Taken from my piece, from a year ago, December 2012… If you are reading this on laptop/desktop & it’s split into 3 columns, just hit the title bar above. Deep in the heart of the 5th, among the buildings of the Sorbonne, is the wonderful Musée de Cluny, also called the Musée national du Moyen… Read More Musée Cluny – Musée du Moyen Age, & revisiting received ideas on Medievel v Renassiance.
There’s been quite a lot of response to the 40-Foot Christmas swim pictures, so I thought I’d share this extraordinary video, from the incredible long hot month of July here, our own heat wave. It’s become a faint memory, indeed seems more like a dream now, that magical month when we lay in the parks… Read More Stunning B&W short film- Diving into the River and Dublin Canal Basins. Unmissable.
Some pictures from the famous Forty Foot swim, from the recent Christmas Day swim. Oh, if you’re reading this on a desktop or laptop, don’t forget to hit the Title line above, to expand text and pictures! This is a real tradition around where i grew up in Dun Laoghaire and the whole surrounding area,… Read More Pictures from the Forty Foot swim, Christmas Day in Sandycove.
Look at this. I thought you’d enjoy these wonderful mural paintings. For those who do not know them they’re in a tiny chapel called the Oratory, which is the last remaining survivor of the old Dominican Convent in Dun Laoghaire, (the town just south of Dublin where I grew up). Most of the convent… Read More The Oratory Chapel by Sister Concepta Lynch, old Domincan Convent, Dun Laoghaire (Co Dublin)
To mark the passing of Peter O’Toole at the weekend, here’s a wonderful recording from the BBC, way back in 1963, when O’Toole was playing Hamlet at the national Theater in London, under the direction of Lawrence Olivier. Under discussion among other topics, are interpretations of Shakespeare tragedy, especially the ghost of his dead father;… Read More Peter O’Toole and Orson Wells on BBC 1963. (Press this title to expand column & post)
Had to show you this. It’s what is known as a diorama of course, showing the vast sweep of the Grand Canyon. I spotted it recently in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, (where they really go in for large, highly detailed model-making in a big way. You’ll see that the clever artists who made… Read More Panoramas; Dioramas and Tableau. Munich to Moscow, Dublin to the USA.
Look at this. Many of you will already know it. Its full title is either Descent of the Dammed into Hell, more simply The Fall of the Dammed; or even the Fall of the Rebel Angels. Regardless of what you choose to call it, it was painted around by 1620, by Flemish artist Peter Paul… Read More Falling into Hell. Peter Paul Rubens at the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
Last afternoon in Munich, No comment… (cannot trust myself) Leaving Munich, last night, still no comment… Goodbye Munich. I shall miss you. Excuse the student-style photo blur above. It just felt right. Next post, a wonder-painting, a masterpiece of Flemish Baroque. With a few… Read More Leaving Munich… with no comments.
Dublin is blessed to have a number of outstanding historic libraries, jammed with literary and scholastic treasures hidden within. The superb (or rather sublime) Long Room of Trinity College, with its wonderful collection of sculpture busts, is only the best known one. (Archbishop Narcissus) Marsh’s Library, established 1701 at Saint Patrick’s cathedral is of course… Read More Dublin’s Historic Libraries & the Edmund Worth collection, at Dr Steevens’ Hospital.
To mark the screening of the RTE documentary on Eileen Gray next Tuesday and the publication of an important new book on Gray’s Life and work by design historian Jennifer Gough, we re-visit this personal appraisal, written during October 2013 in response to the Eileen Grey retrospective at IMMA… The Irish Museum of Modern Art, recently… Read More Eileen Gray at IMMA, thoughts & reflections.
Arran Q Henderson 