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| Ballymaloe's Dining Room |
I don’t
want to sound all smug and conceited here, but recently I was whisked off to
the utterly delectable Ballymaloe Country
House Hotel run by the Allen family, for what I feel was a much deserved and
long-awaited break. Yes and Ballymaloe
is just ‘right’ in every way, it certainly ticks all my boxes and the food is
just ‘simply delicious’. Long live the Allen dynasty.
What I
didn’t prepare for though was the sheer delight of seeing so much modern Irish
art on the walls, from the exquisite Louis LeBrocquy tapestries hanging in the
entrance hall; the hard- edge abstracts of Cecil King and Patrick Scott, to the
Michael Farrell’s self-searching prints decking the corridors. Iconic names such as Nano Reid, Norah McGuiness,
Jack Yeats, Mary Swanzy, adorn every alcove, nook and cranny. This is a personal collection of great
insight and empathy with that period of Irish Art history that starts with
Nathanial Hone’s pastoral scenes and ends
with Elizabeth Cope’s eye popping red field with sheep. This is such a strong and obviously much
loved and cherished family collection and as a result a very cohesive and concise
slice of important Irish art.
If I was to
choose a favourite painting from this collection, it would be the understated
Camille Souter that is hanging in the sitting room. This
painting is hung between the two large sash windows, a little ‘tongue in cheek’
I feel, as the painting itself depicts a large sash window filling the
whole canvas, framing a view of a garden.
Like all Souter’s work it is
tonally complex and subtly sophisticated. I like to feel that she painted this while
staying as a guest at Ballymaloe, all molly-coddled and sated, lying in white
linen sheets with her hall-mark of a beret firmly placed on the side of her
head, and the breakfast tray with the
remnants of a lightly poached egg , jugged kipper, and half- drunk third cup of
tea, at her bare feet. I imagine her easel is set up conveniently next to her bedside table and the sprigged
floral sanderson curtains are drawn well back to reveal a soft grey-green sort
of day, a heavy drizzle has set in, stopping Camille from flinging open the
French doors. She is putting the finishing
touches to her Ballymaloe painting, that will be presented to the art loving
member of the Allen family later on that day, and yes it is a view from her bed –and why not, a sash window creates
the perfect framework in which to suspend her tender brush strokes of abstracted form and delicate colour
nuances, in a masterpiece of painterly perfection.
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| Camille Souter Washing by the Canal. |
