By Oona Colin | Photo: Michael Hussey (YoughalOnline.com)

Artist Tom Brennan

An art exhibition by Thomas W Brennan at the Mall Arts Centre was a wonderful success and art lovers were not disappointed with the beautiful works on display. There were original paintings and drawings by the artist but there was one painting in particular, a copy of the famous Taking of Christ (1602) by the Italian artist Caravaggio. This took Tom a whole year to reproduce from a print-out and he had to visit the National Gallery of Ireland several times in Dublin to get it exactly right. I’m not sure if anyone else could get it that close.

Thomas W Brennan studied at the old Crawford School of Art in Emmet Place, Cork and during his time there he specialized in drawing and painting from life, pictorial design and composition and drawing from antique. Whilst studying there he was responsible for resurrecting the idea of drawing from the human skeleton, which had been abandoned.
Thomas had to rebuild the skeleton after spending some time locating it and retrieving parts of it from a number of old dusty cupboards.

Tom’s work falls between the Classical and the Romantic movement, blending them together.
As said by local artist Cormac Mehegan “Brennan’s work would comfortably slot between Constable and Turner in style and ability”