Last weekend in Dublin

Our last outing to Dublin was pretty great, art-wise. My absolute favorite was the Chester Beatty Library and their current exhibition of paintings. I was super excited about the entire collection and wish we had had more time to see everything they had on display.

My favorite items in the collection were definitely the paintings. The most well known of the paintings was Breton's The Gleaners. Painted in 1854, it depicts villagers from Courrières, where Breton was born, gathering the leftovers from the harvest in the fields under supervision. It's an oil painting and some of the figures are of people he knew, including his wife and some children from the village. Breton uses atmospheric perspective with the figures in the front being clear and crisp, paying particular attention to the highlighted neck of his wife, while the recognizable church in the background is soft and fuzzy.

 Fromentin's Falcon Hunt ('Algeria Remembered'), painted in 1874, is also in the Beatty collection. Compared to the Breton, the brush strokes are looser, not as crisp. A rework of an earlier painting, it clearly illustrates Fromentin's memories of traveling in northern Africa as a youth. The focus of the painting, despite the title, is the men on horseback, while the actual hunting and birds takes a back seat.

 

Jean-Léon Gérôme's Guards at the Door of a Tomb is probably the painting I spent the most time looking at. Considered one of the best of the Orientalist movement, most of his paintings are set in the near east, in Egypt. He used thin layers of paint to build up to highly realistic compositions. One of the most noticeable focal points is the four hand prints on the stark white wall, said to be the bloody hand prints of the faithful. I spent a good time examining the faces of the guards. They are so realistic they could have been a photograph. 

 

Butler Gallery, Kilkenny

This week was exciting! We actually got to see art! In Kilkenny, we went to the Butler Gallery in Kilkenny Castle to see Magnhild Opdøl's current show, Point of No Return.

One of my favorite pieces in the show, Invitation to Love, is a mountain of 299 pink cardboard doughnut boxes. The educational director explained that Opdøl drew inspiration from the tv show Twin Peaks. All the boxes were specifically ordered from the US and are a comment on consumerism. Our guide talked about how the artist would eat all these doughnuts while she put the show together, feeling a sense of shame as she tried to hide the boxes in the trash so the neighbors wouldn't see. Along with the main instillation of the 299 boxes, there was a single framed one, unfolded and laid flat in the frame entitled Pilot. It's laid out and lit like a blueprint.

Another of my favorites from the show, The Necessary Lie, is a  bronze casting of 54 doughnuts on hand crafted wooden and glass tables. Casting doughnuts in bronze makes something temporary into something permanent and lasting. Coupled with the lambda prints of enlarged photographs of abandoned buildings being overtaken by nature, it is an interesting contrast of permanent becoming impermanent and impermanent being immortalized.

Our other stop for the day was St. Canice's Cathedral. Built in the 6th century as an ecclesiastical compound, Kilkenny was named after the church. Services have been held at St. Canice's for the past 800 years. The oldest part of the compound is the Round Tower, and is one of only two round towers that the public are allowed to climb in Ireland.

 

Museum Project

Mission

As one of the most well known movements in the art world, the Renaissance overshadows the rest of the art world. Mannerism emerged out of the Renaissance, with it’s own unique style and artists. My aim is to bring mannerist works out of the shadow and introduce those who might not have recognized Mannerism for what it is.  Comprising of works ranging from the end of the high Renaissance to the early 17^th century, Mannerism and its sophistication and artificial ideals of the human figure is something not to be overlooked.

 Madonna of the Long Neck, Parmigianino, 1535-40

Publicity

Admission is free, but donations are requested for guided tours. Sponsors would help support the museum, and allowed to advertise in the catalogue and be sold in a café or concessions stand associated with my museum. The café/concessions will generate revenue, but will not be the main source of income. A gift shop will sell trinkets, prints and postcards of the art in the museum, the aforementioned catalogue, and other odds and ends, ideally supporting local craftspeople.

Advertising would be done with television and radio commercials, fliers and postcard mailers. There will be fundraising events, including back-tie masquerade type parties for the more generous patrons, as well as more down to earth carnival style events geared towards families and schools.

Staff will include an Education Director in charge of school groups and the like, 3 volunteer tour guides knowledgeable of Mannerism and the periods before and after, retail workers, and maintenance workers with experience in handling art and knowledgeable in the workings of a museum or gallery. There will be a security specialist in every room.  Gardeners will be employed to keep the gardens in order.

