The Others
Artist
Harry Clarke
(1889 - 1931)
Datec. 1928
MediumWatercolour on paper
Dimensions42.5 × 17.6 cm
ClassificationsWatercolours
Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery.
Purchased, 2017.
Object number2067
DescriptionThis watercolour is preparatory work for Clarke's stained glass masterpiece The Geneva Window, 1929, originally commissioned by the Irish Government to represent Ireland at the International Labour organisation in Geneva. The window unfortunately was never installed in its intended destination because of official disapproval at Clarke's depiction of some of the figures. The Geneva Window (Collection: Wolfsonian Foundation, Miami) consists of panels illustrating scenes from 20th century literature by Irish writers, playwrights and poets. From The Others by Seumas O'Sullivan
"And now they pause
in their dancing and
look with troubled eyes,
Earth's straying chidlren
with sudden memory wise."
A companion pair of lovers but painted on gold-pink with blue; she dreams, enchanted, in her dress of swirling pink and blue while he, clad only in a bolero and ruched leggings, seems half-goblin as he takes her hand in their dance over the crescent moon. Barely visible behind them are the tiny prancing green figures of elves.
"The Others" by Seumas O'Sullivan (published in Padraic Colum's Anthology of Irish Verse (1922). The seventh verse of the haunting poem by the artist's friend and fellow editor on The Dublin Magazine provides Clarke with the image of 'a young maiden...of mortal birth,/her young eyes laden with dreams of earth', borne thorugh the whispering twiling in a shimmering starlit dress by "a youth/ entranced - his brave/lost feet enchanted with / the rhythm of fairy sound." His minimal pink costume and provocative right hand caused more official consternation than the tiny, phosphorescent, naked 'elfin crew' dancing behind them.
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