Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture
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The ''Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture'' is a collection of three statues in
Merrion Square Merrion Square () is a Georgian garden square on the southside of Dublin city centre. History The square was laid out in 1752 by the estate of Viscount FitzWilliam and was largely complete by the beginning of the 19th century. The demand for ...
in
Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
, Ireland, commemorating Irish poet and playwright
Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
. The sculptures were unveiled in 1997 and were designed and made by
Danny Osborne Danny Osborne is an artist born in Dorset, England in 1949. He is a resident of Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada and Cork, Ireland. Osborne studied at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art. He is best known for his public sculptures, particularly his O ...
.


History

English sculptor
Danny Osborne Danny Osborne is an artist born in Dorset, England in 1949. He is a resident of Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada and Cork, Ireland. Osborne studied at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art. He is best known for his public sculptures, particularly his O ...
was commissioned by the Guinness Ireland Group to create a statue commemorating
Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
, which was unveiled in 1997, by Wilde's grandson
Merlin Holland Christopher Merlin Vyvyan Holland (born December 1945) is a British biographer and editor. He is the only grandchild of Oscar Wilde, whose life he has researched and written about extensively. Biography Born in London in December 1945, Christop ...
. The initial budget of
IR£ The pound (Irish: ) was the currency of the Republic of Ireland until 2002. Its ISO 4217 code was IEP, and the symbol was £ (or IR£ for distinction). The Irish pound was replaced by the euro on 1 January 1999. Euro currency did not begin cir ...
20,000 was later increased to IR£45,000. Since
marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...
alone was deemed inadequate, the statue was formed from different coloured stones from three continents. The torso is of green
nephrite jade Jade is a mineral used as jewellery or for ornaments. It is typically green, although may be yellow or white. Jade can refer to either of two different silicate minerals: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in the amphibole group of ...
from
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
, Canada, and pink
thulite Thulite (sometimes called rosaline) is a translucent, crystalline or massive pink manganese-bearing variety of the mineral zoisite. Manganese substitutes for calcium in the structure with up to two percent Mn2+. Thulite is often mottled with white ...
from Norway. The legs are of Norwegian Blue Pearl granite with the shoes being black Indian
charnockite Charnockite () is any orthopyroxene-bearing quartz-feldspar rock formed at high temperature and pressure, commonly found in granulite facies metamorphic regions, ''sensu stricto'' as an endmember of the charnockite series. Charnockite series Th ...
and finished with bronze shoelace tips. The statue also wears a
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
tie made from glazed
porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...
, and three rings – Wilde's wedding ring and two scarabs, one for good luck, the other for bad luck. The statue is mounted with Wilde reclining on a large
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
boulder obtained by Osborne himself from the
Wicklow Mountains The Wicklow Mountains (, archaic: ''Cualu'') form the largest continuous upland area in the Republic of Ireland. They occupy the whole centre of County Wicklow and stretch outside its borders into the counties of Dublin, Wexford and Carlow. Wh ...
. The sculpture also includes two pillars flanking the boulder with one pillar having a nude pregnant representation of Wilde's wife
Constance Lloyd Constance Mary Wilde (née Lloyd; 2 January 1858 – 7 April 1898) was an Irish author. She was the wife of Irish playwright Oscar Wilde and the mother of their two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. Early life and marriage The daughter of Horace Lloyd, ...
on top. The other one has a male torso representing
Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...
, the Greek god of drama and wine, atop it. Both flanking sculptures are in
bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
and
granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
, and both pillars have inscriptions from Wilde's poems carved onto them. The inscriptions of the quotes copy the personal handwriting of figures including
Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.
, John B. Keane and
Michael D. Higgins Michael Daniel Higgins ( ga, Mícheál Dónal Ó hUigínn; born 18 April 1941) is an Irish politician, poet, sociologist, and broadcaster, who has served as the ninth president of Ireland since November 2011. Entering national politics throug ...
. Three people, living at the time near to the artist's West Cork studio, posed as models for the three sculptures. When the statue was unveiled in 1997, it was the first statue commemorating Wilde, who had died 97 years earlier. It received near unanimous praise for the materials used and for its location near his childhood home at 1,
Merrion Square Merrion Square () is a Georgian garden square on the southside of Dublin city centre. History The square was laid out in 1752 by the estate of Viscount FitzWilliam and was largely complete by the beginning of the 19th century. The demand for ...
. In 2010, the porcelain head of Wilde had to be replaced because cracks were forming on it. The porcelain head was replaced by a new one made of white
jadeite Jadeite is a pyroxene mineral with composition sodium, Naaluminium, Alsilicon, Si2oxygen, O6. It is hard (Mohs hardness of about 6.5 to 7.0), very tough, and dense, with a specific gravity of about 3.4. It is found in a wide range of colors, bu ...
.


