Painted in 1775 this is one of the more popular paintings in the collection of The National Gallery of Ireland. Measuring 145 cm by 173 cm and originally called “The Pictorial Conjurer displaying the Whole Art of Optical Deception” the picture is a direct attack on Sir Joshua Reynolds the then president of The Royal Academy.
In 1774 Reynolds in a lecture to the academy at a prize giving ceremony argued the importance of copying not just from nature but from the old masters as well. A year later Hone produced this picture but it was rejected by the academy although it had originally been accepted until a complaint from the artist Angelica Kauffman in which she claimed that she had been represented as a nude in the top left of the picture. This however was really just a ruse and the real complainant was Reynolds. Hone later painted out the nude figures and went on to exhibit the painting at no.70 St. Martins Lane in London where it probable recieved more notice than it might have if it had been exhibited at the academy. This is believed to be the first one man show in Britain. A sketch in oils for the painting is to be seen in The Tate Gallery , London.
This is not the only time that Hone had trouble with the academy over one of his pictures. In 1770 The Royal Academy asked him to make changes to one of his paintings in which a Capuchin Friar while seated at a table could be seen stirring a bowl of punch with a crucifix.
Top picture is the sketch in The Tate Gallery and the bottom is from the book Irish Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland. (see previous post). See also Fra Angelico.
This large heavy book is volume one of a three volume set , volumes 2 and 3 as yet unpublished which are to make up a catalogue of the entire collection of Irish paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland. Running to over 400 pages much of the information contained in this volume has never be published before. With full scale illustrations on almost every second page this is an impressive book and an absolute must have for anyone with an interest in Irish art or any art for that matter. Quite apart from it’s very real value as a guide to Irish art the works shown here give a great insight into the social , political and cultural life of Ireland in the 18th. century.
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At 70 euros in hard back it is excellent value. It may be purchased directly from the gallery or from any good book dealer. Hopefully they will make this available on a computer disc ’though the gallery has not been very foward looking in this manner in the past. Only one video featuring Irish paintings in the gallery has ever been released but this was some years ago and it has not been released on DVD which is a great pity as it is really very good.
The Piping Boy by John Camillus Hone. 1769. (the artists son).
I spent about two years looking at this book in my local book store before buying it the other day. The reason I was hesitant in purchasing it is that as much as 50% of the painting included here have no merit. They seem to have been included simple because they are Irish. Many of the portraits included are not the sort of thing you would want on your wall as the persons portrayed are for the most part not unlike the sort of person that you will see on the streets of any Irish city now. In fact I have to almost force myself to look at them. A nasty vain vacuous breed the lot of them. If you wanted to prove that the Irish were an inferior race then you might well use some of the images in this book as they really are a gallery of throwbacks. This is an excellent book in spite of everything but it’s not a great advert for Irish art nor does it show the Irish as a very attractive race.
