Monday, July 20, 2015

Molly


Click on any image for a larger version

I'm not sure this is quite what Delacroix had in mind when he painted "Liberty leading the people" at the time of the 1830 revolt against Charles X. His Marianne was almost equally well endowed but not a patch on our Molly


This is Molly as we normally think of her, wheeling her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow - from Grafton Street to Andrew Street as it happens.


This piece of street sculpture has fascinated me since it appeared on the streets of Dublin. Boobs aside, it is a most expressive and elusive piece of work.

I have strung together here just a few of the photos I have taken as I passed by. Molly can be domineering, teasing, bewildered, coy, attractive and even pretty.


Some people may feel the boobs intrusive but I have seen them defended on the basis that in those days mothers were breastfeeding all over the place and boobs were popping in and out like nobody's business.

Quite a current resonance then.


I always felt she was up for more than just pushing a wheelbarrow round the streets of Dublin. These photos show just a few of the Mollys encapsulated in this one piece of street sculpture.


This lady could be mistress of one of those nearby Georgian Houses instead of delivering fish to the door.


Here she is in her new, temporary, location in Andrew Street, outside the church that now serves as a tourist office.

This is her most assertive pose. You can feel the steel, so to speak, and this is the one I used to give her a play at being Marianne for Delacroix.


But I'd prefer to leave you with this one which has an air of gentility and serenity about it.

The background is a building currently, and conveniently, being renovated in Suffolk Street.

Molly was sculpted by Dubliner Jeanne Rynhart.

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