The Irish Face: Redefining the Irish Portrait Fintan Cullen National Portrait Gallery 2004 pp 240 h/b e.45.00 £30.00 ills 78 col/ 80 b/w ISBN 1 85514 290 2 Janet McLean Published by the National Portrait Gallery, London The Irish Face not only concentrates on works in the NPG collection but also encompasses an extensive range of portraits from various public and private collections. Unlike obvious comparisons such as Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin’s pioneering exhibition catalogue Irish Portraits 1660-1860 (1969) and David Piper’s The English Face (1957), Fintan Cullen’s text is structured thematically rather than by medium or timeframe. Cullen sets out to undertake a ‘thematic analysis of types of portrait that are connected with Ireland.’ The chapter headings ‘Defining a national portrait’, ‘Making portraits abroad’, ‘Portraiture and success, ‘Visualising confrontation’ and ‘The modern political portrait’ indicate the breadth of the book’s remit. The main drive of The Irish Face is to make links between the production, patronage and display of portraits associated with Ireland. These links are mapped out with focused case studies that include sections on James Barry’s cultivation of an image as alienated Catholic artist in London, the projected theatricality of actress Peg Woffington, J B Yeats’s creation of an Irish ‘Hall of Fame’ and the cult-like emergence of Lord Edward Fitzgerald keepsake portraits. The book’s interweaving themes are underpinned by a concern with appropriation and ownership. We are guided through fluctuations in the British and Irish Establishments’ readiness to celebrate or commemorate the Irish face, from the British Treasury’s refusal to fund a National Portrait Gallery for Ireland (1872) to the National Gallery of Ireland’s recent dedication of a gallery to national portraits. Cullen delves into the minutes of museum and government meetings, tugs at loose ends and reads between the lines to convey a colourful picture of how certain faces were claimed and denied either for being too Irish or not quite Irish enough. Although The Irish Face concentrates on portraits of celebrated public figures (political, military, ecclesiastic and artistic) it observes how political shifts in the 19th century opened the way for different types of faces to be documented and displayed. There is a sensitive section on Sydney Prior Hall’s reportage sketches for The Graphic depicting the Irish rural poor subpoenaed to the Special Commission on Parnell and Crime (1888-1889). Here Cullen consciously avoids falling back on the well-documented topic of Victorian phrenology to demonstrate how national ‘types’ were represented for political purpose. Throughout the book a broad range of voices can be heard and primary source material is neatly intertwined with art-historical analysis. The text focuses on the 18th and 19th centuries but there are intermittent ventures beyond. Occasionally Cullen discusses contemporary art and popular culture as a means of contextualising the historic. An otherwise illuminating chapter on role-play and the thirst for fame in portraits of Peg Woffington is set up with sweeping references to Andy Warhol, the Big Brother television show, Bono, Liam Neeson, Roy Keane and Sonia O’Sullivan. Such superficial allusions to modern celebrity culture feel forced and give the text an unfortunate fogeyish tone. They could easily have been omitted, particularly as Cullen’s ability to explain complex historical phenomenon in a digestible form is demonstrably acute throughout the book. Overall the book’s thematic approach to art and national identity is liberating. It allows for a lively pace and steers the text away from laborious expositions of politico-historical minutiae. However because the ideas discussed (e.g. honesty, artifice, internalisation, perception, fame, authority and intimacy) are integral to most studies of Western portrait traditions, a tighter chronological narrative would have given the book stronger definition. Despite excellent cross-referencing to signpost and reinforce ideological links, the author’s enthusiasm to make connections may be disorientating for readers with little knowledge of Irish history. For example the twenty-one page introduction alone is illustrated with over a dozen dizzyingly disparate images including; Edward McGuire’s Seamus Heaney (1974); a still from Deborah Warner’s film adaptation of ‘The Last September’ (1999); Marcus Gheeraert the Younger’s Captain Thomas Lee (1594); a Lafayette photograph of Edward VI and Queen Alexandra (1903); and Thomas Robinson’s