WHYTE'S EXCEPTIONAL IRISH ART MONDAY 7 DECEMBER 2020

62 In his painting A Tale of the Sea Walter Osborne depicts a group of boys gathered upon a wide pier on a sunny day. They are clad in sunhats, plain white smocks or ganseys, and brown trousers. The three figures in the foreground are relaxing, chatting and, with large wicker baskets to hand, waiting for the fishing boats to come in, so that they can unload the catch. They may be telling ‘tales of the sea’, in the manner of seasoned mariners, but at present, their baskets are empty. A toy boat lying beside them indicates that some of them are little more than children. Behind them are wooden structures, red-roofed buildings and the harbour with fishing boats whose masts point up to the sky. Osborne represents the scene with meticulous Realism, observing the fall of sunlight and shadow, recording every detail, yet also showing his mastery in evoking space and atmosphere. The picture is painted in a subdued palette of off-whites, browns, ochres and greys, combined with glowing golds, blues, and gentle pinks and plums. In the centre of the composition, a youth sits, his back to the viewer and his feet bare. He wears a sunhat and braces, and behind him are a jacket and a fishing basket on its side. His hand is outstretched, pointing to the sea. To his left a child with cap sits listening, his hand resting on the pier, while to the right an older boy stands sturdily in sunlight, facing the storyteller. One hand holds a basket, the other is in his pocket, and he wears lace-up boots. A fourth figure sits against a shed in the background, enjoying the sunshine, and lost in thought. Behind are two strange upright structures of wood and metal - devices with which to haul in heavy fishing nets, but now looking rusting and unused, and a tall shed of dark timber. To the left is flat sand while to the right is the harbour, its choppy water reflecting the sky and clouds, while seabirds hover. The old wooden pier and fence retreat away from us, and a girl and boy can be seen chatting. Beyond them are red-roofed buildings and a glimpse of deep blue sea. The upper part of the canvas is taken up by a hazy sky and cumulous clouds. A Tale of the Sea is set at Walberswick on the Suffolk coast. After his exciting student years in Dublin and Antwerp and painting in the open-air in Brittany, Osborne worked intensively in English villages, often in the company of fellow-artists. He arrived in Walberswick and Southwold in 1884, and painted a number of major canvases and smaller pictures there.1 One shows his Irish friend Nathaniel Hill seated, painting. Today Walberswick is a quiet settlement of low-lying buildings on the estuary of the river Blyth. Yet in the nineteenth century it was an important fishing port, and it became one of the leading artist colonies in England. With its poetic title and genre detail A Tale of the Sea belongs with the popular tradition of seaside subjects with fisher folk in English 19th century painting and poetry.2 With its setting by the sea and listening children Osborne pays homage to John E. Millan’s celebrated painting The Boyhood of Raleigh, 1876-77 (Tate Britain). The Suffolk coast with its fishing and trading ports such as Lowestoft, Southwold, Walberswick, Dunwich and Aldeburgh, river estuaries, and inland villages such as Blythburgh and Snape, marshes and medieval churches, was one of the most ancient and mysterious parts of East Anglia, attracting artists, writers and musicians.4 But it was subject to storms and erosion, and Dunwich, for example, disappeared beneath the waves. Artists had been visiting Southwold andWalberswick, accessible by ferry across the river Blyth, since the early 19th century. But with the arrival of a railway branch line at the former town in 1879 and at Walberswick in 1881, the 1880s became a golden age for the artistic communities there.5 Amongst the prominent visitors were Edwin Hayes, at Southwold c.1876, Augustus Burke (Osborne’s teacher in Dublin), Hill and the English painters Henry Moore, W. Blandford Fletcher, Fred Hall, Edward Scott and PhilipWilson Steer, some of them arriving in 1884, the same year