Exercise #20 – Answers

Q.1. Describe the picture you are looking at.

A.1. I see a large picture with many figures either standing or sitting in groups. They are wearing ‘antique’-style clothing, but certain details, like the computer being pointed to in the right foreground and the runners worn by the young girl at the centre, indicate that this is a contemporary piece of art. I don’t see anything to suggest that it is a painting, so it is most likely a photograph.

Q.2. What is the main thing that you notice about it?

A.2. The outstanding thing is that all of the people in the work are women of different ages and nationalities.

Q.3. Do you see any similarity to the thumbnail image?

A.3. Yes. The setting has classical elements of architecture ( marble columns with capitals as well the two white antique-looking sculptures at the back of the group on the stairwell), like The School of Athens. Similarly, the figures are arranged in groups that loosely mirror those of Raphael’s fresco. The clothing also conveys the antique rather than contemporary styles.    

Notes

Na Cailleacha (Irish word for druids, witches, wise women) a female art collective, took a key work of the Renaissance and replaced all of the male representative of ancient knowledge with leading contemporary Irish women from the arts, sciences, music, art history, medicine, engineering, law, sport and social and racial activism. Mary Robinson, a lawyer and the first woman President of Ireland stands at the centre in the place of Plato, beside engineer Linda Doyle, the first woman Provost of Trinity College Dublin, who is in the place of Aristotle.

The project aimed to challenge patriarchy in art, art history education and all spheres of life in order to reflect a more inclusive world view.

The ‘tableau vivant’  was created in 2024 and recorded photographically and in film.

A symposium on The School of Hibernia took place in Rome (home to Raphael’s fresco) on February 2^nd 2026.

With kind permission of Na Cailleacha.