The label describes the “view eastwards from the quay on the Clifden road, west of Letterfrack, Co. Galway [emphasizing] the grandeur of the local scenery while alluding to rural communities’ isolation and reliance on the land.” This image represents the Ireland I have seen on the trips through the countryside.
A dimly lighted space draws me forward beyond this piece in another gallery. It is the museum’s “Highlights from the Collection of Works on Paper”. I select two as favorites: a graphite and red chalk on paper sketch (1715-16) by Jean-Antoine Watteau and James Howard Burgess’s watercolor (1866). Watteau’s draws the back of a woman who wears an oversized coat all done in red. The artist added a few wisps of her hair in a high bun in black chalk, the tiniest of accent to a strong study of the subject. Burgess’s watercolor reminds me of an illustration that could be in a book of children’s literature. The lines forming the objects are visible, which I like to see in an illustration because of its crisp quality that compliments the paper it incorporated into; and drawings should hold their lines. What makes this otherwise serious work, titled A Shipwreck off Causeway Coast is the clump of cloud on the left that form a monster. Its arms are stretched out to grab the powder-puff cloud beside it. The monster’s head has horns and spiky ears, a hunched back and a broad chest that fades into the cliffs. In the center of the picture are these regal, stoic cliffs that lead down to the epic sea. The small figures of the people climbing up the land bring charm and whimsy back into Burgess’s painting. They are rendered simply with the women’s apparel consisting of a pairing of two colors, yellow and blue, grey and red, and green and blue. The label explains this piece well: “[Burgess composed] accurate topographical views and unapologetically romantic scenes [with a] sense of the awesome quality [of] ‘The Giant’s Causeway’.
Coming around the corner I spot another likeable pastel and watercolor from 1900 by Walter Osborne, a Dubliner. The Doll School has ties to Mary Cassatt’s work. A young girl is on her bed arranging her dolls properly for their daily lessons. The lines of the figures and objects are loose and economical. The most defined figure besides the girl and her bed is the Asian doll with his long black braid on his back.
I am monitoring my time. It has been an hour (I began my tour at 10:30 a.m.) and the gallery is becoming crowded. I have to maneuver my steps. I am making my way down to the dancing guard’s location. I have heard a couple cell phones ring, which in an art gallery is frowned upon. And now I see this guard is on his cell. He looks towards the visitors and then back to the wall, then back to checking on the visitors’ motions (his job), and then back to the wall so he can concentrate on the conversation.
This section of the gallery, where the tacky guard is, has modern paintings. There are two that are in the cubist style. This style is recognized by angular cuts into figures and objects. The artist, of which were George Braque and Pablo Picasso, strived to depict these subject from multiple sides in one painting. William Scott painted Frying Pan, Eggs and Napkin in 1950. There are three lemons on a table, four blueberries in a white bowl and a black skill with two eggs and a spatula resting in it. It echoes a Picasso still life in its composition and few colors.
While examining this artwork, I hear a guard talking on his cell phone. I have never witnessed a guard in an art museum doing this so blatantly. He is conversing on the phone looking distracted and puts his hand on the side of his face in a ‘What to do?’ fashion. Is he talking with a woman or his wife? Maybe partially resolved, he disconnects with the caller. He turns and walks deliberately down the hall, now returning to his job. As he passes by me he turns his face to mine as I am analyzing the painting by Louis le Brocquy. I smile.
My smile recedes back into my face as I stare at My Family by le Brocquy from 1951. This artist painted eerie portraits of Yeats, Joyce, and Bono. Here, the artist has conceived an incredibly complex composition that a thesis could hold. The subject is family, and a disturbed one. In cubist style, the painter depicts three nudes, mother, father, daughter, and a cat. The mother with a Picasso-like face is stretched out across a table that resembles an operating or examination table. Her legs are apart and her feet stop at the girl, who has flowers in her right hand. She positions them beside her head. She is cartoonish and her eyes are black voids, yeet she has a hopeful gaze. The flowers are the only objects of comfort in the picture. The white cat viewed from under the sheet that covers the bottom half of the woman sits where her female genitals are located. The feline has unfriendly yellow eyes and under its paw is red, blood. The man is consumed by some overwhelming knowledge. He sit on the edge of the table leaning over, ribs prominent on his side. He neck is elongated and I can’t tell if he is wearing glasses or if there is something on his head. Behind the figures is an architectural fixture that appears to surge toward the viewer. It is a fascinating, horrible, and likable work of art by an Irish artist.
I have completed my viewing of this gallery. I move out and follow the signs to the next area. Passing another information desk, I notice the lady that sat across from me on the bus is the woman sitting at there.
