Jack Butler Yeats: Memories of Ireland
By Jenny O’Gorman
“no one creates . . the artist assembles memories”
Jack Butler Yeats (1871-1957) was the younger brother of the lauded Irish literary figure, William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), author of plays, prose and poems including The Second Coming and The Wild Swans at Coole. Although William Butler Yeats’ creative output is more widely recognised, Jack is considered as one of the greatest artists of twentieth century Ireland. Working predominantly in oils, his lyrical paintings pay homage to Irish history, customs and lifestyle, whilst evoking a palpable sense of nostalgia. Like his brother, his artistic oeuvre is testament to the profound impact the Wild Atlantic Way had on him - a place that would remain with him for the rest of his life.
Jack Yeats’ first book collection, Life in the West of Ireland, was composed of forty illustrations in a range of mediums, featuring coloured prints to reprints of his oil paintings. Through works such as The Country Shop, the artist represents the traditions, customs and local characters of rural Ireland at the turn of the century.
Jack Butler Yeats, The Country Shop, 1912, ink and watercolour on paper
Several of Jack’s paintings engage with contemporaneous political life and events significant to the collective memory of Ireland. In Dublin city centre, 1914 The King’s Own Scottish Borderers opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators. Jack visited the scene the following day, sketching a young woman leaving a flower as a memorial token. His painting, Bachelor’s Walk – In Memory is a depiction in the aftermath of the event, showing not only the deep impression it made in his memory but also his awareness of the communal resonance his work would have in reflecting on an event of such national importance and poignancy. Jack stated that, through his work, he felt ‘impelled to pass on’ a memory or ‘moment to his fellows, and to those that come after him’.
Jack Butler Yeats, Bachelor’s Walk – In Memory, 1915, oil on canvas
Painted twelve years later, his artwork Pilot Sligo River, features a man in a peaked cap and double-breasted marine jacket standing at the quayside. It has been suggested the pilot, who features in several other paintings, was based on Michel Gillen, a figure in Yeats’ childhood. Due to his grandfather’s connection with merchant ships, the young boy would often accompany the pilot on his journeys to guide vessels into Sligo. Here, his style becomes far more expressive.
Jack Butler Yeats, Pilot Sligo River, 1921, oil on canvas
This nautical pilot’s relaxed but watchful frame dominates the foreground of the canvas, perhaps signifying that he occupied a heroic position in Yeats’ memory. The man’s curiously featureless face is described with a loose, impasto technique as if still being recalled. As the image has been painted from memory, there is an absence of recognizable detail, yet Yeats captures the essence of his character by evoking his ruddy complexion and facial hair. Colour is used vigorously; this figure is seen through a prism of memory. Swirls of yellow feature on his jacket and tinge the sky and sea. The figure is deliquescing into the blustery seascape - streaks of ochre, blue and crimson on his trousers give the impression he is becoming part of the very path behind him. We get a sense of the elemental forces which have shaped both the man and the soft Irish coastline; it is clear both were beloved by the artist. Yeats evokes a particular local, mooring traditional rowing boats in the right-hand corner, and placing a row of houses fading into the opacity of the background.
Recurring subjects and motifs suggest Jack’s creative process was not a single flash of inspiration but often the probing of a particular idea. His human inclination to return to a memory, which had a lasting impression, is evident in his revisiting of the same subject matter. Growing up in the countryside, Jack spent many of his formative years surrounded by horses, a symbol so frequently used by him it has become known as the Yeats’ horse. Over the course of his life, he captured the unique character and energy of these animals, most strikingly in his interpretation of race days. In his later works, horses and figures become spectral, less material; through them he distils what that memory signifies to him at different times of his life. In The View, the faint horse is relinquished of detail, seemingly carved out of the countryside and appears fragile, as if made from glass. In his advancing years, his paintings rely on imagination to a greater extent; his horses are no longer robust or solid but ephemeral, reflecting the fallibility and transience of memory.
Jack Butler Yeats, At the Races, 1895, watercolour on paper
Jack Butler Yeats, The View, 1949, oil on Masonite
Like his brother, Jack Yeats' talent and humanity in portraying Irish life is unquestionable. By documenting ordinary people and places of great significance to him, his emotionally nuanced and highly imaginative work speaks to the great storytelling tradition of Ireland. Discernible shifts in his painting style reflect his exploration of a lifetime’s worth of experience; his work can be seen as a physical manifestation of the constant cognitive process of remembering and revisiting, and the restructuring of perceptions.
Notes:
National Gallery of Ireland. ‘Jack B. Yeats (1871–1957)’ [Accessed November 12, 2022] https://www.nationalgallery.ie/art-and-artists/highlights-collection/liffey-swim-jack-b-yeats/jack-b-yeats-1871-1957#na
Pyle, Hilary. ‘‘Men of Destiny’: Jack B. and W. B. Yeats: The Background and the Symbols’ in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 66, No. 262/263 (1977): pp. 188–213. Rooney, Brendon. ‘Jack B. Yeats: Painting & Memory,’ National Gallery of Ireland. [Accessed November 12, 2022] https://www.nationalgallery.ie/art-and-artists/exhibitions/jack-b-yeats-painting-memory
Rooney, Brendon. ‘Jack B. Yeats: Painting & Memory,’ National Gallery of Ireland. [Accessed November 12, 2022] https://www.nationalgallery.ie/art-and-artists/exhibitions/jack-b-yeats-painting-memory
RTÉ Culture. ‘Painting & Memory: Jack B Yeats Celebrated at NGI.’ RTE.ie. RTÉ, September 28, 2021. [Accessed November 12, 2022] https://www.rte.ie/culture/2021/0924/1248801-painting-memory-jack-b-yeats-celebrated-at-NGI/.