Page 19 - Whyte'sIrishart

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William Crozier HRHA (1930-2011)
THE RIVER IN THE WOOD, 1991
oil on canvas
signed lower left; signed again, titled and dated on reverse; with
inscribed label also on reverse
24 by 30in. (60.96 by 76.20cm)
The River in the Wood shows William Crozier engaging with two of his
favourite motifs – the tree and the river. Scottish by birth, later becoming
an Irish citizen, Crozier’s landscapes avoid any of the characteristics of
national stereotype. Crozier settled in West Cork in 1983 although he
continued to travel and work abroad. His vibrant, almost abstract paintings
of the landscape of West Cork, such as this example, were a revelation
when they came to wider public attention in Ireland after a retrospective
of Crozier’s work at the RHA Gallery in 1991. Jim O’Driscoll, a native of West
Cork, clearly recognised the novelty of Crozier’s engagement with the
locality. He was an important collector of his work.
In The River in the Wood strong vivid colours are applied directly onto the
white primed canvas, visible in the red branches of the trees to the right.
Using a fattened perspective, Crozier creates a rich varied surface of
competing forms, juxtaposing the rushing fow of the river and the vertical
shapes of the trees. The blue water severs the composition separating an
island of deep red and green trees from a sunlit group of pale green and
orange woods to the left. The latter introduce a subtle sense of movement
into the composition in contrast to the more dynamic form of the river.
This work, like other paintings by Crozier, is deceptively simple in its
construction. However the careful selection of colours and control of form
refect a deep understanding of both historical and modern European art.
It evokes the iridescence of Gothic stained glass as well as the
expressionist vigour of French Fauvism. The work is a direct response to
nature. As Crozier declared, ‘I cannot invent anything. I’ve got to see it’.1
The painting is then made in the studio directly on the canvas, without
preliminary drawings. Through this intuitive approach, the fnal work
becomes an internalised response to not just a specifc location but to a
particular moment and to the combination of psychological and physical
forces which infuenced Crozier while painting it. One of his stated aims in
creating a painting was to ‘invest it with an epic quality’.2 The understated
yet dramatic combinations of forms and colours make The River in the
Wood such an epic landscape.
Dr. Róisín Kennedy
April 2012
1 Quoted in P. Vann., ‘A Man of Imagination’, in ed. C. Crouan, William Crozier, Lund
Humphries, 2007, p.20.
2 Ibid, p.39.
€10,000-€15,000 (£8,196-£12,295 approx).
The Jim O’Driscoll Collection WHYTESS I N C E 1 7 8 3
,
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