Collection

The museum will display mostly mannerist paintings, but there will be sculpture as well. The collection will be divided by chronology and by medium, starting with mannerist works emerging from the Renaissance, and continuing through to the Baroque.  

Permanent Collection:

Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (1490)Leda and the Swan (1507/8)

Fiorentino’s Deposition (1521) and Moses Defending the Daughters of Jethro (1523)

 Pontormo’s Deposition from the Cross(1525-28) and Verumnus and Pomona (1520/21)

Other permanent collection artists include Raphael's Transfiguration (1520), Parmigianino's Madonna of the Long Neck (1535-40), Sarto's Madonna of the Harpies (1517), Correggio's Ganymede Abducted by the Eagle(1531-32), Giambologna's Rape of the Sabine Women (1574-82), Baccio Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus (1534), Cellini's Perseus with the Head of Medusa (1545). 

Design

Interior: The works will displayed on high walls painted a stark white, lit from above. Visitors are welcome to wander through the exhibits freely, with low barriers with silent alarms to protect the works. Large openings will keep the rooms open and make flow from one room to the next easy.  Benches will be placed in the middle of the rooms to allow for rest and contemplation of the works.

Exterior: The building, from the outside, will be styled after the Villa Medici in Rome, Italy. There is an English garden in the back, modeled after the Borghese gardens, also in Rome. 

Ring of Kerry

Thursday and the weekend trip have been by far my favorite field trip so far! Even the bus ride to Killarney was awesome.

Our stop in Lismore was wonderful. In Millennium Park, just opposite the Cultural Center, is full of water features and several sculptures.

 The one that stood out to me was the carving of St. Carthage. It looks to be carved out of a single tree with the figure of the saint fully released from the wood at the top of the monument. This is a sculpture in-the-round, with all sides finished.

The bottom portion of the trunk is carved in low relief with Celtic symbols. The only artist's name I could find in researching the monument was Nancy Hemming, but I think she only took a photo and sold the image to companies like posters.com and other art print sellers. St. Carthage is the patron saint of both the Catholic and Protestant churches in Lismore, so he deservedly holds a place in the town's focal point of Millennium Park.














 When we finally reached Killarney, instead of going strait to the hotel, we made a stop at Ross Castle. Built in the late 15th century by the O'Donoghue clan, it was one of the last castles to fall to Cromwell's forces during the Irish Confederate War.

It was said that the only way the castle could be taken was by water, and that's where Cromwell attacked from. The flotilla on Lough Leane unnerved the defenders and they surrendered.    

One of our last stops before leaving Killarney on Saturday was St. Mary's cathedral, built in the 19th century. It's a Gothic Revival church, constructed in the familiar shape of a cross by Augustus Welby Pugin. Most consider it one of the best and most notable Gothic Revival churches in Ireland. Unlike most cathedrals in Ireland and the rest of Europe, St. Mary's was built in a field instead of in the center of the town. An interesting point about the construction was that building was suspended during the Great Famine. The finished portions of the building were used as a shelter for the sick and dying from the area.

It contains all the elements we've talked about in class: pointed arch windows, small buttresses along the sides for stability, a rose window on the end of the transept, along with plenty of stained glass.

Enniscorthy Field Trip

Last Tuesday, we all went as one big group to Enniscorthy to see the Rebellion of 1798 Visitor's Center, the site of the Battle of Vinegar Hill, and Johnstown Castle.

The visitor's center is pretty neat. The exhibit on the 1798 Rebellion is very well done, and very informative. The exhibit is very interactive, though some of the projections are slightly creepy. The guide was very well informed and kinda cute. The exhibit goes through the length of the Rebellion, but the main focus is the Battle of Vinegar Hill.

 

The narrative shows a small slice of the story of one 'Croppy Boy' and how he lost his little sister and mother in the confusion of the battle and in the end lost his own life. The way the story is told puts you directly in the middle of the battle, and with the projections make it more personal, intentionally pulling on your heartstrings.

After the visitors center, we took a short busride up to the actual site of the Battle of Vinegar Hill. Called "The Longest Day", June 21, was just a few days before we visited. Our guides led us up and did a small reenactment using student volunteers to show the logistics of how the battle happened. There were some 15,000 men, women, and children, mostly civilians, on the hill at the time of the battle, while the men only had pikes to protect themselves and their families. The only true defensive building was a round tower where they kept prisoners. The memories of what happened in and around that tower is a dark spot as the rebels tortured and slaughtered their enemies without mercy. 
















