In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Crossing the Rubicon:Sean Keating's An Allegory
  • Síghle Bhreathnach-Lynch

Click for larger view
View full resolution

Sean Keating (1889-1977), An Allegory, c. 1922, 102 cm. x 130 cm., oil on canvas. © The Artist's Estate. Photo © The National Gallery of Ireland. Reprinted by kind permission of the Keating Estate.

Sean Keating's oil painting An Allegory has come to be regarded as a central work in the career one of Ireland's most important painters of the twentieth century. 1 Now held by the National Gallery of Ireland, Keating's painting was first exhibited at the annual exhibition of the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin in 1925.2 In a review at the time, the eminent Irish art critic Thomas Bodkin called it a "problem painting." Bodkin's review uses such words as "enigmatic" and "indefinable zest," and though he believes the palette to be "too harsh," he comments favorably on the characterization and the sense of draftsmanship. However, neither Bodkin nor other contemporary reviewers made a concerted attempt to interpret its symbolism for readers.3 [End Page 121]

There are a number of reasons why the painting failed to attract significant interpretation. Indeed, what is immediately striking in An Allegory is the lack of any apparent relationship between the six adult figures in the composition. Instead, each figure appears to inhabit quite separate pictorial spaces, and they are presented as being unaware of each other's presence. In the foreground, dominated by the gnarled trunk of an oak tree, two men are intent on digging a grave into which a flag-draped coffin will be lowered.4 Yet, there is no sense of this digging being a unified action on their part, as each man faces away from the other. Close by, a man reclines against the tree, his expression full of brooding intensity. Seated next to him—but seemingly oblivious of his presence—a young mother readjusts her bodice, having breast-fed the baby on her lap. Two more figures are included in the scene: one is a businessman, recognizable by his expensive coat, hat, and gloves, and the other a be frocked clergyman. The former looks with grim expression to the left beyond the pictorial space, while the latter, his mouth pursed and twiddling his thumbs, seems equally deep in thought.5 In the background set within spacious grounds is an impressive but partially destroyed eighteenth-century house.

In spite of its ambiguities, several features in the painting would have been understood by all who viewed it in Dublin in 1925. These elements directly refer to contemporary political events. Ireland had just come through the short but bitter civil war of 1922–23 that followed the signing of a treaty for political independence with Great Britain.6 Although the Treaty was accepted by a majority of the population, an anti-Treaty force refused to recognize the new government and civil war quickly ensued.

Viewers would have instantly recognized the attire of the men digging the grave. One wears the uniform of the newly formed Free State National Army, his cap pushed back on his head as he digs. The other is clad more casually in the manner of those who had fought on the other side, known as the Irregular army. [End Page 122] While the incongruity of sworn enemies digging the same grave might bemuse the viewer at first, it would quickly become obvious that this was a metaphor relating to the madness of a society at war with itself. The draped national flag over the coffin would further underline the futility of internecine slayings, and the house in the background is a standard symbol for the damage inflicted by both sides in wartime.7 Finally, viewers of the picture would assume that the mother and child represent the suffering innocents in all wars and conflicts. The mother might also be thought to be emblematic of Mother Ireland.

Clearly, then, An Allegory is an indictment of the Irish Civil War. It implies that Irish society has managed to destroy itself—both its Anglo-Irish inheritance and its new nationalistic ideals, symbolized by the great house in the background and the draped coffin...

pdf

Share