Ireland's best public art...

...obvious corollary to another thread on the worst, what are the best?

Eamonn O'Doherty's Pikemen statue off the N25 in Wexford is a very effective piece, gaunt figures, austere, very striking and a fitting tribute that should provoke people to think about the protagonists and that conflict. Think it works really well...

thermo

The Fionn Mac Cumhail and his hounds at the curragh roundabout off the N7.

Radiant Cool Crazy Nightmare

I think the famine monument along the quays in Dublin is very moving. Its a powerful piece of art in my opinion.

Unrelated but could someone tell me how to get a photo into the post like yourselves have done please.

greencap

or




One finds that these creations portray just as much 'je ne sais quoi' as any bronze cast shyte.

Ipso

Battle of Curlew Pass near Boyle.

wtlltw

greencap wrote: »

or




One finds that these creations portray just as much 'je ne sais quoi' as any bronze cast shyte.

Does the first one have a ride on rocket ship??

Arthur Daley

Lose the brutalist convention centre in the background, and the bridge is a work of art.

DontThankMe

The spire couldn't be arsed linking a pic because everyone already knows what it looks like.

Cervantes2

The O'Connell Monument. Very graceful and elegant.

Zebra3

Radiant Cool Crazy Nightmare wrote: »

I think the famine monument along the quays in Dublin is very moving. Its a powerful piece of art in my opinion.

Would be very fitting if the Customs House (such a fine building) was actually put to good use and turned into a museum about the so-called famine.

sxt

Phil lynnott statue is pretty cool

Badly Drunk Boy

I like threads with positivity!

thermo wrote: »

The Fionn Mac Cumhail and his hounds at the curragh roundabout off the N7.

I was going to post this. Is it still there? I hope so. (And I should know...)

valoren

Always liked the Christy Ring statue at Cork airport. So much better than that God awful Sonia O'Sullivan one. Reminds me of the famous Discus' thrower sculpture.

hollypink

Ipso wrote: »

Battle of Curlew Pass near Boyle.

I love that one. Also the violin on the N5 bypass in Longford http://www.visuallongford.ie/public-art/public-art-in-county-longford/the-violin/

Mattie500

Much prefer this thread than the negative one.... I love the bull in Macroom Co. Cork.

thermo

Badly Drunk Boy wrote: »

I like threads with positivity!


I was going to post this. Is it still there? I hope so. (And I should know...)

Yep still there!

B0jangles

Ipso wrote: »

Battle of Curlew Pass near Boyle.

Really love this one, beautiful piece of work.

I have a soft spot for the big sheep that's just outside Bray:



Terrible photo of it I know, I must see if I can get a better one next time I'm up there.

gramar

Praise the lord for Alamy stock photos!

Thundercats Ho

The Choctaw monument in Middleton.
It pays tribute to the Chocktaw tribes generosity during an gorta mor.

Squall Leonhart

The Nicky Rackard statue in Wexford town is well made I think.

Edit:

Just noticed they mis-spelled his name on it though :eek:

.......

This post has been deleted.

.......

This post has been deleted.

.......

This post has been deleted.

.......

This post has been deleted.

jmayo

For shame OP.

And a Kerryman as well.

BrokenArrows

Clearly the mural that our primary school class designed on Tobergal Lane in Sligo

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-ireland-co-sligo-sligo-tobergal-lane-river-of-life-1995-ceramic-mural-108707256.html



I think i had something to do with the stars which is why they're so wonky.

Wibbs

Squall Leonhart wrote: »

The Nicky Rackard statue in Wexford town is well made I think.

I would say my main problem with the vast majority of naturalistic public sculpture in Ireland is how clunky, awkward, lumpen, amateur, even downright badly executed it all is. Compare it to Renaissance or classical sculpture and it looks at best like the work of enthusiastic amateurs. Adding faux patina does it no favours either. Hell even compare it to the abstract works of say Henry Moore and it looks fourth rate. That Christy Ring effort for example is hideous to my eye. It seems to me the average professional artist of today has had little grounding, never mind actual skill in the representation of the human form.

jmayo

Another one I like and the location is quiet nice.

Wibbs

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Clearly the mural that our primary school class designed on Tobergal Lane in Sligo


I think i had something to do with the stars which is why they're so wonky.

I like that TBH. Decorative, non pretentious, non faux portentous and happy. IMH far better than many so called professional pieces.

Duff

The auld Brown Bull of Cooley, on the M1 outside Dundalk.

DEFTLEFTHAND

We can post pics in AHs now?

Cool.

.......

This post has been deleted.

.......

This post has been deleted.

jmayo

Talk about moving statues ...

B0jangles

Wibbs wrote: »

I would say my main problem with the vast majority of naturalistic public sculpture in Ireland is how clunky, awkward, lumpen, amateur, even downright badly executed it all is. Compare it to Renaissance or classical sculpture and it looks at best like the work of enthusiastic amateurs. Adding faux patina does it no favours either. Hell even compare it to the abstract works of say Henry Moore and it looks fourth rate. That Christy Ring effort for example is hideous to my eye. It seems to me the average professional artist of today has had little grounding, never mind actual skill in the representation of the human form.

