Cover | Clúdach

Abstract

Cover | Clúdach Angela Griffith (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Cover. Elizabeth Corbet Yeats Plate XXIII from Brushwork Studies of Flowers, Fruit, and Animals (London: George Philip & Son, 1898) watercolor Kind permission Trinity College Dublin elizabeth corbet yeats is best known for her directorship of the Dun Emer Press (1903–8) and the Cuala Press (1908–40). However, before her foray into the world of craft letterpress printing, where she reproduced the textual and visual work of leading contemporary writers and artists, chief among them her brothers the poet William Butler Yeats and the painter Jack Butler Yeats, she had forged a successful career in art education and publishing in her own right. When the family lived in London in the 1890s, Yeats trained as a teacher in the Froebel system of education. It proposed that children constructed an understanding of their environment through direct experience and observation.1 From the Age of Enlightenment, the study of natural history became a more formalized discipline. Publishing fueled the public’s increasing interest in nature studies, and such studies were an important component of the Froebel curriculum. Yeats’s primary aim, as a teacher and an artist, was to encourage students to look at nature and to paint their observations as accurately as possible. Over the course of her studies and classroom practice, Yeats developed a method [End Page 158] of teaching painting techniques to young children that allowed them to record their empirical investigations. Encouraged by her pedagogical successes, E. C. Yeats produced a series of painting manuals for teachers and for advanced students; Brushwork Studies of Flowers, Fruit, and Animals was published in 1898. This page from Brushwork presents the reader with a series of lepidopterological watercolor studies, a selection of the species that are among the most commonly found across Britain and Ireland. Reading from left to right, Yeats has carefully rendered the boldness of the red admiral, the delicate colorings of a clouded yellow, and the majestic presence of a peacock butterfly. Individually, the insects are introduced in the first line in an unfinished state; in the next, the reader witnesses the artist’s progression; each completed example is carefully constructed with fine brush marks. Smaller depictions of the cinnabar moth, the male and female common blue, the holly blue, and the small copper butterfly foot the page. Their coloring is less emphatic than the larger versions. While Yeats carefully observes every detail of shape, pattern, and color, the reader is aware that these are not scientific biological studies. The making of the image is not denied; each depiction retains a gentle textured quality; the hand of the artist remains present. Her painterly approach suggests an expressive quality, an emotive element. These insects are devoid of the coolness of the scientific eye; Yeats is first and foremost an artist. To our eyes today, the images are redolent of the butterfly works of conceptual artist Damien Hirst. These creatures have come to symbolize the wonder of nature and transience, both the exuberance and ultimate tragedy of life. In depictions that were designed to instruct, we see the butterflies take form, their final loveliness preserved on the page. Beyond their aesthetic appeal, they demand that we query our place in the world and the nature of our humanity. Yeats can be seen as part of a long, varied, and prolific tradition of Irish artists and the production of printed images. Many artists, including leading figures in British art such as the celebrated Victorian Cork-born Daniel Maclise, produced designs for a thriving British print industry. From the mid-1800s, publishers recognized the commercial potential of collaborating with artists, as public demand for high-quality illustrated publications grew. Artists also saw financial rewards for this activity, and additionally they recognized the promotional and reputational benefits of having their work included in finely produced volumes that were widely disseminated nationally and internationally. Artists provided designs that would be hand-cut by professional engravers in wood or metal in black and white. However, from the 1880s, developments in printing technologies allowed for color printing. Yeats’s original designs were executed in watercolor and were reproduced using chromolithography. By the end...