Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 25th September 2024

82 In Grez we find O’Meara and Hawkins painting togeth- er and occasionally painting the same model. One particular model was employed by O’Meara to pose for his picture A Knitting Shepherdess , and Hawkins painted her as well, in three works, Hide and Seek , News from Home , and The Departure . This young model painted by O’Meara and at the same time by Hawkins and other artists, became a favourite model, her name was Mme Licette from the village of Grez.[3] This charming small scale painting by Frank O’Meara is a key work, in a transitional period in his oeuvre. There has been up to date a void in his transitionary work from his earlier deeper toned palette as viewed in, for example, Autumnal Sorrows (1878) to his highly skilled tonalist paintings for example Reverie (1882), Girl with a Distaff (1886). The present rediscovery of A Knitting Shepherdess is a wonderful link, and would indicate that there are further Grez works from this pe- riod 1878-81 still to be located. A Knitting Shepherdess painted in Grez presents us with a work by O’Meara which exemplifies his earliest exploration of a new emerging tonalist approach to his work which is the essence of the Grez style of paint- ing and this he shared with Hawkins, William Stott of Oldham, Blair Bruce, Frank Chadwick and others who painted beside him in the late 1870s and early1880s. The tonality of this painting A Knitting Shepherdess is central to the colour palette of the Grez style and is a perfect example. ‘Tonality is a term that art historians borrowed from musicology. Tonality describes how colours used in a painting are based on a key tone, such that an overall scheme of all colours and tones in a painting is achieved, as in the same way as tones in a musical system’.[4] O’Meara paints Mme Licette, in a frontal pose with her head turned to her right, watching her flock which al- though not depicted in the composition, we may im- agine share the field in which she stands.The heavy sheepskin cloak, crafted from a black fleece, which Mme Licette wears is also the product of her flock. It is worn with the fleece side close to her body for warmth and the suede side outwards, oiled to make it rain proof, it is fastened in front with buttoned clasps. It has a hood which is folded behind her head. The unity of interdependance between the Shepherdess and her flock is a harmonious one. Besides pasturing her flock, watering and watching them and protecting her sheep from predators, the shepherdess tended minor injuries, illnesses and sheltered them at night. As well as these tasks a sheperdess also had the re- sponsibility of spinning and knitting. Equipped with her drop spindle and her bundle of carded wool, she could spin yarn during her long hours in the fields. O’Meara’s Shepherdess Mme Licette, is knitting using four needles, traditionally used for knitting socks, the wool she uses is black in colour, so we may imagine that she has a mixed flock of black and white fleeced sheep. She carries the wool in her pocket and we note that the strand of yarn is carefully positioned by O’Meara to visually join it to the hem of her cloak, sym- bolic of the closness of the wool to its source and its wearer. Unlike Millet’s interpretation of his Shepherd- ess, O’Meara does not portray his figure focused on her knitting, she is instead gazing intently at her flock – out of our view, and is knitting skillfully but automat- ically. She wears a traditional Grez village hand wo- ven linen dress with a weighted woven woolen hem. The painting is beautifully composed in its simplici- ty. The head of the model is set in a triangular shape which is emphasised by her dark hair and the folded back blackhood of the cape. It is painted in late Au- gust or early September, as the field has grass which is scorched by the sun, and is turning into patches of gold, but still has swathes of green grass and it is dap- pled with dried wild cow parsely in the foreground. In the background we see a row of polular trees, so the field is close to the Bourron Marlotte road. The picture was carried out in a field next to the ancient cemetry of Grez, at Place Jollivet. The cemetry was the location where Hawkins painted The Orphans (1880), exhibit- ed in 1881. (Coll. Musee d’Orsay). This painting, A Knitting Shepherdess is executed in keeping with O’Meara usual approach, first he sketched both setting and model. He usually painted the outdoor landscape first and then added a studio study of the figure. We observe in his Grez sketchbook several pages of studies of a Shepherdess. Although O’Meara carried out this work in 1880, it was never exhibited, and he worked on it again many years later in July 1887, when he added the fine white headress to the model.[5] On close study one notes the later brushwork in the painting of the headress over Mme Licette’s dark hair. This is verified by a letter from Belle Bowes dat- ed 3 July 1887 to her father, asking him to post to her a light white lace peasants cap\headress which O’Meara wanted to paint, and which were now hard to find in the village. O’Meara put the finishing touch-