Courtney McGrailA visit to the Wolfsonian Museum to see Harry Clarke’s ‘Geneva’ window
Felix M. Larkin
The sad story of the window is well known. Commissioned by the Irish Government as a gift to the League of Nations to grace the International Labour Office building in Geneva, it was completed by Clarke in 1930 and depicts works by a selection of writers of the Irish literary renaissance of the early 20th Century.
The response of the Government, as conveyed in a letter to Clarke from W.T. Cosgrave, was unenthusiastic from the start. While praising the window’s “remarkable and successful artistic achievement”, Cosgrave immediately rejected the inclusion in the window of a scene from Liam O’Flaherty’s Mr Gilhooley, a novel then banned in Ireland.
Scope
Soon, however, the scope of the Government’s objections widened. Clarke was informed, in another letter from Cosgrave, that “the inclusion of scenes from certain authors as representatives of Irish literature and culture would give grave offence” and that “it would be unjust… to lay open to hostile criticism the beautiful work which the window contains by associating it with subjects that would displease”.
Clarke was by this time critically ill and matters were left in abeyance until after his death in January 1931. The agreed fee for the window was then paid, but the window wasn’t sent to Geneva. Instead, it was moved to Government Buildings and put into storage there. When Fianna Fáil came to power in 1932, Clarke’s widow arranged to buy it back.
The window was subsequently loaned by the Clarke family to Dublin’s Municipal Gallery, but was reclaimed when the gallery removed it from permanent display. It was sold to the Wolfsonian Museum in 1988.
What was the basis of the Government’s objections? First and foremost was the choice of authors such as O’Flaherty, Joyce, O’Casey and Synge whose writings, while acclaimed by the cognoscenti, had not been universally well received in Ireland.
There were, however, other aspects of the work which were felt to convey an unfortunate image of the fledgling Irish Free State. The delicate yet overt sensuality of the panels – which are in line with the style of Clarke’s book illustrations – must have come as something of a shock to the Government and their officials more familiar with the artist’s religious stained glass. Four of the 15 sections were more than enough to cause ‘hostile criticism’ in 1930 among the Irish and perhaps the prim Swiss public too.
Clarke was, to quote, “one of the strangest geniuses of his time”. Most of his stained glass was perforce of a religious nature, though it appears he was not himself devout and in 1925 he wrote about being “hampered by tradition in dealing with ecclesiastical stained glass”. So it must have been liberating for him to have a commission for work on a secular theme such as the ‘Geneva’ window or the earlier ‘Eve of St Agnes’ window which is now in the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. He clearly underestimated the constraints that would apply to a project undertaken for the Government.
In addition to the ‘St Agnes’ window, the Hugh Lane Gallery has an earlier version of the section of the ‘Geneva’ window depicting the scene from O’Flaherty’s Mr Gilhooley. This had to be replaced before the window was completed because it developed a hairline fracture during the firing process. The figure is identical in the two versions, but the dominant colour is different – red in the original, blue in the final version.
Personally, I find the ‘St Agnes’ window more satisfying than the ‘Geneva’ window, largely because it illustrates a single poem – Keats’ The Eve of St Agnes – and follows the narrative of that poem. It has accordingly an artistic unity that is necessarily absent in the ‘Geneva’ window given the latter’s varied subject matter. The mood changes quite dramatically from one section of the ‘Geneva’ window to the next and individual sections are thus better appreciated in isolation than as part of an integrated composition.
This is not to disparage the quality of Clarke’s work in the ‘Geneva’ window. It is stunningly beautiful, with a richness of colour which no photograph can adequately capture. I was particularly struck by the vivid red of the magical cups in the section honouring playwright George Fitzmaurice and by the delicacy of his treatment of both Padraic Colum’s Cradle Song and the poem from Joyce’s Chamber Music.
The window is prominently displayed in the Wolfsonian Museum, at the end of a long gallery. It is, however, set into a rather crude white frame which does not flatter it. Moreover, the gallery is too brightly lit: stained glass is best viewed in a darkened room, and that is how the ‘Eve of St Agnes’ window is exhibited in the Hugh Lane Gallery.
Nevertheless, it is wonderful that we can now see and admire this work which the cultural conservatism of the new Irish State tried to suppress.