Ireland's Art, Ireland's History

Until recently little attention was paid to the role of art in constructing the "story" of the

Irish nation. This wide-ranging study of Irish pictures and sculpture opens up the subject by

providing a fresh interdisciplinary approach. Each work is analyzed beyond its strictly art

historical relevance. A deeper investigation into the context in which a work was produced

reveals much about the aspirations and ideological ambitions of artists, those commissioning

works, and the viewing public. The study of such diverse topics as the representation of the

Irish peasant, the behind-the-scenes tensions in setting up a national gallery for Ireland, the

erecting of political monuments, Church art, West of Ireland landscape painting, and the difference

in nationalistic fervor among artists as diverse as Albert G. Power and Jack B. Yeats unveil

fascinating testimony about Ireland's collective national "needs" and its constructs of identity.