The French photographer approaches this country in a different way through its multicoloured architecture.
For several years during my trips to Ireland, I’ve been in the habit of photographing in particular the colourful habitat in urban and rural environment, as only the people who live on this island know the secret of creating it.
Their shimmering pictorial approach is at once aesthetic, social and relates to the climate. The mixtures of colours resonate and please the eye as few people can really imagine, if they haven’t had a day, the chance to discover this beautiful island. Certainly, some other towns on the planet have already thought of this type of approach to colour walls in multiple shades, among them the little island of Burano in the north of the Venice lagoon, in Lyon along the banks of the Saône with its buildings in shades of ochre, in Colmar in Alsace, in Spain in the little towns in the province of Malaga with their bluish facades, in Buenos Aires in Argentina, in San Francisco…
But the big island remains as a country that spearheads this “Mural and Pictorial” choice of multicoloured facades. Whether it be in the counties of Galway, Kerry or even Killarney, or particularly the county of Cork, as seen here in pictures of Clonakilty among others, we are surprised by this need to bring colour to their environment, not forgetting the little fishing villages whose coloured houses huddle in shelter from the wind near the harbour.
With all these daring colours, the rain doesn’t hold sway over the morale of this island’s inhabitants. Here, the clouds pass rapidly by, driven by the strong winds from the sea, very quickly giving back an intense luminosity to all these intentionally multicoloured facades, and that’s the secret, the sun always returns very quickly to the hearts of the Irish people. The colours picked by the inhabitants to paint their homes, all more surprising than the other, judge rather: the snappy violets, the mauves, the lemon yellow, the fluoro greens, the beautiful shades of blue, the reds, the vermilions…
Jacques Revon
Jacques Revon, born on 5th April 1948 in La Clayette, is a photographer, investigative journalist and a great French reporter. He lives and works in Dijon.
