Beschreibung:

AGAINST THE STREAM, 1945 Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957)
Signature: signed lower left; inscribed with title on reverse; also with inscribed Dawson Gallery label on reverse and typed Waddington Galleries, London label on reverse Medium: oil on panel Dimensions: 9 x 14in. (22.86 x 35.56cm) Provenance: Sold by the artist to R.N. Flynn, 1945; Christie's, 17 June 1960; Where purchased by Waddington Galleries, London; Collection of Mr and Mrs F. Hess, London; Collection Mrs Y. Tucker; with Waddington Galleries, London; Where purchased by a Mr Daniel O'Keeffe; Private collection; Whyte's, 26 November 2012, lot 44; Private collection Exhibited: Literature: Pyle, Hilary, Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, André Deutsch, London, 1992, Vol.II, p.639, catalogue no. 708 A man walks briskly along a river bank pulling a small barge in the water along behind him. The dramatic contrast in scale between him and his passengers suggest that the latter is a toy or that some ... fantastic scene is before us. Yeats' intricate handling of the paint conveys a breezy day with the trees on the bank blowing in the gentle wind. The bright blues of the sea and river compliment the dark greens and yellow tones of the surrounding vegetation and suggest the warmth of a summer's day. The blue paint of the water has been scrapped back in parts to reveal the white of the canvas underneath. This denotes the reflected light of the sky on the surface of the river, while drawing our attention to the physical construction of the painting. The pink shirt and grey trousers of the ferryman while contrasting in hue with that of its environs are blended into the composition through the way in which the artist has sculpted the form out of paint. Rivers and ferrymen are a major theme in Yeats' work. The ferryman, like the pilot man who guided the ships in and out of port is symbolic of an innate wisdom and a keen understanding of the complexities of the sea and the tide. The title of this work, Against the Stream, indicates the skill of the man as he manoeuvres the boat upstream. The disconcerting discrepancy in scale between the giant male figure and the tiny doll-like forms of the passengers equally evokes a world of make-believe. One of Yeats' great pleasures as a young man was making paper boats and floating them on the River Gara close to his Devon home of that time. The poet John Masefield, a close friend of the artist, often joined in this pursuit. Several of Yeats' paintings of the mid 1940s such as The Launching (1945, Private Collection) and A Beach in Lilliput (1944, Private Collection) refer back to memories of this time. Another work, The Model Ship (1945, Private Collection) depicts a sailor looking at a model yacht sailing in the water below. [1] Rivers are moving forces and as such they represent the unending progress of life and nature. The sense of journeying is keenly expressed in this work through the movement of trees, the water and above all by the striding figure and the boat. The wide spread of the composition takes in the breadth of the river and its opposing bank and thus sets the expedition of the man and the boat within the much greater context of natural forces. In a playful manner Yeats uses the work to pose quite profound questions about the purpose of an individual life set against the bigger forces of the natural world. Dr. Róisín Kennedy August 2017 1. Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, André Deutsch, 1992, no. 637, II, p.58 more