John Turpin looks at the social and cultural aspirations of the Dublin Society Drawing Schools illustrated by some of its successful alumni
What do we see when we look at a painting? We may have thought that when Rene Magritte produced his painting of a pipe, famously overlaid with the words ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’, we had finally learned to differentiate between the painting and the thing it appears to represent. Life is never that simple. The paintings of Mollie Douthit ask us to re-examine the question. So what is a painting? The novelist Ali Smith, shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize raises issues about the limitations of the novel as an art form. She believes that a painting on the other hand is a ‘perfect narrative structure’.
The new Lexicon is a worthy member of Dublin’s distinguished group of public libraires, writes James Howley in his appraisal of the controversial new building.
Woven from original designs by Peter Paul Rubens, the Decius Mus tapestries have been reinstalled in Kilkenny Castle following major conservation in Madrid, writes Jane Fenlon
It is the implication of something beyond a simple landscape that makes Martin Gale’s art so compelling, writes Alison FitzGerald as his exhibition continues at Taylor Galleries, Dublin