The Millennium Wing is the next stop. My mind and legs are tired, that museum stance wears me out. Luckily there is an automated glass sliding door that opens when entering this section of the museum. Kind of odd. This is the Renaissance wing full of saints and Madonna and child portraits. The walls are crimson and the paintings are heavy with jewel colors with gilded accents. The first work that stops me is Madonna and Child (c. 1435-40) by Paollo Uccello from Florence, Italy. To the twenty-first century eye, the Christ child is humorous and awkward. His mouth, nose, and eyes seem to be floating to the right side of his face. Uccello gives the child a cluelessness expression. A couple behind me confirms my same thoughts of the ridiculousness of this small figure. The writer(s) of the label focus on the serious: “This panel illustrates the new spacial concepts of the Renaissance and shows Uccello’s experimentation with geometry, perspective, space, and light.” Madonna is positioned in front of a niche and the illusion that child’s knee and toes are on the picture frame display the artist’s skill.
If you have not seen any Sister Wendy programs, than you must. She is the nun who in the 1990s did a BBC television series of her visiting art in art museums around the world and giving her art history critique on them. She does a segment in this museum, and unfortunately goes through the section that is closed now. The second painting in this room from the entrance is by the Master of Saint Augustine Ghent c. 1490-1500. It is a painting of Saint Augustine’s death, actually a part of a triptych that has been disassembled. I wish I had that Sister Wendy DVD here to play because I swear this is the same artist that she highlights. That would be a good comparison of subject. That painting had pickled children in it that were being resurrected by Saint Nicolas.
I continue grazing on the artwork not looking for recognizable artist or works. I feel it is not important to search for the famous ones because you will miss out on better ones that have been ignored. The masterpieces are only relevant when you have certain knowledge about them that is meaningful or interesting to you. Otherwise, it’s just: okay there is, checked off my list.
And having written this, a well-known artist comes up. This Renaissance painter is of significance to me because one of my poems by British poet Robert Browning is about him. Flippino Lippi was an assistant to Sandro Botticelli, the very famous Italian painter, and “one of the most significant artist of the late fifteenth century.” I am not even viewing the painting (it’s of a musician, I think), I’m interested in my memory of the poem and other images by Lippi. This is when art has invades your innards. It’s moved from a picture on the screen in a classroom; to the same image and artist’s name in your textbook, to the discovery of a poem about the artist, to the association of the artist and poem to someone you know who means something to you emotionally.
Hanging next to Lippi’s is a painting that looks like a sketch or etching. “Judith with the Head of Holefernes” (1495-1500) was done by another master of the period, Andrea Mantegna. He is obviously obsesses with sculptural qualities of figures since he forgoes a generous color palette for tones of grey. Mantegna wants a relief quality to appear in his Judith, Holefernes’s head, and her black maid.
A maid is the center of attention in Velázquez’s “Kitchen Maid with the Supper at Emmaus” dated 1617-18. DiegoVelázquez is regarded by some art historians as the best artist ever. Everyone knows, after the Mona Lisa, the painting of the little princess with her dwarf and attendants next to her, while the artist is to the left, and her parents are in the mirror’s reflection in the back of the room. Yes? This painting I am interested in. I will have to come back and look at it again. Her head is slightly swollen and at an odd angle as she leans forward staring to her right at the bowl that is tipping over. A painting including Christ at a table after his Resurrection is visible over her right shoulder. You do the interpreting.
At this point I have become over stimulated with visual images. I have observed pictures with multiple subjects and objects in them. It has been two hours. Since I am not in a hurry to see every piece of work in the galleries, I decide to return tomorrow. Therefore, I mark my spot in front of Michelangelo Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ (1602).
I have returned for day two. It is noon on Sunday and the crowds are here. I am anxious to view the ‘Yeats Museum’ at the end of the area I’m in now. But first the task is to complete the masterpiece collection. Once more I pass by the sign, Sárshaothair ón mBailiúchán (Masterpieces from the Collection).
It is the following day, and when I dropped my jacket off at the coat room, the tacky guard who was on his cell yesterday is now behind the counter taking coats! I wondered if he recognized me.
As promised I stood in front of the Caravaggio. Then, my eye was dragged to the left. The shirtless guy in the painting was looking at me and pointing at a shaded figure off in the distance. I stepped over to analyze St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness (1610s), which is attributed to Orazio Borgianni. St. John is sitting or squatting down so that his body almost comes into the gallery space. This is a Baroque tactic to bring the viewer close to the action. He is a Biblical figure but his face looks like a modern boy’s face with an average haircut. Seeing this then his body appears too old for his head, very broad and muscular. Okay, now back to the great master I had promised to begin my second day with. The master’s artwork should be relished. This painting symbolizes the height of the Baroque style. The composition is condensed into a tight group of six men, three heads to the left and three to the right. The figures include the profile of an unidentified man with his gawking mouth Jesus, Judas, two soldiers, and the man on the far right is believed to be Caravaggio. Orange is the one dominate color positioned on Christ’s clothing and the guard’s bottom. The artist casts bits of light on the important elements that correlate to the story. Christ’s face and hands, Judas’s face; the shiny armor of the guard; and Caravaggio is holding up a lantern that illuminates his face. His self-portrait is a young version of himself, compared with his image that he placed on the head of Goliath in his version of that story.
