WHYTE'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART Monday 11 March 2024 at 6pm

36 ‘Cottages by a Lake’ is an instantly recognisable Paul Henry scene. Three thick-walled, thatched cottages in clachan formation in the west of Ireland stand at the edge of water with hills, pathway, turf stacks and towering mountain under a sky of cumulus clouds. Charming in its intimate familiarity yet harshly accurate about the situation of inhabitants driven to the edge of the land to survive, such paintings were eagerly collected by prosperous exiles. The smooth surface of the lake and its reflections denote a calm day that is further underscored by a steady stream of fragrant turf smoke rising straight up from the cottages built in a cluster of kinship ties in the lee of a hill protective against stormier days. Stacks of turf cut by hand for warmth and cooking stand at the gable walls and line the path that winds from the foreground round the edge of the lake and past the cottages. Henry strives to portray a modernist flatness while conveying the more classic illusion of depth. The canvas is divided by lines radiating from a two point perspective on either side of the horizon line of the lake, beyond the sides of the canvas, resulting effectively in a cropped version of the artist’s viewpoint. These lines, which can be traced along the edges of the mountain, the slopes of the hills, the edge of the lake, the cottage rooftops and the rocks and path in the foreground, add to the three-dimensional effect of the diminishing turf stacks and pathway. Juxtaposed with such perspectival devices, the vertical lines of the clouds, cottage walls, rising smoke and reflections in the lake help reassert the flatness of the canvas. The balance between flatness and depth stabilises the image and heightens the sense of calm and quietude and timelessness often felt in Henry’s work. The artist mixes his colours expertly on the palette and applies them with a confidence based on his observations while working for The Congested Districts Board in the west of Ireland. Henry’s art training in Paris in the 1890s is evident in his use of Post-Impressionist techniques such as the dark outlines on the cottage roofs and the edges of hills, and a tendency towards decoration. Blue is the predominant colour, seen chiefly in the mountain and hills and their reflections and is also found throughout the painting. It is mixed with crimson and white to create the pink sky and the foreground contains tiny dashes of blue and it is mixed with white for the shaded cottage walls. The warmth of the colours burnt umber and yellow ochre in the foreground set alongside the cool blues creates an aerial perspective that helps deepen the image. The application of the paint is also a perspectival device, being thicker impasto in the foreground and smoother and thinner in the background. Variations of white mixed with blue are applied on the blue reflections, hills and mountain so that they appear as gradually receding into the distance. White is dragged over the lake to soften the edges in thick vertical strokes with the addition of a little warm umber. The land around the cottages and in the foreground, the turf stacks, doors and windows and shadows of foreground rocks are painted with burnt umber. The umber land is then overlaid in shorter strokes with yellow ochre and mixtures of white and umber, leaving the rich umber showing at the edges. Another layer of white paint is applied to the right-hand side of the banks of cumulus clouds around two horizontal streaks of violet striated clouds. Lighter patches are drawn on the right of the mountain, hills, cottages and rocks to give extra form. In the shadow of an enormous mountain, a dramatic struggle of existence is told with the minimal signs of human life. ‘Cottages by a Lake’, started probably as a quick sketch outdoors and completed in the studio, is a good example of Henry at his best, demonstrating “the force of his painting and the simple elegance of his technique.” 1 Dr Mary Cosgrove, February 2024 1. S.B. Kennedy, Paul Henry 2000, p. 149.