Beschreibung:

THE DODDER IN FLOOD, BALLSBRIDGE, DUBLIN, 1929 Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957)
Signature: signed lower left; titled on reverse Medium: oil on panel Dimensions: 9 x 14in. (22.86 x 35.56cm) Provenance: Mrs Bernard Shaw (purchased at the Alpine Club Gallery exhibition, 1929); Acquired by Alice Bernrard (née McKay), Dublin; Sotheby's, 21 October 2015, lot 42; Private collection Exhibited: Literature: Hilary Pyle, Jack Butler Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Vol. I., Andre Deutsch, London, 1992, no.385, p.352 (incorrectly illustrated) Jack Yeats painted the Dodder in Flood in 1929, the period in which his style was changing from its early Realist mode to the later more experimental approach. This transitional work belongs firmly to... o the later style. The artist had first painted the subject of the Dodder in flood in 1920, (A Yellow Flood, Clonskea, 1920). In 1923 he painted two other views of the weir on the river at Clonskeagh when he lived nearby on Marlborough Road in Donnybrook. Dodder in Flood, painted in the year that Yeats reluctantly moved to Fitzwilliam Square, is a view of the river from Ballsbridge according to an inscription on the rear of the frame. Dodder in Flood takes a different perspective from the earlier more conventional views of the river that include buildings and landmarks on its banks. This painting must be based on a view from a bridge over the torrent looking westwards as it races towards the sea. Unlike the diagonals and subtle connections that Yeats provides in many of his other landscape compositions, the foreground of Dodder in Flood is left open so that the water appears to flow directly out into the space of the viewer. A dramatic scene is made from what is a comparatively modest body of water but as Dubliners are aware the Dodder can be treacherous during winter storms and floods. Steep inhospitable banks enclose its sides. Their stony barren surfaces are conveyed through the application of thick grey and white paint in a variety of incongruous brushstrokes that create a rough dynamic texture, particularly on the exposed bank on the right-hand side. The sky is completely overcast with a dark stormy hue. The thick debris filled currents are painted in strong impasto brushstrokes that contain blues, pinks, yellows and reds. Elsewhere the paint is thinly applied and parts of the underlying surface of the board are visible. On the left-hand bank warm greens and reds suggest foliage and provide a glimmer of light in the painting. Although rivers and fast flowing currents feature prominently in many of Yeats' paintings the Spartan nature of this composition with its concentration on the bare elements of banks, river and sky is unusual in his oeuvre. The work approaches pure abstraction is its prioritising of paint and form. The painting was exhibited at Yeats' one-man show at the Alpine Club Gallery in London in 1929 when it was purchased by Mrs George Bernard Shaw. Yeats told Lady Gregory that Mrs Shaw had thought he had 'gone mad' when she saw his work the previous year but now retracted her statement. Her husband, George Bernard Shaw, and T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), also visited the exhibition. (1) Arguably London audiences were more receptive to Yeats' late style of painting although the Dublin public would soon come to admire his pioneering attitude towards his craft and its ability to transform familiar sights into challenging works of art. We are also grateful to Dr. Hilary Pyle HRHA for her assistance in cataloguing this work. 1. Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats. A Biography, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1970, p.137. Dr Róisín Kennedy October 201 more