Irish Arts Review

A Moment of Transition
Author(s): Catherine Marshall
Source: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 26, No. 2 (SUMMER 2009), pp. 62-63
Published by: Irish Arts Review
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SUMMER 2009
AWARD
A Moment
of Transition
A first-time exhibitor at the RHA Annual
Exhibition,
Jonathan Dalton is a
worthy
and
exciting
winner of the
2009 Ireland-US Council and Irish Arts Review Portraiture
Award, reports
Catherine Marshall
Jonathan Dalton's
painting,
I had
imagined
something
more substantial
(Fig 1),
the win
ner of the fourth
prize
for
portraiture
co-sponsored by
the Irish Arts Review and the
Ireland-US Council at the
Royal
Hibernian
Academy's
Annual Exhibition throws
up
something
of a
challenge
to the critic,
the
viewer and the art historian. What is never
in
question
is its
very
fine
technique.
The
painting,
in
acrylic
on
board,
is so accom
plished
that it
beggars
belief that it was
painted by
an artist who studied
philosophy
rather than
painting,
who is
very young
in
his career as a
painter,
and who is
repre
sented at the RHA for the first time with
this
prize-winning
work.
So where should one
begin
a discussion
of this work? Since it has
just
won the
prize
for
portraiture
it makes sense to
discuss it from that
perspective.
The old
dictionary
definition of a
portrait
was
'pic
tures of men and women drawn from
life',
but then the same
dictionary entry goes
on
to remind us that 'the word is used to dis
tinguish face-painting
from
history-paint
ing'.1
Of course old
categories
are
constantly
re-defmed,
and modernism's
response
to the
portrait
has been
largely
to
THE HALF-NOTICED CARPET IS NOT CARPET AT ALL BUT
SAND;
IT OBLITERATES
THE BASE OF THE STANDARD
LAMP,
DISTURBS THE LINE OF THE SKIRTING BOARDS
AND SHATTERS OUR PERCEPTION OF A NORMAL DOMESTIC INTERIOR
either
(a)
abstract from it,
or
(b) experi
ment with new media
approaches
to it.
Jonathan
Dalton follows neither of these
options
and
yet
his
'portrait'
too, stretches
the definition. The
painting clearly
represents
a
'person
drawn from
life',
a
well-dressed woman
sitting
on a leather
couch,
but the
expression
on her
face,
the
tension in her
pose,
the almost minimal
austerity
of the room and the
theatricality
of the
lighting
all
suggest
a narrative. This
is no
simple
likeness of a real
person (the
artist's elder
sister)
but rather a realistic and
recognisable representation
of a familiar
person
at a
particularly significant
moment.
The title of the
painting,
I had
imagined
some
thing
more
substantial,
reinforces that
percep
tion but offers no more definite clues to
what was
imagined
or what
may
have
caused the
gap
between
imagined reality
and the
exigencies
of the moment. Is it the
artist's state of
uncertainty
we are asked to
witness or the sitter's?
None of the usual reminders of the sit
ter's status or interests are
provided
to
resolve the
mystery
Other
portraits
of
well-dressed women
sitting
on couches
with their shoes off come to
mind,
such
as the famous
photographic portrait
of
Margaret
Thatcher,
as Prime Minister of
Great
Britain,
during
the Falklands War in
the 1980s.2 In the
photograph
Thatcher
sat, still
working,
late into the
night,
hair
relentlessly
fixed in
place
and with
maps,
briefcase and
handbag
to confirm her
identity. Only
her
shoes,
discarded on the
floor beside
her,
show us that we are
voyeurs
into a
private
moment but no
matter how much we
pry
she will
always
be
working.
The shoes are
noticeably
miss
ing
in
Jonathan
Dalton's
painting,
and
with that realisation comes
another,
the
half-noticed
carpet
is not
carpet
at all but
sand;
it obliterates the base of the standard
lamp,
disturbs the line of the
skirting
boards and shatters our
perception
of a
normal domestic interior. The
picture
62 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I SUMMER 2009
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j..
brings
us to the
edge
of the unknown.
Leonardo Da Vinci
famously placed Judas
on the same side of the table as Christ and
the other
disciples
in The Last
Supper,
claim
ing
that with his
knowledge
of
physiog
nomy
he could make the traitor visible
without
having
to resort to the obvious
but traditional
expedient
of
separating
him
from his
peers. Something
of that interest
in the
person
within is visible also in
Jonathan
Dalton's
portrait.
Likeness it
certainly
is but the artist's
ability
to
express
emotional strain and
uncertainty
make this
picture
less of a
portrait
and more of a
1 JONATHAN
DALTON 2009
/ WAS
ANTICIPATING
SOMETHING
MORE
SUBSTANTIAL
acrylic
on birch
board 91x123cm
history picture.
It does
exactly
what
Hogarth
did in order to
give
a universal
dimension to the individual likeness in
paintings
such as The Graham Children.3 The
individual here
represents
all of us in those
moments of transition that combine tenta
tiveness and the
courage
to look ahead.
In the sea of
celebrity portraits
that we
live in
nowadays,
the
importance
of the
individual cannot be overstated. That is
why
the
genre
of
portraiture
continues to
be so central to
art-making,
with or with
out the
public
face. It is also
why
it is so
important
that the Irish Arts Review and the
Ireland-US Council
support
it with this
annual
award,
especially
when worldwide
recession make it difficult for the artist to
pursue
his
calling.
It is
exciting
to see that
the RHA is
open
to submissions from
emerging, self-taught
artists and that the
judges
had the
imagination
to reward it.
1 Dictionarium Brittanicum; Or a more
Compieat
Universal
Etymological English Dictionary, London,
1735
2
Photograph reproduced
in the
Daily Mail, 23/8/08
3 William
Hogarth,
The Graham Children, 1742,
Collection, T?te Britain.
CATHERINE MARSHALL is on secondment from the IMMA to
the
Royal
Irish
Academy
where she is
co-editing
Volume V
of the Art and Architecture of Ireland
Project.
SUMMER 2009 I IRISH ARTS REVIEW 63
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