Following the recent conservation of a key Romantic work from the Crawford Art Gallery’s collection, Peter Murray assesses the short-lived career of tragic artist Edward Sheil
Written in 1841 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poem Excelsior!, for many years a staple in anthologies of American verse, recounts the tragic tale of a young man who sets out at night to climb an Alpine peak. Heedless of warnings of avalanches and other dangers, the young man, intent upon his mysterious quest, continues upwards into the mountains, carrying his banner. In the morning, his body is found, half-buried in the ice. This Romantic poem was later set to music by Michael Balfe, and it was probably in this form that it became known to the artist Edward Sheil, whose painting of the same title, completed in Cork in 1857, was inspired, albeit obliquely, by Longfellow’s doomed hero. The newly appointed deputy headmaster of the Cork School of Art, Sheil was just twenty-three years of age when he painted Excelsior! For an artist so young, it was a signal achievement, and remains one of the key works of art in Cork in the 19th century.