Impact and significance

In a May 2001 article in the Irish edition of ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' Mark Keenan commented on the surprisingly long wait for a commemoration of Wilde in his native city and suggested an explanation for the delay, "... a decade ago, more conservative elements among the Dublin public may not have dared allow his city to commemorate his name." Art historian Paula Murphy agreed, saying, "It has taken nearly one hundred years for an Irish body, public or private, to risk suggesting that we might consider Oscar Wilde worthy of such commemoration. But then it has taken the same length of time for Ireland to awaken, reluctantly, to the existence of sexuality and the reality of the way in which it dictates a lifestyle." It took as long for London, where Wilde spent most of his adult life, to commemorate the dramatist:
Maggi Hambling Margaret ("Maggi") J. Hambling (born 23 October 1945) is a British artist. Though principally a painter her best-known public works are the sculptures '' A Conversation with Oscar Wilde'' and '' A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft'' in London, ...
's ''
A Conversation with Oscar Wilde ''A Conversation with Oscar Wilde'' is an outdoor sculpture by Maggi Hambling in central London dedicated to Oscar Wilde. Unveiled in 1998, it takes the form of a bench-like green granite sarcophagus, with a bust of Wilde emerging from the upper ...
'' was unveiled in 1998. Discussing the work in her 2012 article "Sculpting Irishness: a discussion of Dublin's commemorative statues of Oscar Wilde and Phil Lynott" for ''Sculpture Journal'', Sarah Smith writes:
Another distinction is the figure's facial expression, which, disrupting the realism of the figure, might be described as a rather contorted sneer. Intended by the artist to represent two antithetical sides of Wilde, one half of his face is smiling widely ... while the other bears a sombre expression ... and this divide is echoed in his posture on either side. Because of its positioning at the corner of the park on the turn of the outer pathway, the visitor to the monument sees one side of Wilde when approaching and another when walking away. One is the witty Wilde who is most often remembered in popular culture, the other the "broken man" he became following his two-year incarceration for committing homosexual acts.
Smith argues "we cannot help but read this work according to today’s conventions of dress and gesture", saying:
The choice of pose for Wilde, which invokes familiar art historical and popular images of 'feminized masculinity', the use of colour for this ‘colourful character’ and his gaze directed at the nude male torso all coalesce with our knowledge of his homosexuality. We consequently see an overemphasis on his sexuality in this work, augmented by the nicknames given to it by Dubliners.


See also

*
Greek mythology in popular culture Elements of Greek mythology appear many times in culture, including pop culture. The Greek myths spread beyond the Hellenistic world when adopted (for example) into the culture of ancient Rome, and Western cultural movements have frequently i ...


References


External links

* {{Portal bar, Ireland, LGBT, Visual arts 1997 establishments in Ireland 1997 sculptures Arts in Dublin (city) Bronze sculptures Cultural depictions of Oscar Wilde LGBT in Ireland Monuments and memorials in the Republic of Ireland Nude sculptures Oscar Wilde Outdoor sculptures in Ireland Sculptures of Dionysus Sculptures of men in Ireland Sculptures of women Statues in Ireland Stone sculptures