ADAM'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART 28th May 2025

48 32 GEORGE RUSSELL Æ (1867-1935) Clouds Over the Hill Oil on canvas 41cm x 56cm (16.1 x 22”) Provenance: Cyril de Putron, and thence by descent € 6,000 - 8,000 Russell was an Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, painter, Irish nationalist and a pac- ifist. He was also a mystic and a theosophist. His chosen pseudonym of Æ or AE represents ‘Æon’, a word used by the Gnostics, whose teachings he followed, de- scribing an ‘emanation’ of mind and spirit. ‘He was a tolerant artist-philosopher, friendly towards all mankind, and his big enthusiasms were never mixed with ven- om ... He dabbled in Eastern mysticism a good deal, but his Irish humour peeped through, and his wit and wisdom, as well as his great reputation, drew constant visitors to his Dublin home. Perhaps he is best described as an Irish Tolstoy, with a tinge of Brahmin in his intellectual background’ ( Exeter and Plymouth Gazette , 26 July 1935, p 11). Here is a flavour of his poetry, taken from Dusk (1906):‘Only in clouds and dreams I felt those souls in the abyss, each fire hid in its clod, from which in clouds and dreams the spirit rolls into the vast of God.’ De Putron, who owned this picture, was a Captain in the Lancashire Fusiliers sta- tioned in Dublin during World War One, living at Bushy Park, near to Russell. His daughter Mary was a renowned stained glass artist and archaeologist. *Subject to Import VAT - see p.9, note no.3