WHYTE'S EXCEPTIONAL IRISH ART MONDAY 7 DECEMBER 2020

EXCEPTIONAL IRISH ART ·7 DECEMBER 2020 AT 6PM 75 a kind of oar that was worked from side to side over the back of the boat. The boat is heading out to sea, towards the viewer, and the details of its curved prow are clearly delineated in the daylight. The low viewpoint adds to the drama of the scene and to our sense of the skill of the sailor as he directs the boat through the choppy waters. A little wave, visible beneath the prow, is generated by the action of the vessel as it moves through the water. The magnificent Connemara coastline with the undulating forms of the Twelve Bens dominates the horizon line. The communal activities of the fishermen of the West and their dependence on the sea is emphasised by the inclusion of details such as the buoy, afloat near the shoreline and on the right, a Galway hooker, the traditional sailing boat of the region, gliding along. To the left another sailing boat is visible closer to the seashore. The work was included in an exhibition of forty-four paintings called ‘Life in the West of Ireland’ that Yeats held in the Mills Hall in Dublin in February to March 1914. Sculling is mentioned in a glowing review of the show published in the Irish Times in which the writer declares that Yeats “…paints his subject as he himself sees it, not as others view it…. His work has a distinctive Celtic atmosphere, in which peculiar mystic effects are produced”. (1) Several seafaring works were shown in the exhibition. Dr Róisín Kennedy October 2020 1 Irish Times, 24 February 1914, p.9.