Beschreibung:

Sean Keating PRHA (1889-1978) Men of Aran - An Tr?, Inis O?rr c. 1925 Oil on board 74 x 89cm (29 x 35'') Signed Keating's great declamatory style, often attributed to his master Sir William Orpen is in fact much more his own style, owing something to be sure to Orpen and Diego Rivera but stems from a wider appreciation by the artist of Italian and Spanish Baroque. Gesture of a most emphatic kind, with the attention of the viewer pushed almost to extremes of emphasis is what underpins Keating's work. This is a very grand and excellent example of the artist's best work, inspired by his visits to the West of Ireland and the Aran Islands in particular. The traditional B?n?n clothes,footwear( known as pampooties= br?ga? ?leir)and physical types seem to have more in common with an ?egean civilisation than the European mode. In Bill Doyle's photographic essay on Aran the fantastic colours, patterns and forms of apparel evoke more the Hesperides than they do a folkloristic Ireland within a European dimension. And on Page 7 of Doyle's Book the same scene is presented as being at An Tr?, Inis O?rr looking towards Teach B?id specifically placing the viewpoint by the Artist and adjacent to Teampall Chaomgh?n, often used in Keating's other Aran compositions. In this compostion the dynamic asymetry with the figures in the foreground all staring fixedly at a point out of our sight recalls another of his great works The Men of the South(Crawford Gallery,Cork). Same types and same pose .Along the shore a currach(naomh?g) being launched,and the theme of the naomh?ga repeated in the black shapes lying along the seashore,and the eye is arrested by the red door and blue roof of the lifeboat house.(An teach B?id). The foreground figures are impervious to the action below them, and this fixed view is what gives this hugely important work of Keating it's great charge and energy.The very best of these works were painted before 1940 and represent a vision unique of its kind, albeit with a common thread of the western seaboard running through so many artists works of the same period. Paul Henry Maurice MacGonigal and Charles Lamb concentrated upon differing elements of a figurative landscape deriving it's palette and compositional forms from Barbizon; However for Keating the landscape is subordinate to the figure, the drama being played out in the foreground of the work, very much in your face as a pictorial composition. It is declamatory and emphatic leaving the viewer in no doubt as to the artists pictorial intentions, and giving a sense of immanence? that is of things strongly felt but out of sight, for now, while the viewer remains conscious of the power of a dramatic and arresting immarcescible something in Keating's painting?.and just over there?! Ciar?n MacGonigal March 2005 Sean Keating PRHA (1889-1978) Men of Aran - An Tr?, Inis O?rr c. 1925 Oil on board 74 x 89cm (29 x 35'') Signed Keating's great declamatory style, often attributed to his master Sir William Orpen is in fact much more his own style, owing something to be sure to Orpen and Diego Rivera but stems from a wider appreciation by the artist of Italian and Spanish Baroque. Gesture of a most emphatic kind, with the attention of the viewer pushed almost to extremes of emphasis is what underpins Keating's work. This is a very grand and excellent example of the artist's best work, inspired by his visits to the West of Ireland and the Aran Islands in particular. The traditional B?n?n clothes,footwear( known as pampooties= br?ga? ?leir)and physical types seem to have more in common with an ?egean civilisation than the European mode. In Bill Doyle's photographic essay on Aran the fantastic colours, patterns and forms of apparel evoke more the Hesperides than they do a folkloristic Ireland within a European dimension. And on Page 7 of Doyle's Book the same scene is presented as being at An Tr?, Inis O?rr looking towards Teach B?id specifically placing the viewpoint by the Artist and adj