Brian Crowley discusses Iosagán, a painting by Beatrice Elvery designed to instil nobility in young minds
In her autobiography, Flowering Dusk, the Celtic scholar and writer, Ella Young, described a visit she paid with Maud Gonne and Padraic Colum to Patrick Pearse’s school, Scoil Éanna. She was impressed by the school’s art collection, and in particular by two canvases by Beatrice Elvery:
“The rooms were rich in pictures. There was one woman sheltering many children under a blue mantle – Ireland herself with a splendour of light behind her, and in that splendour the lords of the Faery World, the Gods of Dana, rank on rank, till the brightness hid them. There was one of Christ, a little child in a field of flowers, with his arms outstretched in cross fashion. Small bunnies played about his feet.”
The two paintings she describes were entitled Éire and Iosagán respectively
