O'Connell Bridge

Amid the ranks of passers-by, Jack Butler Yeats and his wife Cottie, a few steps behind him, cross O’Connell Bridge in the early evening. Flanked by the softly illuminated shopfronts along the quays, with pin-pricks of light indicating the streetlamps have been lit, the river Liffey is painted in ribbons of deep indigo blue, shaping Dublin with its rushing waters as it carves through the centre of the city. Linking the two banks, O’Connell Bridge forms part of the rich tapestry of Dublin’s history. From the myriad bridges that span its waters and the traffic along the quays, to the newsboys and street-sellers hawking their wares and the throngs of people that navigate its length, Yeats was captivated by the play of life that surrounded the river. O’Connell Bridge places the viewer at the very heart of the city, immersed in the rhythm of Dubliners as they go about their daily lives.

Looking upstream towards the nearby Ha’penny Bridge, Yeats presents a dramatic vision of the river, allowing the profiles of the buildings that line the waterway to emphasise the sharp recession of the Liffey, as it stretches into the distance. With glimpses of liquid yellow and white, Yeats models the cast of characters on the bridge in deft strokes of pigment, woven together to fill the painting with emotion - in the figures’ individual expressions as well as in the cool evening breeze. While the artist’s face is cast largely in shadow, Cottie’s is bathed in golden light, the evening sun catching her features as she directs her gaze to the viewer.

The inclusion of the artist himself coincides with an increasingly personal and emotional style of painting in the mid-1920s. At a pivotal moment for Yeats’ artistic expression, O’Connell Bridge embodies a new sophistication in the artist’s painterly technique at this time. While retaining the precise outlines of his early work, Yeats began to embrace a more fluid and immediate application of his pigments - describing his scenes in a distinctly modern manner with free, vigorous brushstrokes and an increasingly vivid palette.

In many ways, O’Connell Bridge recalls one of Yeats’ best-known works of this period, The Liffey Swim, which won a silver medal in the painting competition at the Paris Olympics in 1924. Achieved at an intense moment of celebration, this was the first Olympic medal that Ireland had won following Independence. Quickly acquired for the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland in 1931, this work depicts the moment the city comes to a standstill as crowds of spectators throng the quaysides and bridges in order to watch the annual swimming race from Victoria Quay in the Liberties, to Burgh Quay.

From the earliest stages of his career, Yeats had been fascinated by urban life. Following his move to Ireland, Dublin became his primary source for these subjects. Making his way from his home in Donnybrook, Yeats would wander through the city centre with a sketchbook in hand, filling the pages with rapid drawings and annotations of all he encountered. In a profile of the artist printed in The Irish Times in 1928, Yeats was described ‘dressed in his unfailing Donegal tweeds, with a carnation in his coat lapel. Sometimes, the artist strides forward at a rapid pace, unconscious probably of the onlookers, but keenly alive to his surroundings’ (quoted in K. Milligan, Painting Dublin: Visualising a Changing City, 1886-1949, Manchester, 2020, p. 96). In O’Connell Bridge, Yeats depicts his own subjective experience of the city - these were the streets he traversed, the people he encountered, the views he glimpsed, as he ambled through Dublin.