Paintings can really enhance our homes

Paintings can delight the eye

The column below appears in this week's INM Irish regional newspapers.

By Michael Commane
I cannot draw a straight line - another of the many things I cannot do. I know nothing about painting. Of course I have heard the names of Renoir, Chagall, Van Gogh. I have been to galleries, walked around and come back out again. Indeed, it can be an amazingly therapeutic experience to spend some time in a gallery. At one stage I made a decision not to run around from painting to painting and instead visit just one painter per visit.

When have you last visited an art gallery? And entry is free. If tomorrow the Government slapped an entry fee on art galleries, we would all be up in arms. We take so much for granted.

Some weeks back I heard an art dealer comment that 'cash was trash' and in these days of economic uncertainty the place to put your  money was in paintings.

Have you paintings and pictures around your house? And if you do, do you regularly look at them, do you genuinely like them?

Some weeks back I was in a dining room of a religious community and I was shocked with the 'stuff' that was up on the walls. They were all holy pictures, prints of course, in gaudy frames. And did it all look so depressing and dull. It seemed to me that someone in charge decided these were what should be here and up they go. Style and taste are difficult to explain.

Three years ago I moved into the house where I am now living. The walls were bare. It's probably a work in progress but over the last three years I have been putting up paintings around the small house. I'm chuffed with the idea that the paintings that are up on my walls have been painted by people I know or else depict places with which I am associated. I have one reproduction hanging. It is an Metsu print, which my mother had. It was in a terrible frame. I had it reframed and now I think it looks great and

every time I look at it I think of my late mother. There is a painting hanging over the fire place, which is a landscape of a place near Urlingford, where we went on holidays as children. And it's painted by someone I know.

Because I have no technical training in art I cannot make any discerning comment on the 'quality' or 'artistic worth' of a painting. But I am able to say that the paintings I have around my house certainly please my eye and my mind.

Over the years I have had the good fortune to know a number of people who paint. The 97-year-old mother of a Dominican colleague was painting into her early 90s. Indeed, only in the last few days have I asked her would she get back to it. Some years back she did a painting for me, which is now hanging in my home.

Back in March I attended an exhibition of paintings by a man who had died the previous year. He was in his 90s when he died. He had studied painting at evening class at Dublin's College of Art and on retirement went back painting.

I started by saying I know nothing about art but to turn up at an exhibition like that is good for one's soul. Neighbours, friends, and relatives turned up. It was a great opportunity to remember the man and

also admire his work.

Right now I'm looking at a painting on the wall in front of me. I am familiar with the landscape. Suddenly my mind is filled with thoughts about the place.   

   

It's a pity that there's some sort of 'aloofness' about art and art exhibitions. I have often found myself at an exhibition, knowing nothing on a technical level about the paintings and as a result, afraid to ask anyone any questions. We never want to make fools of ourselves. As a teacher I have always said, there is no such thing as a stupid question. It's a pity I don't listen to my own advice.

Paintings, in all their forms and styles, can delight the eye, even for those, like me, who can't draw a straight line.