Jonah - Barry, James (Irish painter, printmaker, and lithographer, 1741-1806, active in England) (The Tate Gallery, 1983)
'This print after Michelangelo's figure of Jonah on the Sistine Ceiling was based on a drawing that Barry had made years earlier when he was in Rome. Yet, he had only recently come fully to appreciate this dynamic side of Michelangelo's art, the evidence for which can be seen in a number of his late works. Like the large set of prints illustrating the Society of Arts paintings and the lithograph of the head of Lear (the full painting, 'King Lear weeping over the Body of Cordelia', cgjc0759), 'Jonah' presents a detail of a larger work as a finished composition. In adapting the subject, Barry left out much of the original context. Barry dedicated 'Jonah' to the Duke of Bridgewater. The Duke along with the Earls of Carlisle and Gower had purchased the Italian and Frech paintings from the famous collection of the Duke of Orleans, which had left France after the political upheavals, adn then had exhibited these pictures in London from December 1798 to August 1799. Barry was extremely enthusiastic over seeing again these works that he had studied as a student in Paris, but the motives of the duke were not as noble and patriotic as he implies. The duke and the two earls made a handsome profit in the transaction, selling the works that they did not choose for their own collections. Barry, however, meant the print to be read not only as praising the duke but also as damning the Royal Academy. For years he had been crusading for a national gallery of art, and it was his stinging criticism of the Academy for not purchasing some of the offered works that helped lead to his expulsion. Thus, Jonah, a prophet who suffered more than did those to whom he delivered his unwelcome insights, was an appropriate choice for his subject.' (Pressly, 130-1)
Keywords: Art, Irish; Etching 19th century; Engraving 19th century; Jonah (Biblical prophet) Art.; Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564 Adaptations.; 19th century