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Lot Essay
In 1885 Roderic O'Conor was represented at the Royal Hibernian Academy exhibition with four landscapes entitled Wet Weather, Breakers, A Quiet Spot and Sunny Day in June. Having studied intensively since 1879 at the Metropolitan and Royal Hibernian Schools of Art in Dublin, followed by the Academie Royale in Antwerp, he was ready to be accepted as a mature painter and doubtless felt proud to be so well represented in Ireland's premier exhibition of living artists.
Sunny Day in June is one of only a handful of non-French landscapes by O'Conor to have survived. It shows that his approach as a twenty-four or twenty-five year old was already progressively modern. The broad brushwork, informal composition and directness of vision evident here would have been at odds with conventional academic methods. Rejecting these, he has chosen instead to work in the European plein air idiom, painting directly from nature so as to be able to capture shifting patterns of light and weather. O'Conor's commitment to what is sometimes described as rapid painting is reinforced by the title he chose to give the picture, which refers to the time of year (June) and the prevailing weather conditions (sunny), but stops short of identifying the location for the work.
The picture is an essay in Continental naturalism as O'Conor experienced it during the year he spent in Antwerp from 1883 to 1884. Having enrolled in Karel Verlat's Natuur course, he was taught how to handle paint vigorously and how to avoid 'improving' or idealising nature in any way. Through Verlat, the young man would also have become aware of the plein air landscapes of progressive French artists such as Corot, Millet and the members of the Barbizon School.
O'Conor's precocious receptiveness to advanced methods of landscape painting is reinforced if one compares Sunny Day in June with early works by those of his Irish contemporaries who also studied in Antwerp. The outdoor subjects of Walter Osborne, Nathaniel Hill and Joseph Malachy Kavanagh dating from the early 1880s generally show a concession to picturesque details such as old buildings, animals, boats and peasants in traditional costume. O'Conor, on the other hand, deliberately flouts such artistic conventions from the outset. In Sunny Day in June his masterly exploitation of the plastic, expressive qualities of oil paint, combined with his purist approach to landscape (there are no figures), are characteristics which we recognise from his later work. Their approach at such an early stage in his career shows how quickly he developed a taste for freedom of expression and stylistic innovation.
Jonathan Benington
Sunny Day in June is one of only a handful of non-French landscapes by O'Conor to have survived. It shows that his approach as a twenty-four or twenty-five year old was already progressively modern. The broad brushwork, informal composition and directness of vision evident here would have been at odds with conventional academic methods. Rejecting these, he has chosen instead to work in the European plein air idiom, painting directly from nature so as to be able to capture shifting patterns of light and weather. O'Conor's commitment to what is sometimes described as rapid painting is reinforced by the title he chose to give the picture, which refers to the time of year (June) and the prevailing weather conditions (sunny), but stops short of identifying the location for the work.
The picture is an essay in Continental naturalism as O'Conor experienced it during the year he spent in Antwerp from 1883 to 1884. Having enrolled in Karel Verlat's Natuur course, he was taught how to handle paint vigorously and how to avoid 'improving' or idealising nature in any way. Through Verlat, the young man would also have become aware of the plein air landscapes of progressive French artists such as Corot, Millet and the members of the Barbizon School.
O'Conor's precocious receptiveness to advanced methods of landscape painting is reinforced if one compares Sunny Day in June with early works by those of his Irish contemporaries who also studied in Antwerp. The outdoor subjects of Walter Osborne, Nathaniel Hill and Joseph Malachy Kavanagh dating from the early 1880s generally show a concession to picturesque details such as old buildings, animals, boats and peasants in traditional costume. O'Conor, on the other hand, deliberately flouts such artistic conventions from the outset. In Sunny Day in June his masterly exploitation of the plastic, expressive qualities of oil paint, combined with his purist approach to landscape (there are no figures), are characteristics which we recognise from his later work. Their approach at such an early stage in his career shows how quickly he developed a taste for freedom of expression and stylistic innovation.
Jonathan Benington