Irish Arts Review

North East Antrim: A Painter's CoastlineAuthor(s): Ian HillSource: Irish Arts Review (1984-1987), Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 30-31Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20491583 .

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW

NORTH EAST ANTRIM: A PAINTER'S COASTLINE

Whiterocks, Paul Henry. Courtesy Northern Ireland Tourist Board.

T he Antrim coast road sweeps round the feet of the Nine Glens in

the North East corner of Ireland. Go north from Belfast to Carrickfergus, (painted first by William van der

Hagen, 1735, Ulster Museum) then marvel perhaps at the Victorian en gineering skills which took this dashing route northwards joining the then isolated villages and valleys of Glenarm (glen of the armies), Glencloy (glen of the hedges), Glenaan (glen of the coltsfoot), Glencorp (glen of the slaughter), Glendun (brown glen),

Glenshesk (sledge glen), Glentaisie (Taisie's glen). Taisie was a provocative young lady from Rathlin, an island a few miles off shore who provoked a

minor war between Viking and Irish studs; in the Irish legend it is the Irishman who wins.

But stop your car anywhere along the coast road, venture up the airy

mountain down the rushy glen. Then pause. Look up at the sky, watch the changing cloudscape, the transient light, the disintegrating hurtling cloud shadow, and you see a world which, of necessity, became a microcosm for school after school of watercolourists. A painter here needs a brisk notation; only watercolours will do.

It is difficult to catch the changing lights of the glens by camera, but

Ian Hill of The Northern Ireland Tourist Board invites readers to

discover the coastline and glens of North-East Antrim and savour

the attraction of the region which has inspired generations of

artists.

The Mussenden Temple, Co. Down.

courtesy MacGonigal Fine Arts Ltd.

watercolourist, James Humbert Craig (1878-1944) caught it perfectly again and again, for he had the eye of both painter and angler and scanned every thing for flickers of ripples of light, and after him came Maurice Wilks, Wilfred

Haughton, Patrick Stevenson, Frank McKelvey - who had also obviously

looked at a few Corots and Constables ... and more recently, Arthur Campbell,

Arthur Armstrong, James McIntyre, Basil Blackshaw, John Luke, Tom Carr, Colin Middleton. Or go back to the thirties to the work of Michael Baird

and his obsession with moorland grasses, Romeo Toogood's painting of Cushen dun in the Ulster Museum, and everywhere you will find, in the work of painters in the north of Ireland, the images and plein-airs of the glens, the

Causeway Coast and the Antrim plateau. For while Craig and Wilks lived in Cushendun where the Cornish/ Italianate cottages were designed by

Clough Williams-Ellis, architect of Portmerion, and exploited a well defined habit at catching its sun splashes, the area has been a natural

mecca over the centuries. In 1694 a painter named Cole

prepared a Draught of the Gyants Causeway for a Dr. Samuel Foley, In 1740 Susanna (or variously, Susannah) Drury produced two gouaches of the Cause

-30

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW

NORTH EAST ANTRIM: A PAINTER'S COASTLINE

way on velum - one now in the Ulster Giants' Causeway, Susannak Drury. Watercolour. Courtesy Ulster Museum. Museum - which won her great critical acclaim. Thomas Robinson

painted the Causeway and Dunluce ~ Castle nearby for his patron, Bishop Thomas Percy in the 1780's. Mary Granville, a contemporary of Drury's and a friend of Dean Swift's, produced

iI .~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I

competent washes of the same subjects, but it is with the work of Andrew Nicholl (1804-1886) that this coastline is seen at its most startling. Nicholl,

apprenticed as a printer, contributed 109 views to Hall's Ireland, published a series of 12 lithographs of the Northern

Coast of Ireland' and painted almost surrealistic views of the Causeway,

Rathlin Island and particularly View of Wild Flowers with the Mussenden Temple in the background. Nicholl is now justly

being reappraised. The Earl Bishop of

Derry who built Mussenden for adulterous trysts with Mrs. Mussenden

isy not. Thlusm visi towi the Ulster Gat'Cuea,Ssna rr.Wtroor oreyUse uem Museum could ben ahery useful

coastlie. Lukyearlie tourhist sawrn Bithp firmst throughn the po80steso Paul Henry (17-98.IaGnedfrtuatin UdrDnvlueCsle, duiga sotemormaby Josep Faringto RA (17401821 tat h rgndal forhispterd of Weatercolour, privtollectinexdaGoia Fin Art Lt. ;

Baintoyl hangs186 direc isoatlyn acossfo myizk

ofierdesk. 2ltorps fteNrhr Coast o Irelan' and p iane Hllot_

surrealistic views of the Causewa-31- = !

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