“Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen” is Hamilton Gallery’s Invited Artists Exhibition for 2019. The exhibition features work by 129 artists and is themed around the eponymous W B Yeats poem, in the context of Ireland’s Decade of Commemoration .
This is the third of 10 Blog posts cataloging the work of the exhibition alongside notes from the participating artists.
These posts are made in September 2019 to coincide with the showing of the exhibition at Ireland’s US Consulate Offices, Park Avenue New York.
He who can read the signs nor sink unmanned
Into the half-deceit of some intoxicant
From shallow wits; who knows no work can stand,
Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spent
On master-work of intellect or hand,
No honour leave its mighty monument,
Has but one comfort left: all triumph would
But break upon his ghostly solitude.
…. from Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen by W B Yeats
But is there any comfort to be found?
Man is in love and loves what vanishes,
What more is there to say? That country round
None dared admit, if such a thought were his,
Incendiary or bigot could be found
To burn that stump on the Acropolis,
Or break in bits the famous ivories
Or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees.
…. from Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen by W B Yeats