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Colin Middleton RHA RUAMBE (1910-1983)
Paysage des Rêves Mauvais (1940)
Oil on canvas, 45.75 x 61cm (18 x 24”)
Signed, inscribed with title and dated (19)’40
Provenance: From the Collection of George and Maura McClelland and on loan from them
to IMMA from 1999-2004; Private Collection, Dublin
Exhibited:
Colin Middletion: Paintings and Drawings from the McClelland Collection
,
IMMA, Dublin, Jan-June 2001
Northern Artists from the McClelland Collection,
IMMA, Dublin, 2004-2005;
Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda, 2005
The Surreal in Irish Art,
F.E. McWilliam Museum, Banbridge, May-Sept
2011; The Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Sept-Nov 2011
Literature:
The Hunter Gatherer,
IMMA 2004, illustrated fig. 61 page 53
The Surreal in Irish Art
, F.E. McWilliam Museum 2011 (used as the
invitation image for the exhibition), fig. 6 page 11
The world of the dream, presenting a parallel reality to our own that operates by entirely
independent rules, is a staple of surrealism.The landscape of nightmares Middleton cre-
ates here is full of drama and movement; perhaps the suggested fragility of the world
he depicts is a reference to the wartime environment in which it was painted, where the
threat of violence undermined the normal rules and logic of life.
The dynamic and contorted form of the semi-clothed figure, with its broad contours
of rich colour and shadow that is typical of Middleton’s early work, is dramatically set
against the harsh angularity of three tall sticks that lean against each other. She falls back
against a tiny ladder; pieces of material bind her to these three sticks which seem inex-
plicably to support her weight, as if this is a moment frozen in time. This world is both
primitive and also disturbingly mechanised; parts of the figure almost seem to dissolve
into unravelling lengths of steel.
An impossibly extended finger points over the top of the sticks and towards a dressing ta-
ble with a broken mirror, adding a sense of violence or threat to the vast desert landscape,
whose hostility is increased by the sudden gorge that seems to be at the very front of the
composition, in dangerous proximity to this figure.
The emotional impact of this painting is arguably as consistently strong and visceral as
Middleton achieved in his surrealist work. His strength in design and illusionistic paint-
ing is very apparent here but it never undermines the uneasy and threatening immediacy
of the work.
Dickon Hall, March 2014
€30,000 - 50,000