I think a very large of the obvious problems in many full-length portrait statues of people in motion is that your eye jumps to every single inaccuracy in the likeness, the modelling of the body, and in the sense of a fluid movement captured. Being able to do all of these things is extremely difficult and few are willing or indeed, able to pay for the work involved.


Illustration: bigger version of Maurice Harron's Gaelic Chieftain; it's pretty stylized and I think it has a great sense of movement:



Same artist: solid and realistic human figures - I think it's pretty stiff, and just.. not as good - e.g the way the arms join to the torso of each figure looks a bit off:



On the point of people/public bodies being willing to pay for good work; I know that the sculptor who carved the big sheep I posted above barely got paid enough to cover the cost of the materials, never mind for his time and skill; people tend to think stone is basically free and it really isn't.



edit: Don't be talking smack about Henry Moore, that's just Not On...

jmayo

....... wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

That is Tom Crean, Antarctic explorer from Annascaul co. Kerry.
One of the few to have served with both Scott and Shackleton on their voyages and expeditions.
One of the ones that accompanied Shackleton on the James Caird lifeboat 800 mile journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia.
And he was one of two that accompanied Shackleton across the island to the whaling station.
The other man was Frank Worsley from New Zealand.
There is a Crean Glacier on South Georgia.

The statue is sited across the road from the pub, the South Pole Inn that he owned in the 20s and 30s until his death.

The second statue is Michael Davitt, founder of the land League, in his home village of Straide in Co. Mayo.
Notice the one arm on the statue.

The third moving statue is that of Admiral Brown born in Foxford Co. Mayo and founder of the Argentine Navy.

.......

This post has been deleted.

jmayo

....... wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

No Michael Davitt in Straide, Co. Mayo.

Hector Savage

Great thread people!!
Really nice to see some great positive stuff after the depressing waste of money shiite displayed on the other thread!

Wibbs

B0jangles wrote: »

I think a very large of the obvious problems in many full-length portrait statues of people in motion is that your eye jumps to every single inaccuracy in the likeness, the modelling of the body, and in the sense of a fluid movement captured. Being able to do all of these things is extremely difficult and few are willing or indeed, able to pay for the work involved.

There's that, but IMH there are few artists who can do it well, regardless of the cost. The second example you gave illustrates it. The end result would cost no more if it was good, bad or pedestrian. The first example is better, but one can argue it's a lot easier to hide faults with more abstraction.

I'd somewhat blame Modernism(though about my fave art movement) for this. Even mid tier 19th century sculptors could do the naturalistic human figure far better. Modernism has influenced quite the lazy approach and as I say abstraction hides more faults(the best abstraction shows more of everything). Now it's more "lets block out the basics, and Giacometti it up a bit with texture, add faux patina and off we go".

Example from the first post;



Stilted dynamism comic book superhero style. The rendering of the hands is appallingly amateur. Stilted and stiff and have no feeling of real hands. I've seen better hands on shop window mannequins. The fabrics are rendered well though. The Tom Crean insult to the eyes is even worse on this score.

edit: Don't be talking smack about Henry Moore, that's just Not On...

Oh I am a huge admirer of Moore, I didn't phrase that correctly.

pauliebdub

Arthur Daley wrote: »

Lose the brutalist convention centre in the background, and the bridge is a work of art.

It's a nice bridge but there's heaps of those type of bridges in Spain.

Arthur Daley

pauliebdub wrote: »

It's a nice bridge but there's heaps of those type of bridges in Spain.

Yeah it's just a bridge. But it is a cool bridge and how quickly it has become arguably the symbol of Dublin, especially abroad. It was only put in around 2010.

Roger Hassenforder

the three statues in Fermoy are pure lord of the Rings stuff.

jmayo

Wibbs wrote: »

There's that, but IMH there are few artists who can do it well, regardless of the cost. The second example you gave illustrates it. The end result would cost no more if it was good, bad or pedestrian. The first example is better, but one can argue it's a lot easier to hide faults with more abstraction.

I'd somewhat blame Modernism(though about my fave art movement) for this. Even mid tier 19th century sculptors could do the naturalistic human figure far better. Modernism has influenced quite the lazy approach and as I say abstraction hides more faults(the best abstraction shows more of everything). Now it's more "lets block out the basics, and Giacometti it up a bit with texture, add faux patina and off we go".

Example from the first post;



Stilted dynamism comic book superhero style. The rendering of the hands is appallingly amateur. Stilted and stiff and have no feeling of real hands. I've seen better hands on shop window mannequins. The fabrics are rendered well though. The Tom Crean insult to the eyes is even worse on this score.

The thing is I like it because it commemorates a guy that I would admire and it is recreating a famous photograph(s) showing Crean with his beloved dogs, the dogs he sadly had to slaughter when the Endurance was taken by the ice.
Also the statue is nicely located much like the Davitt one.

Now of course you can find fault with the pose, the hands, etc and yes they aint perfect, but I am looking at, to use a well trodden phrase, the bigger picture.
Those statues make me think, mean something to me and are there to remind us of our history and the contributions some people, often of poor circumstance and birth, made to the world.

Likewise with the Pikemen.
It may not be great in your eyes, but I think it does a job of taking people back to 1798.

Poochie05

I love the M11 hedgehog.
I also like the Wheat sculpture on N25 at Kilmacthomas