Irish art and culture through a European lens
Pan Pan Theatre's Laura Sundermann in The Tempest (Der Sturm) by William Shakespeare at the Kammerspiele, Bonn . File photograph: Thilo Beu
One thing artists do well is travel. Roaming for inspiration, to find conducive places, and to seek out the company of intriguing people: from James Joyce to Sam Beckett, Mainie Jellet to Mary Swanzy we have a great legacy of getting out of here. While many left, many also returned with new ideas and new connections. All these have added to the rich sense of what art and culture means today.
Imagine, in a pre-internet age, the surprise in Ireland of Jellet’s take on modernism and abstraction, gleaned from her time spent in Paris with Evie Hone, learning from Cubist master Albert Gleize. The theme of learning continues today with the EU Erasmus programme, championed by Ireland’s former commissioner Peter Sutherland, which enables students to study, train or work in another member country. Back in the day, however, travel was trickier business, and not just because of the older modes of transport and communications. Those with longer artistic memories will recall the difficulties of customs dockets, checkpoints and reams of red tape.