The Battle of Ballynahinch (1798). The Irish Face is a beautifully illustrated publication with a glorious 158 images for its 240 pages, half of which are in colour. It not only surveys oil paintings but caricatures, engravings, sculptures, reportage sketches, film-stills and doodles, many of which are wonderfully unexpected inclusions. It is perhaps fitting that a book on portraiture can be judged, to some extent, by its cover. Graced with a striking image of James Barry on its dust-jacket, The Irish Face, like this Barry self-portrait, is visually attractive, engaging in tone and leaves you wanting to explore its subject further. Janet McLean is Research Curator for Paintings and Sculpture at the Royal Academy of Arts, London   Goods and Chattels: A Survey of Early Household Inventories in Ireland Jane Fenlon The Heritage Council 2003 p/b €15.00 pp 136 ISBN 0-7557-1778-3 Desmond FitzGerald The study of Irish material culture from the beginning of Ireland’s colonial period during the second half of the 16th century is at last receiving the attention it deserves. Much of Irish architectural history has been concerned with the bones of the buildings, but less attention was given to how they were finished and decorated, and how people lived in them. Maurice Craig, the doyen of the subject used to tell me that he was usually quite unconcerned with interior decoration and the furniture of Ireland’s great houses. Recently Dr Toby Barnard had done much to redress this situation with his recent publications including his latest book, Making the Grand Figure, Lives and Possessions in Ireland, 1641-1770. Articles bringing new light on this subject are now being published more frequently in Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies, The Journal of the Irish Georgian Society and of course the Irish Arts Review. Dr Jane Fenlon’s recent contribution to the field deserves to be better known. She must be congratulated for drawing our attention to the ephemeral world of chattels and movables which decorated the bare walls of castles, fortified houses and residences of the period under review – 1575-1753. Dr Fenlon has made the study of art and patronage of the 16th and 17th centuries in Ireland her personal fiefdom. She obtained her PhD, from Trinity College Dublin on the subject of Patrons and Painters, Ireland 1650-1710 and her pioneering work was the foundation for what Anne Crookshank and I recorded in the opening chapter’s of Ireland’s Painters (2002). Since then she has made a study if a number of important historic buildings for Dúchas, now reincorporates into the Office of Public Works. She has written and publish monographs on Ormonde Castle at Carrick on Suir and Kilkeny Castle, with a publication on Portumna Castle forthcoming. Elsewhere she has worked on historic properties such as Ross Castle, Roscrea Castle, Askeaton and Jigginstown House. Some twenty years ago Dr Fenlon realised that very little was known about the appearance of the interiors of these magnificent buildings and over the years she has been collecting details of inventories, wills and other legal documents and this book is a selection gleaned from some of that material. In her introduction Dr Fenlon discusses the various types of inventories while also making reference to previously published examples. She also indicates some of the pitfalls of interpretation in this type of document. The earliest inventory in the book is that of Maynooth Castle, 1573 and when one views that great bare hulk of a building today one finds it hard to envisage its echoing walls hung with tapestries and arras, its rooms furnished with elaborately upholstered chairs, stools of velvet genre and blew and as was the fashion of the time, the lavishly expensive state beds. One recorded example has a ‘tester of crymosy velvet and cloth of gold’. This collection of inventories shows how important upholstery and textiles were to the taste and fashion of the day. Their sumptuous colours and passementerie must have produced amazing effects. Many of the documents included in the collection are concerned with the patronage of the Restoration Lord Lieutenant of Ireland James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde (1610-88). At Kilkenny Castle and Dunmore House, Ormonde and his wife, the great Butler heiress Elizabeth Oreston, filled the rooms with lavish furnishings, paneling and pictures very much in French taste. Today there are few traces of that grandeur, one Spanish leather armchair in the style of Daniel Marot, a Japanese lacquer chest and some few tapestries and paintings – a