Deep within the woods surrounding Kilkea and across the ancient boundaries of South Kildare there is a path not marked by modern signs but by the weight of a local legend. This is the realm of Gerald FitzGerald the eleventh Earl of Kildare known throughout history as the Wizard Earl.
Unlike the ancient kings who ruled from earthen mounds the Wizard Earl belongs to a time where the medieval world began to blur into the occult. My interest as an artist is not in the historical man but in the folklore that suggests he never truly left. It is said that every seven years he rises from his slumber beneath the Rath of Mullaghmast to ride across the Curragh on a white horse shod with silver shoes.
The Alchemy of the Landscape
Painting the Wizard Earl’s Path requires a different approach to light. While Dun Ailinne is about the sun this path is about the twilight. Folklore tells us the Earl was a practitioner of the black arts a man who could change his shape at will. This sense of transformation is what I try to capture on the canvas.
I look for the places where the forest grows dense and the trees twist into unnatural shapes. In these silhouettes I see the Earl’s transformative power. The silver shoes of his horse are reflected in the way the moonlight hits the damp limestone or the pale bark of a birch tree. My palette shifts here toward the metallic and the cool deeper blues charcoal greys and flashes of silver that cut through the darkness.
The Silver Shoe and the Seven Year Cycle
There is a beautiful melancholy in the myth that the Earl can only be freed when the silver shoes of his horse are worn down to the thickness of a cat’s ear. This imagery of gradual wear and the slow passage of centuries is a powerful metaphor for the landscape itself.
In my sketches I focus on the textures of erosion and the softening of hard edges. I find myself drawn to the old gates and the moss covered stones along the periphery of the Kilkea estate. These are the physical markers of a world that is slowly being reclaimed by the earth just as the Earl’s silver shoes are being reclaimed by the road.
Capturing the Shapeshifter
The folklore of the Wizard Earl is a reminder that the land has secrets it only reveals in the periphery of our vision. When I am out in the field I am looking for that moment of movement in the shadows the suggestion of a rider just beyond the next turn in the path.
In the studio this translates to layers of glazing and transparent washes. I want the viewer to feel that the painting is shifting as they look at it. Just as Gerald was said to transform from a man into a bird or a beast I want my work to transform from a simple landscape into something more mysterious and layered.
Artistic Reflection The path of the Wizard Earl is not a destination but a state of mind. It is the realization that even the most solid stone castle or the most decorated Earl is eventually woven back into the folklore and the soil of Ireland.