National Gallery of Ireland

In the National Gallery of Ireland I forst decided to have a quick look around the European paintings part of the 

Then I made my way to the exhibition of Irish painting and sculpture.   The first that i saw were highly detailed portraiture of the aristocracy typical of the 16th, 17th and 18th century by artists like Morphy, Jervas, Latham, Lowry and Hamilton.    One that really attracted me was of an old woman.  It was called "The Fisherman's Mother" by Helen Mabel Trevor

I learned from the audio guide that this artist was from my locality near Banbridge which added an extra interest to it.  The piercing gaze of the woman in the painting is very daunting.

Others that grabbed my attention were "A Clown by Candlelight" by Mary Swanzy

and "A Family" by Louis Le Brocquy

I walked into a sideroom display by Jack B Yeats and was completely awestruck by this completely different style such as

About to write a letter

Men of Destiny

For the Road

Myself as a relatively new painter of just over 15 months now have, so far developed my style that is leaning toward a photo-realism as its been called.    J.B Yeats is completely different, completely painterly, using thick swirls of oil paints layed on with a pallette knife to give half form to a portrayed image in whatever mix of clours suited his passion in that moment.

This was a mighty inspiration to me, a looseness and freedom taken to its limit of perfection.   And to be honest I looked foward to getting back to the canvas and experiment in that style in my own way.

At home I looked up Jack B Yeats and found this quote from him which i copied out for the front of my art foundation book.

 "There is only one art and that is the art of living. Painting is an occupation that’s in that art, and that occupation is the freest of all the occupations of living. There is no alphabet, no grammar. No rules whatever. Many hopeful sports

men have tried to invent rules and have always failed. Any person or group of persons who try to live life with rules do a disservice to this occupation of living. They forget that painting is tactics and not strategy. It is carried out in the face of the enemy.”     Jack B Yeats