We recognize his figures as distinctly Irish. Here the old rollicking
Lever and Lover type of Irishmen reappear, hunting like the very devil,
with faces set in the last ecstasy of rapid motion. There is an excess
of energy in these furious riders which almost gives them a symbolic
character. They seem to ride on some passionate business of the soul
rather than for any transitory excitement of the body. And besides these
wild horse-men there are quiet and lovely figures like "A Mother of
the Rosses," holding her child to her breast in an opalescent twilight,
through which the boat that carries her moves. There are always large
and noble outlines, which suggest that if Jack Yeats had more grandiose
ambitions he might have been the Millet of Irish rural life, but he is
too much the symbolist, hating all but essentials, to elaborate his art.
In writing of Jack Yeats mention must be made of his black and white
work, which at its best has a primitive intensity. The lines have a
kind of Gothic quality, reminding one of the rude glooms, the lights
and lines of some half-barbarian cathedral. They are very expressive and
never undecided. The artist always knows what he is going to do. There
is no doubt he has a clear image before him when he takes up pen or
brush. A strong will is always directing the strong lines, forcing them
to repeat an image present to the inner eye. In his early days Jack
Yeats loafed about the quays at Sligo, and we may be sure he was at all
the races, and paid his penny to go into the side-shows, and see the
freaks, the Fat Woman and the Skeleton Man. It was probably at this
period of his life he was captured by pirates of the Spanish Main. My
remembrance of Irish county towns at that time is that no literature
flourished except the Penny Dreadful and the local press. I may be
doing Jack Yeats an injustice when hailing him at the beginning of a
fascinating career I yet suspect a long background of Penny Dreadfuls
behind it. How else could he have drawn his pirates? They are the only
pirates in art who manifest the true pride, glory, beauty, and terror
of their calling as the romantic heart of childhood conceives of it. The
pirate has been lifted up to a strange kind of poetry in some of Jack
Yeats' pictures. I remember one called "Walking the Plank." The solemn
theatrical face, lifted up to the blue sky in a last farewell to the
wild world and its lawless freedom, haunted me for days. There was also
a pen-and-ink drawing I wish I could reproduce here. A young buccaneer,
splendid in evil bravery, leaned across a bar where a strange, beastly,
little, old, withered, rat-like figure was drawing the drink. The little
figure was like a devil with the soul all concentrated into malice,
and the whole picture affected one with terror like a descent into some
ferocious human hell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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