Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin

With Roderic O'Conor (no. 38) and Walter Osborne (nos. 33-35), Richard Thomas Moynan studied in Antwerp and then worked in Paris. The textures of this genre painting, its solid tonal realism and honey-colored light point to his Antwerp training. Dublin's Metropolitan School of Art required strict formal training, a routine sharply criticized by some of its prominent, former students. Depicting the plaster cast of the Medici Benus, the models of feet and hands, and other still-life props, Moynan alludes to the school's rigid classical curriculum.

The Metropolitan School (of which artist and educatior James Brenan [nos. 13-14] was headmaster) lost many of its female students in 1893, the year the Royal Hiberian Academy first admitted women and offered a more flexible curriculum. In the painting, a female student sits at her easel as a young man casually abserves her work. Moynan's Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin may have been exhibited intitially under the title What Does it Want? - possibly the question the young painter asks of the male colleague assessing her work. Is Moynan affirming a young woman's ability to do serious work at his alma mater?

Video tour from the exhibit opening at the Yale Center for British Arts, September 1997 The presentation of Dublin in paintings watch the video [1 minute 31 seconds] View Kathleen Fox's self portrait, discussed in the video Each video clip above requires the RealPlayer, available at http://www.real.com. To view the video, just click on the links above. Downloading and installation instructions are also available.