ghost of the castle’s former glory. The Royal Hospital, Kilmainham with its elaborate carved chapel and interiors by the French Tabary family represent the finest of 17th-century interiors in Ireland today. Few of the chattels and carvings of the Middle Ages in Ireland survive. The misericords on St Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, some decorative carved 17th-century harps and the so-called Armada table, now at Bunratty Castle give us an indication of the craftsmanship that was to be found in Ireland during these times. In the course of the recent restoration of Barryscourt, Victor Chinnery, an expert on the 17th century and oak furniture, has installed in the great hall there, some cleverly crafted furniture based on a prototype found in Ireland. Now Barryscourt with its hangings, four-poster bed and furnishings really gives us an indication of what these castles were like in earlier times. This book is therefore of signal importance in bringing to us facts about how Ireland’s aristocrats and merchants lived out their daily lives in the context of their surroundings. It also serves to illuminate that world before much more familiar glories of the Georgian and Victorian periods. Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin is an art historian    Medieval Ireland: The Barryscourt Lectures I-X Various Authors Barryscourt Trust Cork, County Council & Gandon Editions 2004 pp 349 h/b €35.00 fully-illustrated ISBN 0946846 308 Mike O’Neill This is a valuable collection of essays for anyone interested in medieval Ireland. The attractive format of the individually published lectures has been retained. The authors include archaeologists, architectural, documentary, economic and settlement historians, historical geographers, and archaeological and painting conservators. The lively nature of medieval Irish studies can perhaps be underlined by the fact that the authors all comfortably move among several of these disciplines. An attractive aspect of these essays is that a number of common themes run through them, often with different perspectives and conclusions. The first part of Tadhg O’Keeffe’s lecture discusses architectural precedents for the tower house. By introducing the ‘new orthodoxy’ that tower houses first appeared in the 14th century and not after 1420, gives O’Keeffe takes opportunity to discuss 13th and 14th- century castle architecture and he includes useful comparative plans. His analysis of the architecture of Barryscourt tower house is thorough, but this reviewer thinks that the planning diagram and accompanying discussion introduces a complicating level of abstraction. The second essay by A F O’Brien provides a detailed but highly readable account of the impact of the Anglo-Normans on Munster within the broader context of Anglo-Norman expansion in Europe. O’Brien is in no doubt that there had been large-scale settlement based on inward migration by settlers from England and Wales. This demographic depth allowed the colony to survive the downturn of the early 14th century and to prosper in the late medieval period. Anyone who has read through the rather laconic observational entries of the Civil Survey (1654-56) which often mention a corn mill or simply a mill will be intrigued by the light shed on the subject of mills and milling provided by Colin Rynne. The reconstructions of various types of mill are wonderfully informative. The discussion of wind-powered mills is accompanied by the depiction of one in the Pacata Hibernica map of Youghal, c.1590. Terence Reeves-Smyth provides a fascinating study of Irish gardens and gardening before Cromwell. He reminds us of Venerable Bede’s statement that the Irish had ‘no lack of vines’, and also of the vegetable origin of many of the dyes needed for illuminated manuscripts. For the medieval period he makes use of the Extents of Irish monastic possessions and the Registrum de Kilmainham which many of us have mined for more prosaic purposes. In the Elizabethan and Stuart periods he discusses the gardens at Trinity College and the Boyle gardens at Youghal and Lismore. The reader can then return to the c.1590 map of Youghal and also enjoy the depiction of a series of knot gardens. Kieran O’Conor examines the evidence for medieval rural settlement in Munster. The disparity between the written evidence and that available to fieldworkers (those who examine and record the standing remains of the past without excavation – a noble breed) is highlighted by his discussion of Inch, near Thurles, Co Tipperary. The remains at Inch today consist of nothing more than a six-metre