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The
Greening of the BAC
In
surveying Irish painting, the Center for British Art departs from
its mandate -- and confronts a thorny bit of British history.
November
1997
by Mark Alden Branch '86
As the
home of the most comprehensive collection of British paintings,
prints, drawings, and artifacts outside Great Britain,
Yale's Center for British Art has since its founding, in 1977, provided
a window on 500 years of British history. But this fall, the Center
makes an unprecedented leap across the Irish Sea, devoting its third-floor
galleries to an exhibition of Irish paintings from the 19th and
20th centuries.
If visitors
expect the BAC to tactfully avoid politics in such an exhibit, they
are in for a surprise as soon as they step off the elevator. At
the entrance to the show, BAC director Patrick McCaughey has placed
a rare copy of a proclamation of Irish independence from the Easter
Uprising of 1916. The document serves as a kind of manifesto for
the show, which argues that Ireland's paintings must be seen through
the lens of the nation's history, and particularly its long struggle
with the British.
The exhibition,
titled "Irish Paintings from the Collection of Brian P. Burns,"
is a much-expanded version of a show that originated at Boston College
last year and has since traveled to Dublin. The paintings were assembled
over a 25-year period by Irish-American businessman and art collector
Brian P. Burns. McCaughey selected an additional 21 paintings from
Burns's collection to complement the 49 in the original show and
introduced a survey of Irish books and manuscripts that help place
the paintings in context.
McCaughey,
who came to the BAC from the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, was
born in Belfast, and he brings to the exhibit a deeply personal
view of Irish history and art. "England's history is inextricable
from Ireland's," he says. "The shameful part of English history
is the heroic part of Irish history, and this opposition has produced
great literature and a great art."
The exhibit
has been hung as a narrative of the development of Ireland's national
identity. The first room offers the stark contrasts of British rule
in the 19th century: An 1845 painting of a lavish party of Anglo-Irish
aristocrats faces an image of a poor tenant farmer across the room,
while documents about the potato famine are displayed in a case
between them. Later rooms show the evolution of Irish painting as
a response to national circumstance. A number of Irish painters
decamped to Europe in the late 19th century, exchanging influences
with masters there; others found success in Britain.
Gradually,
the paintings begin to show signs of an Irish cultural confidence,
represented in portraits, interiors, and especially in landscapes.
"You begin to see these rural landscapes that are intended to represent
the 'true Ireland': untouched by the impact of the British," says
McCaughey. The climax of the show is a room housing 12 paintings
by Jack B. Yeats, Ireland's greatest painter and the brother of
William Butler Yeats. In this artist's work, McCaughey sees a cultural
triumph for Ireland in the way the works transcend politics. "Yeats's
paintings have no particular text, just the lore and life of Ireland."
For the
printed matter the BAC added to the show, Curator of Rare Books
and Archives Elisabeth Fairman turned to the Center's own collections,
to Sterling and Beinecke Libraries, and to Boston College's John
J. Burns Library. The material includes a commemorative newspaper
edition marking the death of revolutionary leader Michael Collins
and manuscripts from William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, and others.
Artifacts such as period cartoons from Punch illustrate the British
reaction to the potato famine.
To generate
interest in this unorthodox undertaking for the Center, McCaughey
has turned the Center into a virtual Irish cultural center, at least
for the fall. Related programs include films, lectures, readings,
and even step dancing. (To a degree, the promotion reflects the
director's hope that the show's momentum will carry the BAC's loyalists
through the year-long closing that will begin in January to allow
for replacement of the Center's roof.)
Devoting
such attention to the Irish struggle for independence from the very
people whose culture the Center most celebrates is a bold move,
particularly in light of the life-long enthusiasm for all things
British shown by Paul Mellon '29, the Center's founder and principal
benefactor. McCaughey says he has spoken to Mellon about the exhibition,
and reports that "he thought it was a great idea. But remember,
his grandfather, Thomas Mellon, came here from Ireland." 
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