The Sun

Painted in 1947, The Sun personifies Jack Butler Yeats’ mature expressionistic style of the late 1940s when he created some of his most sought after paintings. Characterised by dynamic brushstrokes and thick impasto, Yeats's treatment of the medium at this time invites comparison with the paintings of his European Expressionist contemporaries, most notably the work of his good friend, Oskar Kokoschka. Here, Yeats depicts the sun erupting from a stormy sky with burst of lemon yellow and creamy white punctuated by vivid strokes of crimson. A figure resides in the foreground, his profile silhouetted against the sky, described by Yeats as ‘a boy’ in his record book (H. Pyle, Jack B. Yeats, p. 766.) The boy, clutching his cap, averts his gaze, and his youthful face, lit up by the beam of sun, accentuates the visionary character of the painting.