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The McClelland Collection
26
Gerard Dillon (1916-1971)
NATIVITY
hand-painted stone carving; (unique)
17¾ x 18 x 3in. (45.09 x 45.72 x
Provenance:
Collection of George and Maura McClelland
Images and textures of stone recur throughout Gerard Dillon’s oeuvre, from the distinctive wall patterns
in his West of Ireland paintings, to his idiosyncratic and playful interpretations of the carved Irish
scripture crosses. Nativity, a hand-painted stone carving, is without parallel in Dillon’s body of work, a
unique and individual exploration of the traditional religious iconography and early Irish stone carving
that he drew on throughout his career. Marking a departure from his two-dimensional work on paper
and canvas, Nativity reveals Dillon’s exploration of the graphic and sculptural potential of shallow-relief
carving, as well as the layering of colours and tones on polished limestone.
Although more often associated with his scenes of the Western Irish coast, and with his highly personal
‘pierrot’ or clown series, Dillon frequently employed religious iconography. In his biography of Dillon,
James White highlighted the intensely religious visual culture that surrounded Dillon during his youth in
Belfast, describing the ‘altars with lamps and flowers would be in almost every little Catholic house in the
Falls Road area’, as well as the ‘large coloured reproductions of the Sacred Heart and the Virgin’. (1) Forgive
us our Trespasses (1942), for example, depicts the long queue for confession, whereas paintings such as
The Holy Island or Fast Day engage explicitly with religious iconography and experience. Dillon’s highly
personal interpretations in these works, and particularly in Nativity, affirm his importance to the canon of
religious art in twentieth-century Ireland.
The formal structure of Nativity, with the individual figures depicted in carefully defined compartments,
reflects the arrangements on the Irish carved scripture crosses, as well as his ‘childhood love of cutting
out and rearranging images from newspapers and magazines’ (2). The inclusion of the three kings,
and the kneeling shepherds at the base of the limestone block, balances the composition and focuses
attention on the cross shape formed by the Christ child and angels. Both the formal arrangement and the
treatment of colour and figures within Nativity reveal Dillon’s deep engagement with Irish and European
religious iconography. The figures of Mary and Joseph in profile reflect the flattened and stylised graphic
style of Insular manuscripts such as the Book of Kells. The delicate washes of colour on stone and
careful incisions delineating mass and form, however, may reflect the influence of medieval and early
Renaissance Italian art, particularly the work of Giotto, or even the richly-coloured depictions of the Kings
from the mosaics in Ravenna’s Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo. The shallow-relief carving and formal
arrangement of Nativity also echo early modern Irish grave-slab carving.
The tonal depth and delicacy of this work on polished limestone is particularly evident when compared
with a similar arrangement in wax crayon on paper, with its brighter and harsher colours, and with a
flattened arrangement that resembles a design for stained glass (3). While Nativity remains unique within
Dillon’s oeuvre, the carved sharp relief of each figure in the stone perhaps influenced the strong graphic
style of his later works, and particularly works such as Clown with Magnifying Glass in his Pierrot series.
(4)
Dr Niamh NicGhabhann
August 2016
€20000-€30000 (£17090-£25640 approx.)