WHYTES
SINCE 1783
,
41
46
Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957)
GLENCAR, SLIGO, 1949
oil on panel
signed lower left; inscribed on reverse; also with exhibition
labels on reverse
9
by 14in. (22.86 by 35.56cm)
Literature
Pyle, Hilary,
Jack B. Yeats A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil
Paintings II,
London, 1992, p.876, no. 968 (illustrated) and III,
p.497 (illustrated)
Provenance:
Waddington Galleries, London;
Whence purchased by Capt. C. S. Collinson, Jan. 1950;
Harold Diamond, New York, 1958;
Joseph H. Hirschhorn, New York, 1958-66;
Hirschhorn Museum,Washington DC;
Christies, London, 10 May 2007, lot 93;
Whence purchased by present owner
Glencar Waterfall is situated north of Sligo town and is made up of three
falls, the highest of which is fifty feet. It flows into the lake of Glencar, inland
from Drumcliffe, where Yeats’ grandfather was rector for many years and
where his brother,William was buried.
Jack Yeats and his siblings visited Glencar as children when they were
staying with their mother’s family in Sligo.There are two crannógs in the
nearby lake, adding to the sense of mystery evoked by the waterfall and the
surrounding countryside.W. B.Yeats used the locality as a setting for his early
poem,
The Stolen Child
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce would bathe a star ...
(
W. B.Yeats,
The Stolen Child
, 1886)
The waterfall became an important symbol of Jack’s youth and of the
beauty of the West in his oil paintings. Glencar Waterfall appears in a
number of works, most famously as the backdrop to
In Memory of
Boucicault and Bianconi, 1937
(
National Gallery of Ireland).
Glencar is known for its rich vegetation. According to Hilary Pyle’s
description of the waterfall, it flows through fields of wild garlic and
rhododendrons and tall trees surround it. 1 Yeats’ painting, with its use of
rich blues and greens, and its touches of yellow and deep red, recreates the
sensuous experience of standing in such a place.The pale form of the water
contrasts with its verdant surroundings.Yeats uses a low viewpoint which
brings the viewer into the centre of the landscape. Rather than setting the
waterfall in the middle of the composition,Yeats sets it to the left-hand side
and frames it with the surrounding shrubbery, as if one had suddenly come
across this wondrous sight.
In its evocation of the lushness of the Irish countryside the painting is
prophetic of the later treatment of the Irish landscape as an intimate and
mysterious subject by such artists as Seán McSweeney and Barrie Cooke.
Yeats’ treatment of the pigment in the painting is also interesting in terms of
later Irish landscape painting. He is very concerned with the handling of the
paint surface.The waterfall is painted, at least partly, over the dark green
pigment of the foliage. It is a flat, opaque element in the composition which
differentiates it from its surroundings.Yeats departs from all the usual
landscape conventions and creates, instead, a remarkable painting in which
his complex treatment of the surface takes precedence over other pictorial
concerns.
Dr Róisín Kennedy
1
Hilary Pyle,
Jack B.Yeats. A Biography
, 1970,
p. 19.
€
30,000-
€
40,000 (
£25,000-£32,000 approx)