The Reading Figure in Irish Art in the Long Nineteenth Century

Tricia Cusack author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Anthem Press

Published:1st Feb '22

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The Reading Figure in Irish Art in the Long Nineteenth Century cover

Examines Irish portraits during the long nineteenth century in which figures read or hold a book

The reading figure has been a recurrent theme in Western art but especially from the nineteenth century. This book examines Irish portraits during the long nineteenth century in which people are shown reading or holding a book. It explores different values ascribed to reading and contemporary constructions of the reader. The selected pictures are by artists born, trained, or practising in Ireland. 'Irish art' is, therefore, used broadly to include work framed in some way by experience of Ireland and its history, culture, and politics. This was a time of large social and cultural shifts for Ireland, and a period when books and other reading, including Irish novels, were often published in London. Many of the artists and sitters discussed were Anglo-Irish Protestants. Both Imperial and nationalist ideologues tended to devalue reading, especially fiction, as an unmanly occupation. Nonetheless, some men are depicted reading and failing to embody a manly attitude. The spread of the novel, and the introduction of ‘silent reading’ allowed women of the middle and upper classes, often Anglo-Irish, to engage with a range of imaginative reading materials, secure from patriarchal surveillance. Visual images of women as serious readers drew on and contributed to the emergence of the ‘New Woman’ in Ireland.

‘Cusack’s book draws the reader into an imaginary world of readers, contextualizing representations of mostly women readers through larger concepts of class, cultural, and gender identities in modern Ireland. With a prevalence of women artists representing female sitters, Cusack probes aesthetic and iconographic strategies for representing interiorized thought while deflecting penetrability in the era of the New Woman.’ — Dr. Emily Burns, Auburn University, US


‘In this highly original study, Tricia Cusack argues that the reading figure in art offers a lens through which to apprehend politics at a variety of levels, from the micro-politics of gender to public suffrage agitation, and offers vivid evidence of the emergence of the “New Woman” in sections of Irish society. Reading evidence with creativity and care, and developing valuable typologies of reading figures in Irish art, Cusack argues persuasively for the emergence of a distinctive Irish portraiture tradition over the long nineteenth century, and for treating it as both an index and builder of important gendered identities in the Irish context.’ — Kevin James, University of Guelph, Canada


This engaging and erudite volume fizzes with ideas and originality and elsewhere: Cusack's engaging style makes light work of dense material, while never compromising on erudition, in a cohesive overview that integrates histories of literature and visual art by Emer McGarry, in Irish Arts Review, Summer (June-August 2022), pp. 116-117.

ISBN: 9781785276446

Dimensions: 229mm x 153mm x 26mm

Weight: 454g

188 pages