Waterloo sunrise – An Irishman’s Diary about the Cork-born artist Alfred Elmore

The birthdate of Clonakilty-born artist Alfred Elmore is today famous the world over; but not, alas, because of anything he did. He made his earthly debut on June 18th, 1815, a day when events near the Belgian town of Waterloo were to dominate the news agenda. Even so, Elmore grew up to achieve his own share of 19th-century celebrity; enough to make his bicentenary – overshadowed as he still is by the battle – worth at least noting.

It may be apt that the artist was born on such an epochal date, because he himself appears to have been the product of two competing strains of history. His mother, Jean Callanan, was of revolutionary stock, being the daughter of Dr William Callanan, businessman, philanthropist, and prominent member of the United Irishmen in 1798. His father, Alfred Elmore snr, was also a medical man. But as such, he had been a surgeon with a British regiment during the Peninsular Wars, where their overall commander, a certain Arthur Wellesley (not yet the Duke of Wellington), first made his name.

By the time of Alfred jnr’s birth, Alfred snr was back in Clonakility, collaborating with his brother Richard (yet another doctor) in a thriving linen business.

Unfortunately, the end of the Napoleonic Wars brought its own problems, including a collapse in agriculture prices and economic depression. Amid these and other challenges, the family business went into decline and in 1827, when the future painter was only 12, the Elmores moved to London, never to return.

This may explain why Ireland features very little in the artist's work, although the country's influence lurks in the background. In general, the family benefited from such high connections as Daniel O'Connell, for whom Richard served as physician. And of more particular interest to art, O'Connell also commissioned one of Alfred jnr's largest paintings, The Martyrdom of Thomas à Becket, later presented to a church in Dublin.

Elmore was for a time associated with a group of London artists known as the Clique, set up in opposition to the so-called Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who were themselves in reaction against excessive formalism in art (they thought the rot had set in 350 years earlier with Raphael, hence the name).

The Clique’s founder, Richard Dadd, would later achieve notoriety for drowning his father in a lake in Hyde Park, after which he continued his artistic career as an inmate of the “Bedlam” Lunatic Asylum. But Elmore was always noted for his independence of style and thought. And his involvement with the Clique can’t have lasted long, since during the group’s most active period he was travelling across continental Europe, furthering his studies.

At the height of his career, Elmore was a success not only in London, but also Paris, where his pictures were included in three Expositions Universelles. Against which, the French capital was also the scene of one of his more memorably bad reviews. His picture of the Tuileries Gardens was excoriated as having "extended the limits of bad drawing and false sentiment". The critic added: "It is impossible, without seeing this work, to form an idea of its miserable execution, extravagant drawing, loud colouring, and random lights, scattered hither and thither across the canvas without rhyme or reason".

But violent as it was, that review seems to have been the exception in an otherwise successful career. Elmore was best-known for his history and genre paintings. And probably his most famous single work was one of the latter, On The Brink. A Victorian moral tale, it depicts a young woman who has lost her money gambling and is in danger of a further fall at the hands of an evil seducer, seen whispering in her ear.

Elmore died in London in 1881 and is now all but forgotten in the land of his birth. Part of the problem is that very few of his paintings are displayed here. But another of his female portraits, A Classic Beauty, can be seen in Cork's Crawford Gallery. And the aforementioned Thomas à Becket painting still hangs in Dublin, near the altar of St Andrew's church on Westland Row.

Elmore’s life and work continue to be excavated, meanwhile, by art historians including Julian Campbell, who sent me a summary, and Caomhín de Bhailís. It is in part due to them that tomorrow evening, while the rest of Europe commemorates Waterloo, Clonakility will unveil a plaque in the painter’s honour (see duchasheritageclonakility.com). The unveiling will be followed by a lecture on Elmore, by de Bhailís, in St Joseph’s Primary School Hall.

@FrankmcnallyIT