JACK B. YEATS

Week 25/01/2021

Growing up with an Irish Father, a Mother with a English Lit degree, and a proud Grandma who ran a literary festival, the name William B Yeats has been mentioned a fair few times throughout my life. He was an Irish poet and writer. The work I personally know him best from is the poem ‘an Irish Airman foresees his death.’ A beautiful homage to the inner workings of the harsh reality of war. Poetry and writing has never been my strongest suit, however coming from a family of passionate readers when the subject is brought up I make sure to slip into conversation that I can recite this poem and more often than not I proceed to do so. You can hear the yawns from miles away and at a side glance see eyes rolling. The reason I can recite this, the poem was plastered in postcard form, at eye level… across from the loo.

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I knew that William B Yeats had a father who was an artist. It wasn’t until my solo trip to Dublin in January 2020 that I realised he came from a diverse family of writers, poets, politicians and artists.

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I visited the National Library of Ireland and on the ground floor found a dark lit exhibition called ‘The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats.’ (The exhibition is currently online and available to all via www.nil.iec/yeats/ - I would highly recommend having a look at the work or visiting the library after the pandemic.) The exhibition looked into his family history, growing up in rural Ireland, leading all the way to later life.

Sketches by John Butler Yeats were shown in dimly lit glass presentation cases but what I found most impressive were the landscape paintings by William’s younger brother,

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Jack B Yeats.

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A few of his painting were hung up in the exhibition. I found that you could almost feel the temperature of his paintings, what I mean by this is although the landscapes were abstract, the painting was still so vivid that it makes you feel like you are there somehow. The paintings portray the wind, the light from the sun, or the stormy rainclouds in the most beautiful way. After seeing some of his work in person I took out my phone out of my pocket and jotted down his name in notes.

Later, on the same trip I went to the Hugh Lane Gallery and saw another one of his pieces ‘There Is No Night.’ I remember from the other side of the room thinking that this piece was by Francis Bacon. This piece had that distinct expressionism feel to it which can be seen a lot in Bacon’s work.

It was Yeats. ‘There Is No Night’ in particular creates a very dark mood with bright colourful elements to it. The sunflower yellow crashing with the black dirty thundering waves. Painted in 1949 this was one of Yeats’s later works, I believe the reason why I first mistook it for a bacon is it is very abstract, the paint looks like it’s been applied thickly to the canvas, maybe with a number of tools not just a paintbrush. The paint is so thick that it still looks shiny and wet. The painting title ‘There Is No Night’ is said to be from the new Testament adapted from the book of Revelation.

Most of Yeats’s early pieces are landscapes of the West coast of Ireland, in and around Sligo. A few years ago I visited the art gallery The Model in Rathquarter, Sligo. Jack’s work is hanging there. The delightful piece that they have in their ‘Niland Collection’ is ‘Singing “The Beautiful Picture”’ this 1925 oil painting shows a grey stone farmhouse with a man standing outside, clue in the name, he is singing. Just from looking at the piece you can tell the house is old, the green foliage in the background suggests it is in the country. It looks like it could be early morning sunrise, or midday when the sun is highest in the sky, I believe this due to a strong yellow light shining down on the gravel, creating an obvious shadow of the singing man. The lighting he creates in his paintings is what I personally believe separates his work from other abstract artists. The light he creates is so prominent and bright yet it has a way of blending in, making it not the main focus. Samuel Beckett, who is another Irish novelist my family are fond of, said this about Yeats ‘Yeats is with the great of our time… Because he brings light, as only the great dare to bring light, to the issueless predicament of existence.’  (Times, 2014)

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The brushstrokes of the piece are large, but this does not draw detail away. I find the painting charming and fairly simple in its objectives: for Yeats, to paint for beauty, for colour and full enjoyment.

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I read that after Yeats’s death in 1957 his work was deemed irrelevant and it was only in 1971 that the National Gallery of Ireland helped revive his reputation and work. I’d like to know why this was? Maybe his work was seen as too abstract, too modern art? I know at the time expressionism was not common with Irish painters. It might also be something to do with his successful family, did his work get over or under shadowed?

Personally, I believe it’s not the artists name or background which makes a piece beautiful. Its the colours, the light, the technique and the individual style which makes a painting extraordinary.

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Times, T. I. (2014, January 2). From the archive: Samuel Beckett’s appreciative review of Thomas MacGreevy’s study of Jack B Yeats. Retrieved from The Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/editor-s-choice-1.1642410