high motte standing alone in a field. However, the 1303 extent suggests that a hall, chamber, kitchen, larder, fish house, etc. stood beside this motte in that year. O’Conor also discusses the current models for initially-dispersed versus initially-village style settlement patterns in Anglo-Norman Ireland. In other words when were the townlands settled by the English colonists? The ‘new orthodoxy’ in regard to the origin of tower houses mentioned above is robustly rejected by David Sweetman who argues that the Irish tower-house owes its origin to the hall-house, especially those of the 14th century, and that the tower houses post-date the £10 grant of Henry VI in 1429. Sweetman’s valuable essay on the regional variety of tower house construction is informed by his involvement with the archaeological inventory currently being completed. Karina Morton’s essay is concerned with Irish medieval wall painting and includes an interesting section on the techniques of conservation. Morton’s analysis of the almost immediate effects of the application of an external render to medieval buildings is fascinating. Elsewhere, Brian Graham discusses towns in medieval Ireland and raises questions about about the utility of the term ‘monastic town’. The caption for the map on page 305 should read c.1330 rather than c.1130. In addition to providing a useful introduction to the history and architecture of Barryscourt tower house with wonderful photographs and drawings, Dave Pollock contributes an essay on excavations in the bawn and the unexpected discovery of a moat. Finally, Victor Chinnery discusses the reinstatement of a late 16th-century Irish domestic interior which includes a valuable discourse on wall finishes and interior decoration. The Barryscourt Trust and Gandon Editions are to be warmly congratulated for producing this valuable collection of essays. Mike O’Neill is an architectural historian   Joyce in Art: Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes Lilliput Press, Dublin, 2004 pp 415 p/b fully-illustrated €40.00 ISBN 1-84351-052-9 Brian McAvera The Dublin novelist Roddy Doyle recently published a counterblast against the Joyce industry. It didn’t go down well with the critics, but much of what he said was true. Like it or not, Ulysses is the great unread classic. People like it on their bookshelves, even occasionally dip into it, but few outside the academic industry actually read it. When I was at university, studying literature, I came across loads of students armed with synopses and guides to the book, but even there I never met anyone who actually admitted to reading the whole of it. Thirty years later, I can count on the fingers of one hand those people whom I know have actually read it. As for Finnegan’s Wake, even hardened academics frequently admit to never having been able to get through it. Joyce attracts those with a crossword puzzle mentality, and especially polymathic linguists such as Anthony Burgess. As an author, outside of Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist, Joyce is like an enormous pot-pourri, great for dipping into, and, thanks to the academic industry, he has become a tourist icon attached to the Heritage Industry. Joyce In Art, which weighs nearly as much as Ulysses, is itself best thought of as a substantial pot-pourri, rigorously annotated and referenced, though singularly devoid of academic rigour in its logic. Let’s look at the plus points first. Unlike the Americans or the French, both of whom have a long track record in producing exhibitions with accompanying catalogues which exhaustively deal with cultural figures, the Irish have a poor track record in this regard. This book, which accompanies the RHA exhibition of the same name, is a major step forward. As a compendium of artists who have produced work which used Joyce as a point of departure, it is exhaustive and fairly fully referenced, in terms of bibliography, notes and index, all of which take up almost a quarter of the 415 pages. The illustrations are wide-ranging, and much better printed than is usual in academic works of this type. As a source book for artists and academics (the main audience I would think) it’s the kind of book to have handy in the studio or workroom. You can dip into it, and be alternately intrigued or infuriated. The official aim of the book is ‘to show the wealth of artwork created with Joyce in mind, how works of art relate to the writer, and the contribution they—and thus Joyce —make to the history of art’. If one ignores the phrase ‘Joyce in mind’, which implies a sustained relationship between the author