James Barry remains one of the most ambitious, controversial and important painters that Ireland has produced. But this Cork-born artist was also a neo-classical painter of major international significance, although not often given his due as such. His reputation for eccentricity, for extreme political views, for intemperate and paranoid confrontations with the art establishment, still overshadows his considerable achievements as an artist. Barry’s art aimed to be international and universal, grounded as it was not only in the Renaissance masters he most admired – Raphael, Michelangelo and Titian – but even more in classical Greek painting, long lost and known only from writings, and shadowed for him in Roman copies of Greek sculptures. For the most part, however, Barry has been remarkably little known or appreciated in his native city or country. This comprehensive and extremely handsome book gives the reader an opportunity to enjoy and understand better the work of one of Ireland’s greatest artists.
