History of Irish Art
Development of Visual Arts in Ireland: Stone Age Architecture, Celtic Metalwork, Illuminated Manuscripts, Painting, Sculpture: 3300 BCE - Present.
Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art - HOMEPAGE

Aerial Photograph of Newgrange
Neolithic Passage Tomb. Now a
UN World Heritage Site.

Irish Visual Arts: 10 Key Steps

1. Newgrange (3300 BCE)

The history of visual arts in Ireland begins with the complex stone carvings discovered at the Neolithic Passage Tomb at Newgrange (Dun Fhearghusa), part of the Bru na Boinne complex in County Meath, built between c.3300-2900 BCE: five centuries before the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

The Gold Brighter Collar or Torc.
(National Museum of Ireland)

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2. Celtic Metalwork and Stone Sculpture (400 BCE - 800 CE)

Unlike Britain and the Continent, Ireland was never colonized by Rome. As a result, Irish Celtic art was neither displaced by Greco-Roman art, nor destroyed in the ensuing "Dark Ages". This led to an unbroken tradition of Celtic culture which retained its own oral historical and mythological traditions, as exemplified in the Lebor Gabála Erenn (Book of Invasions). Examples of Celtic metallurgy from this era include: the La Tène style Petrie Crown, as well as the Broighter Collar. Celtic craftmanship continued to develop throughout the Irish Bronze Age, Iron Age and the early Christian period (c.500-900 CE), producing such masterpieces as the Tara Brooch, the Moylough Belt Shrine, the Ardagh Chalice, and the Derrynaflan Chalice. Famous processional crosses include: Tully Lough Cross and the later 12th century Cross of Cong made for King Turlough O'Connor. Celtic-style monumental art also made its appearance in Ireland during this time. The best surviving example is the Turoe Stone in County Galway.

Detail from the Book of Kells (c.800)
The manuscript exemplifies a number
of La Tene Celtic designs and motifs.

3. Illuminated Manuscripts (c.650-1000)

From the fifth-century CE onwards, Irish art experienced a gradual but significant renaissance, resulting (from 650 CE onwards) in an outburst of Hiberno-Saxon style or Insular art. This cultural renaissance, due largely to Irish Monastic culture initiated by Saint Patrick and the spread of Christianity across Ireland and Britain, led to the creation of a series of illuminated Christian manuscripts, notably the Books of Durrow (c.650) and Kells (c.800).

Celtic High Cross at Dysert

4. High Cross Sculpture (c.750-1150)

Another type of religious art sponsored by the Irish Church was sculpture. During the period 750-1150, Irish sculptors working within monasteries, created a series of Celtic High Cross Sculptures which constitute the most significant free-standing sculpture produced between the collapse of the Roman Empire (c.450) and the beginning of the Italian Renaissance (c.1450). This High Cross sculpture represents Ireland's fourth major contribution to the history of Western Art.

The period 1200-1700 witnessed nothing but political subjugation, unrest and poverty throughout Ireland. As a result, Irish medieval art underwent five centuries of stagnation.

Detail from Jupiter and Juno on
Mount Ida, by Irish Historical Artist
James Barry.

5. The Growth of Art Institutions & Education (c.1730-1830)

Increased prosperity during the early eighteenth century led to the formation of a number of new cultural institutions, such as the Royal Dublin Society (founded 1731) and the Royal Irish Academy (founded 1785). Meanwhile, Irish painters like George Barret (1732-84) and James Barry (1741-1806) began to emerge.

These artistic developments continued into the nineteenth century with the establishment of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in 1823, and the expansion of the Royal Dublin Society (founded 1731) the Royal Irish Academy, and the Crawford College of Art, all of which helped to stimulate the fine art infrastructure in Ireland, especially for visual arts like painting.

Apple Gathering (1883) by Irish
Impressionist Walter Osborne, one
of the great Irish landscape artists.

6. Irish Artists Emigrate (c.1830-1900)

Even so, patronage of the arts in the nineteenth century remained scarce and London - with its vastly larger art market, its art studios and career potential - was still the Mecca for talented Irish painters and sculptors. Among such emigrant artists, were the sculptors John Foley (1818-74), John Lawlor (1820-1901) and Samuel Lynn (1834-76), as well as the portraitist and historical artist Daniel Maclise (1806-70) and the watercolourist Francis Danby (1793-1861). Later, they were followed to London by William Orpen, perhaps the greatest of all Irish portrait artists, while others - such as Walter Osborne (1859–1903), Roderic O'Conor (1860–1940), Norman Garstin (1847-1926) and William Leech (1881-1968) - spent long periods in France absorbing the plein-air painting methods of the Impressionists and other styles of French art. For more about outdoor works, see Plein-Air Painting in Ireland.

