In St Stephen's Green

In St Stephen’s Green, circa 1895, belongs to a celebrated body of work portraying the Irish working class on the streets of Dublin. Osborne occupied a large studio at 7 St Stephen’s Green, and started to look to the streets of Dublin for inspiration, and the resulting body of work is among his most celebrated. Here, Osborne has depicted a seemingly tranquil scene of people seated on a row of public benches under dappled sunlight. An elderly man with a light grey beard occupies the centre of the composition, with a meandering line of figures to his right, all pensively gazing out into the scene before them. Seated next to him is a young woman holding a child, her expression worn and weary. The contrast between young and old contributes to a visual allegory for the different stages in life, a theme explored by Osborne in many of his works from this period. In the left foreground we can see a shaggy white haired dog, gazing towards the viewer, its face described using only a few carefully placed brush marks to indicate its eyes and nose. At first glance, this vibrant impressionistic scene is joyous and carefree, but on closer inspection Osborne has painted his subjects in a manner faithful to the hardships of working class life in Dublin. The figures appear to be lost in their own thoughts, and the weight of their hardship is intimated by the resigned expression and stooped posture of the mother. Osborne’s desire to authentically represent what he could see before him, whilst also empathising with his subjects, was a profoundly modernist activity.

In St Stephen’s Green relates closely to one of Osborne’s most famous masterpieces, In a Dublin Park, Light and Shade, 1895 (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin), which is renowned for its vivid depiction of the Irish working class. In St Stephen’s Green exhibits a similar group of figures; the elderly man with a bowler hat and walking stick next to the young woman with a child on her lap, almost as though it is the same moment captured from a different viewpoint. The dappled light of the sun falling down upon them softens the scene, providing the figures with a moment of rare calm and rest, and their companionable yet solitary reflection resonates with the viewer.

The surface of the work is adorned with energetic brushwork that brings the dynamic lighting conditions to life, exemplifying his preoccupation with rendering light and shade. Executed on an impressive scale for a work with such vivid spontaneity, In St Stephen’s Green is testament to Osborne’s mastery of depicting sunlight, informed by his devotion to painting en plein air in previous years. Such qualities demonstrate the significant influence that the new continental art movements he was exposed to during his travels in Northern Europe and England had on Osborne. In 1881, Osborne left Ireland to study at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten van Antwerpen, where Vincent Van Gogh was to study only 5 years later. Along with contemporaries such as Roderic O’Conor, Osborne subsequently visited the thriving artistic communities of Brittany, and he spent considerable time in Pont-Aven. It was here that Osborne recognised that the principal modernist painters were painting directly from nature, and his artistic practice shifted towards a more Impressionistic approach. He then moved to England where he became associated with British Impressionists such as George Clausen, Henry Herbert La Thangue and Wilson Steer. Indeed, Osborne played an instrumental role in the introduction and promotion of British and European plein air painting to Irish Art, and In St Stephen’s Green exemplifies the artist’s preoccupation with fusing the continental approach to painting with quintessential Irish subject matter.