An exhibition at Canvas Belfast of a collection of paintings inspired by Irish Poets and their remarkable insights about the countryside around us.
Our Land
Acrylic on Canvas
1200 x 1200
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Like May Morton and John Hewitt, Patrick Kavanagh imbues the land, the soil, the growth with human personality as he writes, 'You clogged the feet of my boyhood’. His words are tactile, get between your nails and dirty your palms, just as in this painters mark making. He was a farmer come poet and his memories of the fields seem bitter sweet. Amidst the verses of his poem ‘Stony Grey Soil’ he gives the working of the soil a voice and from our contemporary perspective, a warning;
'O green-life-conquering plough!’
Patrick Kavenagh, An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry, (Wes Davis Ed) p69, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
The Sound of Paint
Acrylic on Canvas
2000 x 1000
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Alice Milligan's two-part poem 'On the Cliff' with its lovely written and visual shift mid poem of ocean at sea level, 'roaring', to as heard on the upper slopes, its 'murmur' inspired this personal memory of the Fair Head. This diptych, in the spirit of the poem, juxtaposes in the first canvas the 'noise' of thick splattered, squelching, torn, bruised and battered paint with the scraped thin surfaces and spread residues of the second canvas.
Poetry by Women in Ireland - A Critical Anthology 1870 - 1970 (Lucy Collins Ed) p164, Liverpool University Press.
Weight of Light
Acrylic on Canvas
1200 x 1200
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Reflecting on a completed painting, a simple line can sometimes sum it up. John Hewitt’s poem the 'Glen of Light' has such a line for this painting, where in extolling the sense of openness and light suggested in the title, he observes the airy valley void has 'body palpable'.
John Hewitt, The Collected Poems of John Hewit (Frank Ormsby Ed) p231, The Blackstaff Press, Belfast.
Cloud or Cliff
Acrylic on Canvas
1200 x 1200
Twentieth-century pioneers of modernism in art, architecture, and poetry broke with tradition, using their understanding of the past to innovate. They knew what to change. Subsequent artists, influenced by a purer form of modernism, often disregarded historical context, impacting architecture, particularly in older settlements. Modernism shifted art’s focus to marks, processes, and techniques, leading to abstraction.
Later generations began to question what was lost in this pursuit of the new, leading to a synthesis of modernism with earlier traditions. Richard Diebenkorn exemplified this shift by moving from abstraction to a series of paintings depicting West Coast suburbia in the 1960s, only to return to abstract grid-like works later.
John Montague’s poem ‘The Family Piano’ reflects this fracturing, with its chorus ‘My cousin is smashing the piano’ evoking memories of past music and performers. The poem’s chaotic conclusion, with a modernist parody of the family dog ‘howling to high heaven: John Cage serenading Stockhausen!’ suggests a richer view of modernism’s evolution. This painting seeks to blend traditional perspectives with a modern sense of abstraction, recognizing both historical context and contemporary innovation.
John Montague, An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry (Wes Davis) p272 - p273, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Boundary Lines
Acrylic on Canvas
1500 x 1500
As you scan the lower slopes of the northeast Antrim Hills, you cannot help but be captivated by the enchanting tapestry of field and fence lines. The darker tones in this painting reflect John Hewitt’s cautionary reflections on his public life, far from ‘this rim of arable that ends in foam.’ He wisely observes:
‘…so many fences stretch between our minds.’
John Hewitt, The Collected Poems of John Hewitt (Frank Ormsby Ed) p310, The Blackstaff Press, Belfast
Field Painting
Acrylic on Canvas
1500 x 1500
This painting echoes a common theme of Irish poets: the field. The enclosures of the mid-1800s, recorded in early mapping, established the tracery-like pattern that drapes the landscape. Patrick Kavanagh's poem ‘Ploughman’ observes how the plough overturns the ‘lea-green’ and ‘paints the meadow brown.’
Patrick Kavenagh, An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry, (Wes Davis Ed) p67, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Art Class
Acrylic on Canvas
1200 x 1200
Our house sits on the edge of the Glens of Antrim, the home territory of poet John Hewitt. In his poem ‘The Glens of Antrim,’ Hewitt elucidates his craft, describing how he has ‘drawn this landscape,’ sometimes beginning with ‘scribbles’ and then ‘drilling’ his pen to reveal the universe of his interest.
In ‘Art Room in a City School,’ Hewitt extends his technical virtuosity by examining the visual artist's landscape toolkit with a ‘loaded paintbrush,’ ‘wrought’ surfaces,‘scissored textures,’ and by exploiting ‘hoarded scraps.’ Thus, in these paintings, Hewitt's work inspires a sanctioning of experimentation and mark-making of all forms—fierce application, scratchings, scrapings, deposition, rubbings, sandings, and slashings.
Sources - John Hewitt - The Glens of Antrim and Art Room in a City School 'The Collected Poems of John Hewitt' - edited by Frank Ormsby P251 and P181
The Kiss
Acrylic on Canvas
1500 x 1500
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William Forbes Marshall, known as ‘The Bard of Tyrone,’ wrote the poem ‘Purple and Gold’ about 19th-century emigration. It contrasts the new life in the American West with the poignancy and separation from memories of the homeland—a common theme for the displaced in 19th-century Ireland and Scotland.
The painting explores the idea of light as hope and space, captured at the top of the painting. This is contrasted with dark and textured elements representing memory at the bottom, an evocation prompted by the lines:
‘And the sun that smites the prairie
Throws a kiss to dark Tyrone.’
