Beschreibung:

CROSSING THE CITY, 1929 Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957)
Signature: signed lower left; with partial typed exhibition labels of the Waddington Galleries [London] and New Grafton Gallery, London [SW13] on reverse Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 14 by 18in., 36 by 46cm. Provenance: Maurice Collis 1945; with Waddington, London; Mrs Iris Winthrop, Ipswich, Mass., (later Mrs Freeman); New Grafton Gallery from where bought by Sir Andrew Carnwath in 1971; Private collection, Dublin Exhibited: Contemporary Picture Galleries, Dublin, October - November 1940, catalogue no. 16; Wildstein, London, February - March 1946, catalogue no. 16; label verso indicates inclusion in another show on 19 November 1971, catalogue no. 84 (partial label reads, "Edw Literature: Pyle, Hilary, Jack B. Yeats A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, p.347, no. 380 (illustrated, Vol. III, p.164) The painting shows an unusual view of Dublin's city centre looking south diagonally from O'Connell Bridge down D'Olier Street with a view of the grey edifices of Trinity College on the horizon. The fo... oreground of the vista is dominated by the large blue form of a sculpture on a plinth. This is a mannered representation of Thomas Farrell's statue of William Smith O'Brien which was erected on this spot in the 1870s and moved to its current location on O'Connell Street in 1929, the year this work was painted. The low viewpoint sets the trams and moving figures directly against the height of the surrounding buildings which appear tall and imposing from this angle. The muddy tones of grey and brown used in this painting are typical of Yeats' work of this period. They are heightened by touches of bright yellow, blue and red put on with the tip of the brush to create a swirling texture. During the late 1920s Yeats' style was developing dramatically and moving from his more realist early work to the fragmented avant-garde methods of his later painting. A small group of paintings including this work, Going to Wolfe Tone's Grave, 1929, and Jazz Babies, 1929, rely on opaque dark colours applied in a wide range of textures. Their muted tonalities, as in Crossing the City, are suited to the urban nature of their subject matter which focuses on post-independence Dublin. While trams, crowded with passengers, pass at speed along Burgh Quay a figure on a bicycle whizzes along in the middle foreground. Our attention is focused on the rearing head of a horse in the right foreground, perhaps frightened by the bustle and noise of the traffic. A young man in a peaked cap gently tries to calm him down. This well observed vignette is reminiscent of some of Yeats' West of Ireland paintings of horse fairs and races. Both the figures of the horse and the boy are sculpted out of oil pigment. The shape of the animal's head and ears are gracefully constructed out of black impasto paint. A slight blurring of the left hand side of the horse's head suggests movement, as if captured by a slow speed camera. A fashionable lady watches the man and the steed with aloofness. Her pale make-up, bright red lipstick and stylish cloche hat introduce a counterpoint of modernity to the scene. The excitement of the crowds as they move through the city may be connected to such events as the Catholic Emancipation Centenary celebrations which took place in 1929. These temporarily transformed the city into a display of national and religious fervour. A small structure in the middle left foreground appears to be a religious statue consisting of a black gothic casing that contains a kneeling figure in blue. This devotion was to be even more forcibly expressed three years later at the Eucharistic Congress. The title 'Crossing the City' may even be a humorous pun and allusion to the newly independent state's enthusiastic embrace of Catholicism. Such a droll use of language is often found in Yeats' cartoons which frequently comment on the absurdity of modern life. Its more obvious meaning alludes to the busy thoroughfare of O'Connell Bridge, the centre of the city and its