Irish stained glass artist and illustrator Harry Clarke passed away of ill health on his way back to Dublin at only 42 years old on this day in 1931. Today, we remember his beautiful art with Sr Maureen MacMahon, an art enthusiast from the Dominican order.
Song of the mad prince by Harry Clarke RHA (1889-1931)
This panel is by one of our most celebrated stained-glass artists, Harry Clarke. His father, Joshua Clarke who was from Leeds in England and Bridget MacGonigal from Sligo in Ireland, set up a church decoration and stained-glass business in Dublin in 1886.
Harry and his brother, Walter, received their education at the Marlborough Street Model Schools and Belvedere College in Dublin. At the age of fourteen Harry was apprenticed to his father’s business. He quickly learned the basic techniques of producing stained glass under William Nagle, a gifted draughtsman and designer, and received a scholarship to attend the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. While there, he was awarded many prizes and a further scholarship to travel. On a visit to Paris he was amazed at and influenced by the richly coloured windows of Chartres Cathedral. Back in Ireland his unique style and workmanship won him a commission to design a set of eleven windows, depicting Irish saints, for the Honan chapel in University College, Cork. Other commissions followed from Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, Australia and the United States of America.
He worked tirelessly in spite of constant ill health. At the death of his father in 1921 he and his brother took over the business as well as the studios. Gradually the pressure of work, the toxic chemicals he used and an inherited tendency to tuberculosis cut short his life. He contracted the dreaded disease so prevalent then in his native land. In an attempt to stem its advance he stayed for many months in a Swiss sanatorium, but to no avail. He died, in his sleep, at Coire, a small Swiss village, on his way back to Dublin on the night of 6 January 1934, at the age of forty-two.
He left behind an unrivalled legacy of artistic output. In his designs for stained glass windows and panels as well as for book illustrations he used a unique blend of stylised images and intricate designs, based on religious and literary themes in rich, glowing colours with imaginative, delicate decoration.
This small panel, the Song of the Mad Prince, now in the National Gallery, was commissioned by Thomas Bodkin, when he was Director of the Gallery and a close friend of the artist. It was inspired by the poem of the same name by Walter de la Mare. The brilliant colours and the intricate painted patterns are handled with superb craftsmanship, resulting in a masterly technical and artistic achievement. The prince stands above the flower-strewn grave of his loved one, with a sad melancholy expression and a gesture of hopelessness. The figures in the background represent his father, the king, set against a moonlit castle and the queen surrounded by a circle of ruby light, an exquisite, haunting, image.
Mad is not a word in use today, but whatever the change in language mental illness is still with us. Those suffering from it need love and understanding, a love that will make them feel wanted.
Extract sourced from Sister Maureen’s Selection of Irish Art with Reflections (Columba Books)
