A Concise History of Irish Art

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The continuing and complex evolution of Irish art through three millennia has drawn upon diverse European traditions including Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and Mediterranean sources. Many aspects of it parallel the unhappy history of the Irish people. Yet the richness of this art -- the paintings and sculpture, the illuminated manuscripts, the metalwork, the architecture -- tells a very different story. Artists emerge already familiar in other contexts. Many of the more gifted Irish painters have been forced by circumstances, or persuaded by ambition, to seek a better fortune in London. Two great English narrative painters, William Mulready and Daniel Maclise, were Irish artists; so were George Barret and the academicians James Barry and Nathaniel Hone. Eight years after this book’s first publication, much new information on the history of Irish art has been uncovered, notably on its fine flowering in the eighteenth century. The revised edition, both in its text and illustrations, takes of the insights thus provided. The Celtic Era -- From the Viking Invasion to 1700 -- The Age of Swift -- Ireland Her Own -- Landscape into Art -- The Celtic Revival -- Jack Yeats and The Moderns. Bruce Arnold was born in London and educated at Kingham Hill School, Oxfordshire, and Trinity College, Dublin, where he took a degree in Modern Languages. He is Chief Critic of the Irish Independent, writing about art, theatre, music and politics.