In the past one hundred years, Irish painting has changed from a British-influenced lyrical tradition to an art that evokes the ruggedness and roots of an Irish Celtic past. Along this journey, it absorbed elements from European painting to become an art that draws strength from ancient Celtic myths to confront the deep political and social divisions and violence in Ireland today.

"When Time Began to Rant and Rage: Figurative Painting from Twentieth-Century Ireland," a new exhibition opening at the Berkeley Art Museum at the University of California, examines the complicated evolution of modern Irish painting.

Irish painting today grew directly out of the movement that gripped Ireland's writers, artists, and intellectuals at the end of the nineteenth century as Ireland's nationalist heart began to beat. The movement had its beginnings in the cultural veneration of Celtic Ireland, which provided the greatest sense of contrast to English culture.

It was in a climate of cultural resurgence and the desire for nationhood that distinct threads emerged in Irish painting at the turn of the century. Before 1900 there was little that was truly Irish in Irish painting. But after 1900, as nationalist energies began to coalesce and gather strength, the revived interest in the Irish language and in Irish culture led to a revival in the Irish visual arts.