John Duncan (1866-1945), ‘The Riders of the Sidhe’, 1911“John Duncan’s The R

John Duncan (1866-1945), ‘The Riders of the Sidhe’, 1911“John Duncan’s The Riders of the Sidhe from 1911 depicts the Sidhe, or the Celtic Fairies, a divine race who inhabit the Otherworld of the dead; perceived only in visionary states of mind and usually at liminal places such as stone circles, sacred groves, wells and 'fairy hills’ or 'fairy glens’In the introduction to her drama The Immortal Hour; Fiona Macleod emphasises that the Sidhe, or 'Hidden People… were great and potent, not small and insignificant beings’; as Duncan’s portrayal of them reinforces. Macleod’s re-telling of the ancient poem The March of the Faërie Host which she includes in her anthology of celtic poetry Lyra Celtica almost reads as a description of Duncan’s painting:'…Sons of kings and queens are one and all.On all their heads are Beautiful golden-yellow manes:With smooth, comely bodies,With bright blue-starred eyes,With pure crystal teeth,With thin red lips…’The Sidhe are 'setting out on the eve of Beltane… bearing symbols as follows: the tree of life and of knowledge, the cup of the heart of abundance and healing, the sword of the will on the active side, and the crystal of the will on its passive side;’ symbols which Lindsay Errington perceives as 'betraying in their type of symbolism the still lingering influence of Patrick Geddes.Experiences of the Sidhe are usually accompanied by sonorous phenomena; Duncan claimed to have heard 'fairy music’ whilst painting; and seems naturally inclined towards trance-like states; as John Kemplay writes in his book on Duncan:'he saw with the "inner eye” of his imagination forms more beautiful than any he had ever seen with the “outer eye”. But these were not forms alone; they were “living people with quick eyes and strange solemn gestures who move as if in some ritual.”Source: https://theforgottenstudio.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-riders-of-sidhe.html  -- source link

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