Reading the pictures

The Milltown Wing of the National Gallery of Ireland was named - naturally enough - after the Milltown Bequest, the 100th anniversary of which fell recently. It was made by the Countess of Milltown, then a widow, in memory of her husband; she was then living in Russborough - yes, the same Russborough which later housed the Beit Pictures. It was a large bequest, comprising more than 200 paintings as well as sculpture, furniture and objects d'art; so big, in fact, that the gallery had to build a new wing to accommodate it. This was duly opened in 1902. Like the Guinness family, the Leeson family was originally English and, again like the Guinnesses, they were originally brewers ("the Beerage" as the old hackneyed Dublin joke used to go). Leeson Street in Dublin is presumably named after Hugh Leeson, who started the brewery and ran it successfully to found the family fortunes. His son Joseph married, in 1729, Cecilia Leigh, and their two sons became the second and third Earls of Milltown. Joseph, named after his father, set out to be a gentleman and even a nobleman, built Russborough and got himself elected to the (Irish) House of Commons. They were a cultured family as well as a socially ambitious one, and several of them made the Grand Tour then obligatory for English and Anglo-Irish gentlemen - meaning, largely, a visit to Rome. Here they bought works of art and over the 19th century the family continued to acquire objets d'art; but their wealth and energy gradually declined and the male line became extinct in 1899.

Two legacies of their taste and initiative, in particular, keep their memory alive nationally - the great mansion of Russborough, and the Milltown Bequest (and wing) of the National Gallery. It was, on the whole, a rather conventional 18th-century taste, predictably Italianised, but intelligent and well informed, as the aristocracy then so often were. The Milltowns: a family Reunion by Sergio Benedetti (National Gallery of Ireland, £24) is largely a scholarly catalogue of the gallery's centenary exhibition, which ended recently. It is readable in its own right and highly informative, not only about Rome and the Grand Tour, but about entire chapters of Irish social history, starting in the age of Swift.

The many works reproduced include Batoni's portraits of the first two Earls of Milltown, paintings by Panini and Vernet, and the strange caricatures by Reynolds which he later regretted. There are also contributions by Chris Caffrey and the Knight of Glin, who write about Russborough, its architecture and its furnishings. The Brocas Collection - A Family of 19th-Century Artists by Patricia Butler (National Library of Ireland, £14.99 in UK) is likewise concerned with several generations of a single family, but in this case a family of artists, not of aristocratic patrons. The collection itself, which existed before the National Library was even founded, is a very large one - over 2,000 prints, watercolours and drawings spanning a century. The father-figure, or founder-figure, of the dynasty was Henry Brocas Sr (1762-1837). The Brocases were not creative geniuses, they were professional people working hard for a living and they did not despise engraving after the original works of other men - virtually the equivalent at the time of today's reproduction market. Where this well-researched book is chiefly valuable, however, is as social history and topography; we can see what areas of Georgian Dublin looked like early in the 19th century, we can see views and buildings which in many cases have changed or even vanished, and we are given a panorama of the social scene of the time.

The Irish Arts Review Yearbook 1998 (now sponsored by Glen Dimplex and costing £22.50 ppbk) is as well produced and edited as its predecessors. This year there is considerable emphasis on architecture - Peter Murray assesses the RIAI and AAI awards, and articles by Jane Meredith, Michael McCarthy, Eve McAuley, Maureen Ryan (on the High Alter of St Francis Xavier's) and Ian Gow, all deal informatively with architectural topics. Two interesting interviews are included: Paul Spellman talks to Sister Theophane about her greatuncle, Roderic O'Conor and Ann Cremin talks to Patricia Quinn, director of the Arts Council.

Other items of interest are Paula Murphy writing on James Coleman, the Irish conceptualist, and Denise Ferran on the Belfast painter Rita Duffy, soon to be seen in the Hugh Lane Gallery. Bernard Meehan writes knowledgeably about the calligraphy of the Book of Armagh in TCD. There is the usual comprehensive section of book reviews, and Elizabeth Mayes supplies an art diary for the past year. Marie Bourke's Exploring Art at the National Gallery describes itself as "a handbook for parents, teachers and young people" and is published by the NGI at the very reasonable price of £9.95. It encompasses a wide range of topics including art appreciation (always a dicey, subjective area), techniques, selecting and organising an exhibition, the various branches of painting, including landscape, still life etc and it sets out practical lessons and exercises for pupils. Finally, an illuminated table at the end sets out the various art "periods" in terms of key personalities. This book manages to fit in a great deal into its 130-odd pages and is excellently illustrated. In my opinion, the Department of Education might profitably consider making it compulsory on school courses, if it has not done so already.

Patricia Butler's Three Hundred Years of Irish Watercolours and Drawings was highly praised when it came out in hard covers a few years ago; it has now been republished as a paperback (Phoenix, £14.99 in UK). Though there never has been, strictly speaking, an Irish watercolour "school" as such the medium has been used widely for centuries for everything from botanical studies to seascape. As for "drawings" the term embraces a vast range of subject matter from political caricature to the black-and-white work of Yeats and William Conor. Though the book is a little short on colour reproductions, it is still excellent value.

Finally, The Pursuit of Painting is the catalogue for the large and impressive exhibition which Stephen McKenna curated for the Irish Museum of Modern Art during the year (a show, incidentally, which should have drawn good coverage from overseas critics, yet received very little). It makes an absorbing book in its own right, both through text and colour illustrations, and is published jointly by IMMA and Lund Humphries at £19.95.