THOMAS RYAN – Dublin and Thereabouts

introduction by the artist

ISBN 978 0948037 689      128 pages (hardback)     24x29.5cm     129 colour illus

Painted in situ, this book features 110 watercolours of Dublin and its hinterland by the distinguished Irish painter, Thomas Ryan RHA. He writes his own introduction to the book, providing the reader with a colourful account of his approach to painting. He also provides the introductory text to each of the four sections – ‘North of the Liffey’, ‘South of the Liffey’, ‘Coastal Dublin’ and ‘Thereabouts’ – with individual descriptions of many of the featured paintings. It is a beautiful book, full of interest – one to return to again and again.

EXTRACT

"Dublin would be my subject. But not just Dublin – Dublin and thereabouts. There were certainly pictorial possibilities galore – landscape, waterscapes, buildings of a variety of shapes and purposes up and down the county, with nibbles at neighbouring counties too. Yes, this was it – a broad canvas showing a domain that could be described, in medieval terminology, as the ‘Pale of Dublin’.
          I love my Dublin, its streets, squares, the colour of its brick Georgian terraces, the leaden river, the massive grandeur of the dome of the Four Courts, and all the nooks, crannies, short cuts, canal bridges, and a thousand other views that stick in my memory. I lived in Dublin for years; now I live outside it. But as the glow of the city lights up the night sky beyond my bedroom window, I might as well be back in Phibsboro.
         A picture book of Dublin, while accommodating its notable architectural adornments, must also find room for the wayward and the commonplace. All cities reveal their identity less in the notable than in the general: the general look of the place rather than a line-up of its key buildings is more contributory to the curiosity of the visitors and the surprise of citizens than yet another showcase of our architectural prima donnas. That does not apply to landscape, as who would tire of the view of Killiney Bay from the Vico Road? Dublin, unlike most capital cities, has no one building or statue that tells the viewer at a glance where the place is. Anyway, the popular choice would appear to be the Ha’penny Bridge, a pretty, early 19th-century footbridge over the River Liffey. Whilst the bridge is no Ponte Vecchio, it is affectionally regarded and much used by the citizens.
         I have taken a wider view of Dublin than that availed of by earlier artists. I have gone if not abroad, then up and down the map. True, the majority of the pictures are of the historic city, with cathedrals and churches, Liffey quays, canal locks, hospitals and public buildings, but I have moved out into the suburbs and county, to Howth, Donabate, Dun Laoghaire, The Naul, and even to Wicklow and Meath. Without sanction, I have extended the radius of the historic city in the belief that territorial inclusion might be forgiven as an expansion of Greater Dublin."

— by Thomas Ryan