William Forbes Marshall, Livin in Drumlister p24, The Blackstaff Press
Poets Shroud
Acrylic on Canvas
1500 x 1500
Louis MacNeice's provides a two part clue to me, how to go about painting and for this I turn to his poem 'Train to Dublin' as my tutor. The first clue is his use of the early twentieth century exploration of a variable viewpoint as captured in the flashing images that pass the train window in quick time.
The second is the quality in his writing of densification of what he calls in the first line of the poem, 'half-thoughts', into as dense a written space as possible. Not catching a moment but many moments in close proximity, in different moods and lights. In that way he captures the racing mind in his poetic net just as the painting seeks to do.
Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems 1925-1948 by Louis MacNeice p83, Faber and Faber 1949.
Rathlin West Light
Acrylic on Canvas
Diptych 3000 x 1500
Sailing along the west coast of Scotland to the home port of Coleraine, the western lighthouse of Rathlin Island was always a reassuring marker of return. Embedded like a stud brooch into the rock face, it was first seen from the sea and later, after docking in the harbour and walking across the island, from land.
Initially, it served as an essential utility with its unique upside-down light arrangement, where the light is unusually positioned at the bottom of the structure. The second view was from the top rooms of the lighthouse, now a visitors’ centre promoting ecological responsibility, overlooking the rocks and the cacophonous noise of the seabird nesting grounds.
This juxtaposition of utility and visitor facility only became apparent to me after discovering Derek Mahon's poem ‘The Automation of the Irish Lights,’ which includes the West Light of Rathlin and offers a perceptive observation on the shift from pure functionality to a focus on visitor experience.
Derek Mahon, The Yellow Book, p54, Gallery Books
Heaven
Acrylic on Canvas
1500 x 1500
One evening at the outset of this project, while sitting with friends, I idly asked if their extensive book collection contained anything about the Irish landscape—how it was worked, framed, farmed, and understood.
During the subsequent search, they found a little pamphlet full of notes called ‘A Green Hill Far Away’ by E. W. Lovell. It was about the wife of the 19th-century Bishop of Derry, Cecil Francis Alexander, who, among many hymns including that of the title of the book, wrote ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful.’
It was the childhood memories evoked by the third verse that caught my attention and inspired the journey of this exhibition, encapsulated in the simple idea of an ephemeral brightness seen across the hilltops:
‘The purple-headed mountains...
The sunset and the morning,
That brightens up the sky…’
Cecil Frances Alexander, A Green Hill Far Away - a life of Mrs C. F. Alexander by E W Lovell, Friends of St Columb's Cathedral.
Life Drawing
Acrylic on Canvas
1200 x 1200
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It has to be remembered that the landscapes I admire, if only from afar were not necessarily always as they appear now. Alice Milligan's poem 'There were trees in Tir Chonaill' (Donegal) laments the cutting down of the forests which blanketed the landscape .There is of course beauty in what she calls the 'bogland lonely' and a haunting quality to the 'nude' profile of the surrounding hills. Perhaps it is that sense of vulnerability that provides the attraction to the painter.
Poetry by Women in Ireland - A Critical Anthology 1870 - 1970 (Lucy Collins Ed) p160 - p161, Liverpool University Press
Blue
Acrylic on Canvas
1000 x 1000
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Richard Kirkland writes that there were in Michael Longley’s estimation three 'energetic spurts' in 20th century Northern Ireland poetry. May Morton was one of a group of poets including John Hewitt responsible for the mid-century spurt. Her poetry imbues the landscape with feminine sensibility, Kirkland calls it an ‘erotically charged delight in the Ulster countryside’. This painting inspired by her poem 'Blue' is one such piece from a remarkable collection called 'Dawn and Afterglow' all the more poignant as it has a poem called 'Sunset off Mull', my other home.
May Morton, Dawn and Afterglow, Quota Press
Richard Kirkland, The Politics of Partition: Poetry and Northern Ireland in the 1940s p219 - p224 in the Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry, (Fran Brearton and Adam Gillis Ed), Oxford University Press.
Palette of the Glens
Acrylic on Canvas
1500 x 1500
Moira O'Neill's ‘Songs of the Glens of Antrim’ (1863-1955) is a heartfelt lament for the glens. Similar to William Forbes Marshall’s memories of home, emigration is the driving force behind the collection, with the pain of separation more easily captured in poetry. ‘Lookin Back’ perhaps conveys a bit of that anguished sentiment, but in a unique way using colour. It is a colour chart poem, intertwining memories of colours into verses of recollection.
For example, in verse one, 'white gulls flying' and 'waves are green'; in verse three, 'roses for miles an' redder than ours' and 'black-eyed gold sunflowers'. The second verse, which inspired this painting, includes 'airy blue' and 'shadows between are blue', contrasting the mountains of the Rockies with those of home.
In the frontispiece of one of the books in the Linenhall Library, a previous owner inserted a newspaper clipping about Moira O'Neill and her travels from Cushendun to Canada and then to Wexford, which includes the wise advice,
‘She was sensible about her talent and she stopped writing when she had no more to say.’
Moira O'Neill, Songs of the Glens of Antrim p56/7
Mark Reading
Acrylic on Canvas
Diptych 2000 x 1000
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John Montague's poem ‘A Lost Tradition’ reflects on how place-names help us navigate our landscapes, yet laments our inability to understand the language and, consequently, the stories they convey.
Painting these landscapes involves more than merely capturing what you see; it also requires understanding what has shaped them. As Montague reminds us:
‘The whole landscape a manuscript.’
John Montague, An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry (Wes Davis) p265 - p266, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