From the top of the hill, you can see all of Enniscorthy below, which makes it easy to see why the rebels chose this spot, but as the British troops were better equipped with muskets and trained how to use them, it was a major victory for them.

To balance out the violence and emotion of the exhibit at the visitors center and Vinegar Hill, we took a little time at Johnstown Castle. The Gorgan Morgan family had the castle built between 1810 and 1855, incorporating an already existing castle that had been there. It was given to the Irish government in 1945 and is now used for weddings and other very special events. Surrounding the castle is a very peaceful gardens with exotic flora as well as an agricultural center that is worked by the Department of Agriculture.


   

Even though I've been to Waterford before, coming back is like coming for the first time. I love how easy it is to get from the WIT dorms down to the quay and the rest of town. The town itself is easy to get around in and the waterfront is beautiful. Every time we go anywhere on the bus, my breath always catches when we come back along the quay. I'm a little surprised at how early everything closes. I'm so used to everything staying open until 8 or 9 o'clock, but here, things close around 6 pm, and on weekdays, even the pubs (which stay open a bit later) are almost deserted.

One of the only memories I have of my first time is a vase at the Crystal factory. I remember a vase that one of the engravers was working on. It was far from one of Waterford's traditional patterns, having a skeleton and spiderwebs. There was a similar vase in the showroom, only it was a tarantula and cost over --> €1000. Being a 3D major, I found the entire factory tour beyond interesting, and would love to apply for the apprentice program, if the whole grad school thing doesn't pan out.

Woodstock Gardens was lovely. I've never experienced the smell of a pure rose before. I've only had experience with hybrids. The smells are completely different! 

The most interesting thing I learned at Woodstock was how the path widths were determined. Closer to the house, the paths were two meters wide, so two women could walk together with their giant skirts without a chaperone. Further up, the paths were smaller so it was only wide enough for a lady and her chaperone. 

Tintern Abbey was a surprise to me. When I heard that we were going, I was slightly confused, because I could have sworn that Tintern Abbey was in Wales, not Ireland! I had no idea there was a Tintern Abbey in Ireland. It's smaller than it's Welsh counterpart, but just as beautiful. 

I made my way up to the old graveyard, and was slightly surprised to see some relatively new graves mixed in with the graves so old you couldn't read the headstones easily.

My absolute favorite place we visited this first weekend was the Hook Lighthouse. I love lighthouses to begin with, but the setting where the Hook is located is stunning! The round tower lighthouse is handsome enough on it's own, but it's surroundings make the whole thing breathtaking. The Hook Head Lighthouse is one of the oldest lighthouses in the world, and the oldest working lighthouse in Ireland. The waters around the Hook Peninsula were and still are extremely dangerous. Our guide informed us that the week before we visited, three fishermen were lost in the area. 

How could you not be absolutely taken with that sight? I was able to get some amazing pictures of the Irish Sea going out on the cliffs. Several of the guys on the trip saw a couple seals bobbing out in the surf, but I missed them. According to the website, the Hook is a wonderful place to whale watch when they are migrating. 

Hello all! I'm from Dalton, Georgia, I'm 24 years old, and I just graduated with my BFA in 3D studio art from Georgia Southern.

I chose to study in Waterford this summer for several reasons. First, it's just a hop, skip and a jump away from what my family is calling my 'next great adventure': going to grad school in London. Second, I've always had a soft spot for the Emerald Isle. As cliche as it is, I'm proud of my heritage and it's such a magnificently beautiful place. Lastly, and I know this is going to sound like MAJOR brown-nosing, but I really enjoy JB's classes (despite my less than stellar performance in previous semesters).

I'm excited about traveling again. I was lucky enough to get a chance to travel abroad in high school, and I'm afraid it's become an addiction. To narrow it down to a more specific point, I'm excited to see Ireland again, through older, more focused eyes. I missed so much my first time around, being too young and overwhelmed to really take in everything I saw. The one thing I am most excited about, that makes my breath catch, is the fact that, when the program ends, I will not be returning with everyone else.

As excited as I am about all of this, I am also filled with trepidation. I am absolutely terrified of taking such big steps on my own. I'll be flying by myself for the first time. I'll be moving to a new country. I'll be working on (and paying for) a master's degree. I'll be 4000 miles away from my family. If I fall flat on my face and fail miserably, the only person that will be there to pick me up is me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning on failing miserably, but that little niggle is in the back of my mind.

This trip, this last hoorah, this whatever you want to call it, is singularly the most exciting and terrifying thing I've ever done. This trip is the first of many big steps.

Cheers,
Meryl