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Lot Essay
Hilary Pyle comments, 'A figure lying in a forest glade raises himself on his elbow and flourishes his arm up to the dawn sky, singing the while. Every colour has been employed in the impasto drawing, which is done on a lightly stained ground.
The composition resembles that of a A Homage to Bret Harte, (Pyle No. 579); while the visionary mood accords with the larger canvases such as 1067, etc.' (loc. cit.).
The present work was painted in 1950, a year after Yeats had painted Singing 'My Dark Rosaleen' (sold in these rooms, 20 May 1999, lot 129, £293,000). Ireland had by this time become a Republic and Yeats was an established figure of the art world. He had been a governor of the National Gallery of Ireland for over ten years and had major exhibitions in both Dublin (1945) and at the Tate Gallery in London (1948). In these paintings Yeats was using the act of singing as a symbol of unrestrained passion, specifically relating it to an expression of nationalistic feeling. My Dark Rosaleen, which the 1949 painting refers to in the title is a traditional nationalistic song, addressing Ireland in the guise of a lover, under the psuedonym of 'the little black rose'.
The composition resembles that of a A Homage to Bret Harte, (Pyle No. 579); while the visionary mood accords with the larger canvases such as 1067, etc.' (loc. cit.).
The present work was painted in 1950, a year after Yeats had painted Singing 'My Dark Rosaleen' (sold in these rooms, 20 May 1999, lot 129, £293,000). Ireland had by this time become a Republic and Yeats was an established figure of the art world. He had been a governor of the National Gallery of Ireland for over ten years and had major exhibitions in both Dublin (1945) and at the Tate Gallery in London (1948). In these paintings Yeats was using the act of singing as a symbol of unrestrained passion, specifically relating it to an expression of nationalistic feeling. My Dark Rosaleen, which the 1949 painting refers to in the title is a traditional nationalistic song, addressing Ireland in the guise of a lover, under the psuedonym of 'the little black rose'.