I
reland is synonymous with St. Patrick. Images of the saint abound. One of the most outstanding, by Harry Clarke, is a stained glass
window commissioned in 1925 for St. Michael���s Church in Ballinasoloe. Far less known
than St. Patrick and hardly a saint, Clark���s art,
illustrations and stained glass windows increasingly are recognized as ingenious.
Although he studied stained glass at the Dublin Art School, winning a national competition
in 1910 for the St. Patrick window, he was
employed early in his artistic career as a book
illustrator. The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,
The Rape of the Lock, Fairy Tales by Hans
Christian Andersen, Edgar Allan Poe���s Tales
of Mystery and Imagination and Charles Perreault���s Fairy Tales of Perreault and Goethe���s
Faust all received his attention in the form of
his illustrations. They are comparable in quality and in depth to, and deserve the same accolades as, those of Edmund Dulac, Aubrey
Beardsley and Kay Nielsen.
His stained glass windows, however, are arguably his most dazzling achievement. His work
may be seen at Honan Chapel at University
HYLAND
