Oscar Wilde | Se non avessimo amato / Ay! had we never loved

Se noi non avessimo amato,

Chi sa se quel narciso avrebbe attratto l'ape

Nel suo grembo dorato,

Se quella pianta di rose avrebbe ornato

Di lampade rosse i suoi rami!

Caspar David Friedrich | Ruins of the Oybin, 1835 | Hermitage Museum

William B. Yeats | Quando sarai vecchia / When you are old

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) è stato un poeta, drammaturgo e scrittore Irlandese, nonché una delle figure più importanti della letteratura del XX secolo.

Fu una forza trainante dietro l'Irish Literary Revival ed, insieme a Lady Gregory, fondò l'Abbey Theatre, di cui fu il direttore durante i primi anni.

Gli fu conferito il premio Nobel per la Letteratura nel 1923 ed in seguito ricoprì due mandati come senatore dello Stato libero d'Irlanda.

Quando tu sarai vecchia, tentennante

tra fuoco e veglia prendi questo libro,

leggilo senza fretta e sogna la dolcezza

dei tuoi occhi d’un tempo e le loro ombre.

Vincent van Gogh | A Pair of Lovers (Eglogue en Provence), 18888 | Sotheby's

Oscar Wilde | Flower of Love

Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common clay

I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a better, clearer song,

Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled with some Hydra-headed wrong.

Had my lips been smitten into music by the kisses that but made them bleed,

You had walked with Bice and the angels on that verdant and enamelled meed.

Paul Cadmus

Jack Butler Yeats RHA | Expressionist painter

Jack Butler Yeats RHA (29 August 1871 - 28 March 1957) was an Irish artist and Olympic medalist. W. B. Yeats was his brother.

Butler's early style was that of an illustrator; he only began to work regularly in oils in 1906.

His early pictures are simple lyrical depictions of landscapes and figures, predominantly from the west of Ireland - especially of his boyhood home of Sligo.

Yeats's work contains elements of Romanticism.

He later would adopt the style of Expressionism.

Oscar Wilde | De profundis, 1897

Il "De Profundis" è una lunga lettera al Lord Alfred Douglas, il giovane amato da Wilde, scritta nei primi mesi del 1897 nel carcere di Reading dove Oscar Wilde (Scrittore, aforista, poeta, drammaturgo, giornalista e saggista irlandese dell'età Vittoriana, esponente del decadentismo e dell'estetismo Britannico, 1854-1900), si trovava da quasi due anni per aver amato un uomo.

Nel 1895 Oscar Wilde, al culmine del successo mondano e letterario, fu condannato a due anni di lavori forzati per “atti osceni”: alla sofferenza della reclusione si unirono la bancarotta finanziaria e la morte civile, con il divorzio e la perdita dei figli.

Chiuso tra le mura del carcere di Reading, Wilde scrisse una lunga lettera a Lord Alfred Douglas, il giovane poeta aristocratico di cui era innamorato e che era stato la causa dello scandalo.

Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, May 1893 | British Library

Rose Barton RWS (1856-1929) | Watercolor painter

Rose Mary Barton RWS was an Anglo-Irish artist; a watercolourist who painted landscape, street scenes, gardens, child portraiture and illustrations of the townscape of Britain and Ireland.

Barton exhibited with a number of different painting societies, most notably the Watercolour Society of Ireland (WCSI), the Royal Academy (RA), the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), the Society of Women Artists and the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS).

Daniel Maclise (1806-1870) | History painter

Daniel Maclise was born to a family of Scottish descent. After a brief period working in a bank, Maclise’s passion for drawing led him to pursue a career in art which he studied at the Cork Society of Arts.

His lifelong interest in antiquities began through his acquaintance with the antiquarian Richard Sainthill and folklorist Thomas Crofton Croker.

Maclise copied from their collections, and they secured commissions for the young artist from their circle of wealthy and influential friends.

Francis O'Toole | Figurative painter

Francis O'Toole is a Dublin based artist, who has studied in Florence, Italy.

At 17 Francis was involved in an industrial accident which very nearly claimed his life. After spending over a year in hospital and rehabilitation, Francis spent a number of years confused about what path to take in life, this lead to him straying into the wrong group of people and encountering a dark world of up and coming criminals.

One day out of concern for her son Francis' mother suggested he paint, at first Francis believe this to be silly, but slowly began to enjoy this activity.