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Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957)
Sleep Beside (by) Falling Water (1948)
Oil on canvas, 46 x 61cm (18 x 24”)
Signed
Provenance: Capuchin Annual Office Dublin; Mrs Jobling-Purser Dublin; Christies (Dublin) 24th October 1988 (front of
cover illustration of catalogue); Private Collection.
Exhibited: “Jack B. Yeats” Exhibition Victor Waddington Galleries, Oct 1949, Cat. No. 6; “Jack B. Yeats - First Retrospec-
tive American Exhibition” opened Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, 1951/2 and travelled Nationwide; “Jack B. Yeats”
Exhibition Galerie Beaux-Arts, Paris, February 1954, Cat. No. 19; “Jack B. Yeats” Loan Exhibition, New Gallery, Belfast,
June 1965, Cat. No. 7.
Literature: “Jack B. Yeats - A Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings” by Hilary Pyle Vol. II, Catalogue No.955, illustrated
p.862
An old man lies on the ground his hands across his chest. On his right a torrent of water cascades down a rocky ravine.
On his left a chasm and a dramatic mountainous landscape extends to the horizon. Hilary Pyle has likened the setting
to that of
On Through the Silent Lands
(1951, Ulster Museum). According to her catalogue raisonné it is based on the
terrain of the Sligo-Leitrim border.
The theme is a familiar one in Yeats’ later work. The wandering old man making his way through an uncultivated
landscape, resting or walking or chatting to others that he meets recurs in many late paintings. The features of this
figure have been likened to those of Yeats, himself and it is possible that the painting, as in most works of art, is at some
level autobiographical.The sleeping figure surrounded by a vibrant landscape is often a trope in painting to suggest the
imagination of the sleeper who, lost in his dreams, experiences life in an intense way. Similarly the subject also suggests
the poignancy of nature in the eyes of someone who has grown old and aware of their mortality. Yeats painted this when
he was 77 years of age.
The construction of the surface of the painting counteracts the romanticism of the subject matter. The creation of the
waterfall through a cacophony of colours and a myriad of brushstrokes suggest the energy and movement of the water.
But it also draws attention to the construction of the painting and invites the viewer to accept the illusions that it
creates. In this setting the figure of the man appears fragile, fashioned as it is out of a few strokes of black and white
paint amidst the colourful and expansive nature than surrounds and almost engulfs it. Rather like the background to
Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, Yeats’s fantastic setting dwarfs the physicality of the figure while suggesting the richness and
depth of the human imagination.
Dr. Roisin Kennedy
October 2014
€120,000 - 180,000