Once I saw Micheal Farrell’s “Madonna Ireland or the Very First Real Irish Political Picture,” or “Madonna Ireland,” I couldn’t look away. The picture has so much to take in, with the starkly naked angel, to the peeling paper revealing a second face, to the contorted depiction of the infamous Leonardo da Vinci’s Study of proportions.

I think the da Vinci illusion is the most striking, considering that his work is meant to convey proportion, whereas Farrell’s piece does not. Most notable is the altered face in the da Vinci photo, offering a much more disturb figure with contorted features. Additionally, instead of portraying balance, the figure is concealing its genital. The figures acknowledgement of the exposed genitals reads as him attempting to conceal them from becoming sexualized and acknowledges a vulnerability in nudity. If this is true, what does it mean that the angel is also nude?

While I do not have training in theories surrounding art, the chaos depicted here rests in the space’s inability to find balance. For starters, we have the mess surrounding the naked angel. My immediate impression upon seeing the angel is she is out of place; I anticipate an angel being in a pure space, without the clutter and disarray–and especially without the intrusive face in the corner, looming over her. To an extent, though, she appears trapped in this chaos, seeking an pseudo-escape by looking out the small opening in a window.

Another feature of the Hugh Lane Gallery that I loved was the quotes about place in the Bacon section. He says:

“For some reason the moment I saw this place I knew that I could work here. I am very influenced by places – by the atmosphere of a room…”

“This mess here around us is rather like my mind; it may be a good image of what goes on inside me, that’s what it’s like, my life is like that…”

Because of the conversations we have had about place in our class, I appreciated Bacon’s acknowledgement of the role of place in the creative process. Interestingly, he acknowledges that a place was essentially waiting for him, but that it also was able to be molded into being his, with him adding a mess to it–making it his own.