Michael Farrell (1940-2000)
The Third Very Real Irish Political Picture - Miss O'Murphy, d'apres Boucher
Oil on canvas, 104 x 118cm (41 x 46½'')
Signed verso, dated 1978 and inscribed 'en...

Michael Farrell (1940-2000)
The Third Very Real Irish Political Picture - Miss O'Murphy, d'apres Boucher
Oil on canvas, 104 x 118cm (41 x 46½'')
Signed verso, dated 1978 and inscribed 'en Ardêche'

 

A key element in Farrells Madonna Irlanda series, The Third very real Irish Political Picture was completed in 1978, part of a larger body of works all focused around the reassurance in violence in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. This series has become synonymous with the artists oeuvre, in which he produced a number of paintings and lithographs based around a very similar composition. He is not the first artist of his generation to use his work to comment directly on the political and social issues of his country of birth. Farrell was deeply affected by the bombings in both Dublin and Monaghan in May 1974 and this manifested itself in his Pressé Series. The later Madonna Irlanda series, focused on a larger theme of modern Ireland and the countrys long and protracted history of colonisation and sectarian violence. As Farrell remarked on the work, I thought, here we go; this is the right way to do it. Youd have Ireland as a whore, ridden by everybody, mixed up with religion and the whole business, and as Ireland was a womanÔǪthat seemed to be a better political way of doing the thing than the other paintings Id done beforeÔǪ.Ireland is a feminine country and constantly referred to asshe'(Michael Farrell quoted in David Farrell,Michael Farrell, The Life and Work of an Irish Artist, The Liffey Press, 2006, p.81).

 

He found an allegorical model for the country in François Bouchers 18th-century erotic painting of Louise OMurphy (1737 1814), the youngest daughter of an Irish soldier turned shoemaker who had settled in Rouen. Following her fathers death, Marie-Louises mother moved the family to Paris where she traded old clothes and put her daughters to work as actresses, dancers and models. In 1752, at the young age of 15, Marie - Louise posed nude for Francois Bouchers provocative portrait of her, now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. OMurphy was for a period of time a mistress of Louis XI. She remained in France until her death in 1814.

 

 

In Farrells reworking of Bouchers study, she becomes a profane Madonna Irlanda, the personification of Ireland, one scandalously at odds with pious stereotypes. While he is clearly equating Ireland with the courtesan, hes also implying that she is exploited and abused. Her body stretched out on the chaise longue, her exposed pearly white skin and halo above her head. His inclusion of printed lettering for the title, is reminiscent of political posters of the period. It is a work that Farrell has repeatedly included himself, either in profile with lit cigarette hanging from his lip, as in the painting in the Hugh Lane collection, or standing nude on top of an open book, or as in this present example submerged in a tumbler of water. The figure in every expression, is diminutive in comparison to the reclining body of Marie-Louise, and she is entirely oblivious to his presence. Although she is sexually submissive in the pose, it is immediately clear to us that he is not the dominant masculine presence in the work. In the same way that she has been exploited, he has been emasculated, rendered to an ineffectual presence, barely keeping his head above water.

 

Niamh Corcoran, BA 2018

 

 

 

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