‘The Capuchin Annual’ (1937-39) / Review and Correspondence Volume

Page 1

A Brilliant Irish Artist Features of the Capuchin Annual IN a very trenchant article about Ireland and the rest of the Celtic world, in the 1937 issue of The Capuchin Annual, the famous novelist, Mr. Compton Mackenzie, expresses opinions which arouse both pleasure and fury. He believes that Ireland has a special mission in the modern world. That mission is to maintain and restore human liberty. He has read Irish novels, articles, histories; he has listened to broadcasts, "... and in not one of them may be found either a clear statement of the inspiration behind the Irish struggle for freedom or any vision of Ireland's part in moulding the future of the world." His concluding paragraphs are equally provocative. He writes that "it is an incontrovertible fact that in spite of Mr. de Valera's speeches at Geneva, in spite of Irish ambassadors in Paris and Berlin, in spite of all the trappings of nationality which the Irish Free State has assumed, Ireland is not yet any better understood as a national entity in Europe than she is in England..." The alleged fact may not appear so incontrovertible to some observers who often discover that a Frenchman or a German know much more of Ireland than our next-door neighbour, the Englishman. One must agree, however, that the article is brilliant. Art And An Artist. The article is but one of five or six score contributions to the eighth number of this well-known Capuchin periodical, which is not so much a book as a library and an art-gallery in miniature. This year's publishing feat is the reproduction in colour of eight paintings, and of many drawings, by the Irish artist, Mr. Seán O'Sullivan, R.H.A. Included in this gallery is the fine portrait of Mr. de Valera, and a new portrait of Matt Talbot, a striking study which combines sheer human ordinariness with sanctity. It is so good that one is tempted to say that the portrait is not an illustration for the symposium of essays which follow, but that the essays are lines to a portrait. The essays are by Father Canice, O.M.Cap.; Denis Barry and Francis MacManus. Besides the art of Mr. O'Sullivan in particular, Art in general receives full treatment in another symposium. The bone of contention is a rigorously reasoned article by Roibeard O Farachain on the scholastic notion of art. The comments, which contain some fierce hitting, are by such noted men as Frank Sheed, Eric Gill, Professor Stockley, Father M. C. D'Arcy, S.J., and many others. A problem which engages many modern thinkers is considerably clarified. The Abbey Theatre of many years ago is revealed in a memorable humorous pastiche entitled "Abbey Interlude" from the pen of Mr. Gabriel Fallon. He recalls his first years on the stage and in the green room of that famous theatre, about which no more delightful thing has been written "from the inside." The incidental portraits are sometimes gentle, sometimes acid, always incisive. For example, Mr. Lennox Robinson, "who wore a very distinguished sneer," is pictu…