My narrative moves on smoothly, as I realize the painting on the other side is David and Goliath from 1605-07 by Orazio Gentileschi. Along with these spectacular artworks the gallery has other fine examples of the baroque period, recognized by chiaroscuro, dramatic gestures, Biblical characters portrayed in natural light, and often the figures are set against a dark, ominous background.
The most hilarious painting I found was the Antwerp artist Pieter Brughel the Younger’s 1620 painting Peasant Wedding. In the center of the composition is a man and his crouch. Brughel used a light mustard color for his pants and green and red for the rest of his wardrobe so that the area below his belt becomes the focus. This fits into the theme of sex and marriage. His female partner that he is dancing with is not facing the viewer, only her nose and chin are visible. Everyone in the scene is jolly, except for the woman at the table with the bride who is handling the dowry. On the table surface are carved signs and objects, which may or may not have symbolic meanings. It reminds me of a school desk with carving declaring crushes and drawings of teachers. None of the participants are attractive. The only attractive thing I picked out is a pitcher above the table that has been skillfully rendered with sharp execution.
Ah, I have come across one of my favorite Dutch masters, Rembrandt van Rijn. The NGI’s artwork is The Rest on the Flight to Egypt from 1647. This is an early work and small compared to other works I have seen. It is intimate; I must lean forward to see the scene. The miniature grouping of Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, a shepherd, and animals are on the left. The glowing fire casts a warm light on the groupings that are set against a deep, dark background. Off in the distance is another fire that is barely discernable. In the upper part of the picture is a castle with the slightest brushstrokes indicating lighted windows. Rembrandt applies strokes of paint with such economy to give just enough shape to construct the narrative.
I am craving the Yeats Museum section now. I head toward the old sweet guard who helped me yesterday find the toilet. He looks at me, “Back again?” In answer to my question he instructs his co-worker to undue the stanchion and lets me through a door that leads to a shortcut to the Yeats. Again, I get the feeling that I’ve been treated special. When I enter the gallery, there are two guards chatting. They separate like the sea as I move forward.
I take out my notebook. I’m going to take notes from the gallery signage. The first one reads: “[Jack B. Yeats] spent most of his childhood with his maternal grandparents in Sligo. In 1887 he rejoined his parents in London.” He eventually developed in to one of the most important artist of his time, though you don’t directly learn about him when studying art history, or at least I didn’t. He wasn’t only interested in art but also the literary world. He published novels and plays, which had a “profound impact on his later paintings”. His art was realistic in the beginning and gradually became more loose and sketchy.
His four paintings Four Scenes in Search of Characters are small loosely painted pieces that have an interesting background. The images are of a tropical scene with a volcano; a formal interior with dining room set; two windows one wide open and the other closed; and an interior resembling a lady’s room with pink and green and a dressing table in the center of the picture. The pictures were first exhibited at a theatrical exhibition held in the Contemporary Picture Galleries. Yeats’s title echoes Pirandello’s 1921 play Six Characters in Search of an Author. This not a revelation that Yeats these interests; he came from, according to information on a label in the National Library where his brother W.B. Yeats has an exhibition, “the single most artistic family in twentieth century Ireland.” This is true; and we can see this passion and love of each brother’s subjects in lines in their artworks.
My journey is complete. I check with the visitor services lady regarding additional information about Jack B. Yeats, and she finds text on him in two gallery books. He is my new crush. I write down information on him as if I’m writing a paper on him—which I’m not, but I want to have his art soak into my skin. In the book store I am shown the five books on him, all too expensive. Indecisive, I pick up a copy of National Gallery of Ireland Companion Guide and pay for it at the register (money that I could have used for lunch). Yes, art is so often my companion.
I will leave you now with the poem “Not My Best Side” by U.A. Fanthorpe about Paollo Uccello’s painting St. George and the Dragon found in the National Gallery.
I
Not my best side, I’m afraid.
The artist didn’t give me a chance to
Pose properly, and as you see,
Poor chap, he had this obsession with
Triangles, so he left off two of my
Feet. I didn’t comment at the time
(What after all, are two feet
To a monster?) . . .
II
It’s hard for a girl to be sure if
She wants to be rescued. I mean, I quite
Took to the dragon. It’s nice to be
Liked, if you know what I mean . . .
III
I have diplomas in Dragon
Management and Virgin Reclamation.
My horse is the latest model, with
Automatic transmission and built-in
Obsolescence. My spear is custom-built . . .