Geneva Window (1929)
(Stained Glass) by Harry Clarke.

7. The Growth of Indigenous Art (c.1900-40)

Increased educational resources - in particular the stirling efforts of the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and the Crawford - as well as increased state patronage (plus patronage from art collectors like Hugh Lane) led to the appearance of a new generation of indigenous Irish artists in the early 20th century, such as Sean Keating, James Sleator, Leo Whelan, and Maurice MacGonigal. This group, together with returning emigrant sculptors like John Foley, painters like the Irish genre painter Richard Thoman Moynan (1856-1906), the landscape artist Paul Henry, the expressionist Jack B Yeats (1871-1957), as well as the portraitist William Orpen (1878-1931) who returned regularly to teach at the National College of Art and Design, formed the nucleus of an active corps of local artists. To these, must be added a younger generation of more internationally minded Irish painters, including Mary Swanzy (1882-1978), Mainie Jellett (1897-1944) and Evie Hone (1894-1955), who introduced Cubism and other abstract art forms to Ireland during this time, forming the avant-garde Society of Dublin Painters in the process.

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Their example was later followed by the brilliant Francophile Louis le Brocquy (b.1916) and the modern colourist William Crozier (b.1930). There were fewer creative opportunities in Irish sculpture. John Foley (1818-74) and later Albert Power (1881-1945) and Seamus Murphy (1907-75) were fully occupied with traditional statues and busts of eminent people of the day, rather than individual creativity. However, Irish stained glass art and crafts blossomed, due largely to the creative efforts of Harry Clarke, Evie Hone and Sarah Purser, and partly to the Celtic Revival.

8. The Development of Modern Irish Art (c.1940-80)

The dreary 1940s and the post-war years witnessed a creative as well as a material decline in Irish visual art. Not only was patronage for the arts scarce, but the Irish artistic establishment itself, represented by the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), began to stagnate, and was challenged by modernists like the abstract painter Norah McGuinness (1901-1980) and others who duly founded the Irish Exhibition of Living Art (IELA) as a modern 'alternative' showcase for Irish painting deemed inappropriate to the RHA. Supported by artists like Patrick Scott (b.1921), Tony O'Malley (1913-2003), Camille Souter (b.1929) and Barrie Cooke (b.1931), to name but four, the ILEA has broadened its scope to embrace all forms of visual art (including Collage, Installation, Performance, Video and other types of Conceptual art) and crafts like ceramics and stained glass, and continues to flourish to this day.

9. The State of Contemporary Irish Art

Over the last thirty years, indigenous Irish art has continued to flourish creatively, if not materially. Recent prosperity has accelerated this process by providing greater material support. With so many talented contemporary painters, such as Brian Maguire, Francis Tansey, Colin Davidson, Donald Teskey, Felim Egan, Graham Knuttel, John Shinnors, Ken Hamilton, Mark O'Neill; sculptors like Dorothy Cross, Conor Fallon and Rowan Gillespie; and visual artists like James Coleman and Rachel Joynt, to name but a few, Irish art looks fully capable of living up to the cultural heritage of their predecesors, such as James Barry, Jack B Yeats and Francis Bacon. For a summary of Ireland's most successful artists (in terms of their sale prices at auction), see: Most Expensive Irish Paintings.

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10. Government Support For the Arts (1993-2008)

Over the past 15 years or so, financial support for Irish visual arts has grown immeasurably. It is now supported by a wide variety of Irish Arts organizations, such as the Department of Arts and the nationwide Percent For Art Scheme, the Irish Arts Council (An Chomhairle Ealaion), as well as the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Furthermore, Ireland has a number of dynamic artists groups, such as Aosdana and Visual Artists Ireland. And on the international stage, Irish painting and sculpture is promoted by Culture Ireland (Cultur Na hEireann).

• For information about painting and sculpture in Ireland, see: Irish Visual Arts.

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