One of Ireland's finest artists and geologists will be honoured today, but for years he has been a footnote in Irish art history, writes Mary Mulvihill.
Forget about art and science being worlds apart. Consider instead the work of George Victor Du Noyer, a talented landscape painter who was probably the most prolific Irish artist of the 19th century, and also a fine geologist.
Now, nearly 135 years after his death, Du Noyer is belatedly earning the recognition he is due. Last year, Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin included him in their book, Ireland's Painters 1600-1940 (2002), describing him as having "considerable talent" and his work as being "of outstanding quality". This afternoon, a commemorative plaque to GVDN will be unveiled at his former Dublin home.
Art and science combined in the life and work of one man. Indeed, Du Noyer thought of himself as an artist working in the service of science - this being in the days before photography was well- developed, when artists played an important role in producing scientific descriptions of artefacts. He even believed that artists should study geology, just as they would anatomy.
Du Noyer (1817-69) worked for over 20 years with the Geological Survey of Ireland, mapping the rock formations of several Irish counties, and contributing to our understanding of how Ireland's landscape formed. He had previously worked for six years with the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, sketching and painting antiquities, monuments, fossils, plants and animals.
His vast portfolio of artistic output is an accurate and valuable record of scientific finds and of 19th-century Ireland, especially as much of what he painted was later destroyed by "development". So faithful are his depictions of monuments, that archaeologists accept them as visual records, and his work is still consulted and used. Yet, sadly, most people have never heard of Du Noyer.
This may be partly because his work was so varied, but also because there was a certain snobbery in 19th-century Irish art. In the hierarchy of the day, the upper echelons were occupied by landscape painters, men whose work adorned the great living rooms, men who might take romantic liberties ("artistic licence") with the landscapes they painted, yet whose work commanded substantial prices, charged in guineas.
Beneath them was George Victor Du Noyer, a "topographical draughtsman" (as described in the RHA catalogue) who accurately depicted the landscapes he observed, yet who therefore lacked status, and who was obliged, when he exhibited at the RHA, to price his work not in guineas but in the more prosaic pounds, shillings and pence.
GVDN (as he often signed himself) was born in Dublin to French-speaking parents of Huguenot descent. He had no formal artistic training, but clearly showed talent at a young age, and received tuition from a neighbour, George Petrie, the noted landscape artist and antiquarian.
Petrie had a formative influence, and GVDN's early style resembles Petrie's so much, that his paintings have occasionally been attributed to his tutor. Petrie also taught him the importance of accuracy when depicting antiquities, and it was Petrie who got GVDN a job as draughtsman with the Ordnance Survey of Ireland (OSI) when he was 17.
In addition to mapping the country, the OSI was engaged in recording any antiquities and fossils it found, plus samples of plants and animals. The ambitious plan was to publish an illustrated "memoir" for every parish, but the cost for Templemore parish (near Derry) exceeded the budget for the whole country, and the plan was abandoned.
Although not before GVDN had spent six years producing illustrations of fish caught in Lough Foyle, apples collected near Belfast, seaweeds from the shores of Co Derry, and much more besides.
Botanical drawings call for special skills, and Du Noyer had never previously painted plants. Yet, directed by botanist David Moore, he produced a series of elegant paintings, including several of two new species which Moore had discovered during the survey: a grass (Calamagrostis stricta) and a sedge (Carex buxbaumii). New species need describing, and Du Noyer's paintings of these are an integral part of their scientific description. In recognition of GVDN's contribution, two fossils discovered then were named after him: a mollusc, Lucina du noyeri; and a redwood tree, Sequioa du noyeri, the highest honour one scientist can pay another.
Let go when the OSI's antiquities division closed in 1842, GVDN spent five years taking what work he could get, including commissions to paint private houses, and a year as an art teacher. In 1847, he joined the newly formed Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI), despite having no formal geological training, other than what he had picked up while drawing fossils for the OSI.
It was to prove an ideal partnership: Du Noyer's skill as an accurate observer made him the perfect person to survey geological formations, while the field work gave him the scope to indulge his talent as a landscape painter. Moreover, the geological work took him to remote places most other painters ignored, and gave him an eye for landscape few others possessed.
GVDN spent the next 22 years walking the Irish countryside, single-handedly surveying all of counties Waterford, Wexford, Cork and Kerry, and much of Antrim, Down and Armagh. He noted rock formations and fossils, and recorded the information on OSI six-inch maps, or "sheets". His working field sheets, which are still consulted as geological records, are richly embellished with small paintings, making them veritable works of art - the GSI's very own "artist in residence".
Fossils encountered during the work were used to distinguish among the various layers of rock, and GVDN would sketch them all, admirably rendering in watercolours the dull tones of the stone, and capturing the minutest detail in a way that is not possible even with modern photographic techniques.
He was an inveterate scribbler, and his notebooks are filled with all manner of sketches: a woman washing clothes in a bucket, people gathering cockles, cows in a field, and all drawn with humour and sympathy.
Sadly, like many a surveyor, GVDN died "in the field". He was dead within four days of contracting scarlet fever, his five-year-old daughter having died of the infection a few hours before. Both are buried in Antrim town, where Du Noyer was on survey duty.
GVDN had some status while alive - he was a member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Freemason, and exhibited regularly at the Royal Hibernian Academy - but only in recent years has he been admitted to the pantheon of Irish artists.
Even then, the one exhibition of his work, held at the National Gallery, was not to honour the artist but to mark the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Geological Survey (1995). Which is why Petra Coffey, a GVDN devotee, has campaigned for years to improve his standing, and it is thanks to Coffey that the plaque is being unveiled.
The unveiling ceremony takes place at 3 p.m. at 11 Sydney Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin. All are welcome
Du Noyer tracking down the work
The best introduction to Du Noyer's work is Hidden Landscapes, the catalogue for the 1995 exhibition (National Gallery, 12.95). Most of Du Noyer's work is in archive collections, and none is on public display, so access must be arranged with the relevant curator. Check out the Geological Survey of Ireland, and the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland; National Gallery; National Museum (zoological and antiquities divisions); National Botanic Gardens; National Archives; Royal Irish Academy; Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland; National Library; and Armagh Museum.