The Second Coming
Artist
Professor Ian Howard
(Aberdeen, Scotland, 1952 - 2024)
Date2023
Object Namepainting
MediumMixed media on canvas
ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings
DimensionsOverall (Height x Width x Depth): 191 x 240 x 4 cm
AcquisitionPurchased in 2024.
Copyright© the artist
LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub
Object numberABDMS095772
Keywords
The Second Coming by Ian Howard contains many references to the end of days and apocalypse. The most relevant is the poem by Yeats in which Ian has taken the title for the painting. This poem was written post WW1; and after Yeats’ pregnant wife, George, was seriously ill with the Spanish flu. In terms of timeliness to reflect our present day, the pandemic of 1918/19 was the modern precedent for the pandemic of 2020.
The colour palette of the painting is inspired by Dürer’s Wing of a Blue Roller. As well as the symbolism of the rich pigments used in Dürer’s watercolour of 1512, Ian has used this wing to allude to the extinction of species due to climate change.
Other references in this painting, including Kandor, a fictional city saved from a doomed world by being shrunk and placed under a bell jar; the Apocalyptic Tapestry in Angers, France; and reference to Carpaccio’s wasteland in the mural St George and the Dragon.
David Henderson
Lennox Dunbar