and the artist, then the first part of the aim—a demonstration of the wealth of work stimulated, provoked by, or simply using the author as a marketable point of reference—is aptly covered. However Ms Hayes wants to have her cake and eat it too. Whilst acknowledging in the odd aside that artists are scarcely systematic in their use of Joyce (‘It may lie with Joyce studies to decide whether or not an artist has attempted to understand the main principles of the writer’s creations’) she nevertheless spends an inordinate amount of space trying to indicate direct relationships between author and artist, a pursuit which is so hedged by riders (‘maybe’, ‘might’, ‘possibly’ and so forth) as to be little more than speculation. In her introduction, the author attempts to recontextualise Joyce as a visual artist, and one with Modernist aspirations. Frankly, this was not so. Never mind the fact that Joyce was nearly blind during his later years. Never mind the fact that Joyce lived through the most exciting visual explorations of all time, ranging from Picasso and Cubism through Dada and Surrealism—typically he disliked the ‘aggressive’ Picasso–his tastes in art, and music, were conservative and largely located in the 19th-century sensibility. Even the art historian James Elkin, who writes the conclusion to this book, states that ‘Joyce was, by many measures, an archetypically non-visual artist’ and ‘Joyce is obdurately non-visual, repeatedly blind to visual experience and visual art’. Ms Hayes’s evidence for Joyce as a visual artist rests almost entirely on the ‘fact’ that Joyce ‘had published photographs of driftwood pieces’ (‘Fluviana’) in the literary magazine transition. She claims that this is evidence of Joyce placing the Fluviana into new contexts (i.e. the magazine, which also included photos of Arp’s work); that as such this is the equivalent to Duchamp’s strategy of the Readymade; and that ‘he must be viewed as the creator of the Fluviana as artworks because he clearly wished them to comment on his (other) work’. According to this line of logic we may as well claim Joyce as the instigator of Cubism, atonality and quantum physics. For a start, the photographs were taken by Adolph Fischer. They appear ‘courtesy’ of James Joyce, which merely means that he gave permission for them to be printed. There is no evidence whatsoever that Joyce even asked for them to be published. It’s just as likely that the editors, who were visually literate, put out a call for interesting photographs, or knew that Joyce had some, and asked him for them. As the placement of the photos in relation to Arp’s work would have been a (very logical) editorial decision, it’s a bit much to ascribe any significance re ‘new contexts’ to Joyce. To then claim that this new context is equivalent to Duchamp’s Readymades is to slide into Alice In Wonderland territory. How can one claim that Joyce is a visual artist on the basis that you think that he wanted the photographs to ‘comment on his (other) work’. Since when has the possibility that one might think that photographs commented on one’s work, been a definition of a work of art? This kind of argument runs through the whole book. In the discussion of Alexander Calder and Joyce, which contains no facts whatsoever as to any relationship between them, we are told that Stella Steyn, a friend of Joyce’s family, criticised Joyce for sending his daughter to be taught by Calder. We are then informed that Joyce ‘cannot but’ have seen Calder’s mobiles in Paris, which then prompts the speculation ‘Did [Joyce] provide suitable inspiration for Calder’s work..?’ which in turn leads to the conclusion that ‘Calder pursued a pleasing and playful but carefully constructed lightness that Joyce was achieving in his writing’. Now of what relevance is any of this, other than the opportunity to drag a major artist into the frame? Joyce’s daughter was for a time Calder’s lover, and her interest in modern dance (which is an analogue for Calder’s work at the time) suggests that it is more likely that she found Calder, rather than her father. There is no evidence adduced that Joyce saw Calder’s work, no evidence that Calder was inspired by Joyce, and the notion of Calder as an analogue to Joyce’s work stretches credulity to breaking point. Turn to Andy Warhol, and an ‘argument’ is constructed, on the basis that although there are no records of Warhol even possessing a copy of Ulysses, nevertheless an author called Matt Wrbican ‘suspects that Warhol was aware of his [Joyce’s] work’ [My italics]. ‘Suspects’? Brian McAvera is a playwright and art critic.