Fand and Manannan 1913

Curator: Standing before us is John Duncan's oil painting, "Fand and Manannan," created in 1913. Editor: My initial reaction? It's like a pre-Raphaelite dream… all soft light and idealised forms. I immediately zoom in on how the paint, with its almost translucent quality, renders their skin. What story are we walking into? Curator: This painting plunges us into Celtic mythology. Fand, a queen of the fairies, and Manannan, a sea god, stand together, ethereal and otherworldly. What fascinates me is the artist’s treatment of the ethereal and otherworldly, how those subtle touches turn oil paint into moonlight. Editor: Exactly. Romanticism dripping in oil! Look at that drape beneath their feet, it is a patterned cloth grounded amidst what I imagine to be an ethereal sea. It emphasizes a certain materialism within the subject’s divine attributes; a commentary, perhaps, on desire? Or earthly pleasures of something greater than ourselves? Curator: Desire, perhaps a longing for a union between worlds? Duncan's works are heavily symbolic. Those white doves could symbolize peace, transition between worlds, or the purity of the love between Fand and Manannan, but also this is what I'd describe as Celtic Romanticism... A very niche market indeed, do you agree? Editor: Absolutely, however, the technique of layering pigments generates subtle optical effects to the image’s final effect, but is there any local materiality being suggested? I ask, given the heavy usage of Celtic thematic interests by the artist. Curator: John Duncan’s process and careful attention to historical craft traditions really shines through here. You know, sometimes I feel like he's whispering secrets about the spirit world directly into the canvas. The combination of the visual and tactile is really potent in his works, or should I dare to say, in his magic! Editor: Whispering spirits or meticulously layering historical research, there’s no denying Duncan's attention to craft. It’s in the oil he painstakingly chose, the specific brushstrokes. The more I think about it, it might have inspired something, as small as an emotion or a feeling of grandiosity… This could serve as a case study for a materialist theory that places objects in their proper time to understand their full narrative potential. Curator: I like that - narrative potential! I feel changed by witnessing his magic come alive through his painting. Editor: Indeed! By dissecting "Fand and Manannan", we gained perspective of mythology, artistry, material culture, and maybe, a slight twinkle of magic.