It’s always the witching hour here at Castle Forde but, for the day that’s in it, we thought we’d spook things up a notch with this eery slice of Samuel’s brilliance.

Forde’s The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan (c.1828, sepia ink on paper). © Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. Photo credit: Dara McGrath.

Forde’s The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan (c.1828) is a sepia ink study once owned by the first principal of Cork’s School of Design, William Willes, and now held in the permanent collection of the Crawford Art Gallery. Depicting the eighth century Persian prophet Hashim Al-Muqanna (considered by some to be a heretic), Forde’s piece appears to illustrate these lines from Lalla Rookh by the Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779-1852):

There, on that throne, to which the blind belief

Of millions raised him, sat the prophet-chief,

The great Mokanna. O’er his features hung

The veil, the silver veil, which he had flung

In mercy there, to hide from mortal sight

His dazzling brow, till man could bear its light.

Lalla Rookh (1817) is an oriental romance consisting of four narrative poems – “The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan,” “Paradise and the Peri,” “The Fire-Woshippers,” and “The Light of the Harem” – which are framed by a prose tale centring on the titular daughter of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. While the historical Al-Muqanna is said to have worn the veil to, either cover his beauty, or hide his ugliness, Forde’s depiction of the prophet’s literary counterpart, Mokanna, wields all the mystery, presence and Burkean sublimity that the subject demands. It also attests to, on the one hand, Forde’s art education in Cork and study of the Canova Casts (particularly the Belvedere Torso, below), and on the other, his avid interest in literature and literary themes for his art… oh, and his penchant for throwing some mystical terror your way, of course!

Belvedere Torso (plaster cast) © Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. Image: Dara McGrath.

Now you know there’s no point in hiding under the covers when something goes bump in the night… Don’t stop to scream!! It’s: The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan! (whoo-ooooo!!)

Halloween, 31 October 2013