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Lot Essay
It has been suggested that this pastel may well have been executed at Powerscourt.
The philosopher and writer Edmund Burke is said to have introduced Barret to the Dargle, near Powerscourt and its waterfall as well as the owner of the property, Lord Powerscourt, who was to become Barret's earliest patron.
Burke encouraged Barret's interest in wild nature, and the Dargel had Salvator Rosa-like water, waterfalls, rocks and overhanging trees. While Barret was at the Dublin Society Schools, not far away at Trinity College, Burke was a student writing his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful.
As A. Crookshank and The Knight of Glin point out in The Watercolours of Ireland, London, 1995, pp. 51-3, [Barret's] 'early oil paintings...adhere to Burke's ideas on the sublime where he emphasizes the importance of cloudy skies, dark and gloomy mountains, and vast cataracts'. While it has not been possible to identify the exact location of the present drawing, it exhibits many of the characteristics of Barret's Powerscourt subjects.
The philosopher and writer Edmund Burke is said to have introduced Barret to the Dargle, near Powerscourt and its waterfall as well as the owner of the property, Lord Powerscourt, who was to become Barret's earliest patron.
Burke encouraged Barret's interest in wild nature, and the Dargel had Salvator Rosa-like water, waterfalls, rocks and overhanging trees. While Barret was at the Dublin Society Schools, not far away at Trinity College, Burke was a student writing his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful.
As A. Crookshank and The Knight of Glin point out in The Watercolours of Ireland, London, 1995, pp. 51-3, [Barret's] 'early oil paintings...adhere to Burke's ideas on the sublime where he emphasizes the importance of cloudy skies, dark and gloomy mountains, and vast cataracts'. While it has not been possible to identify the exact location of the present drawing, it exhibits many of the characteristics of Barret's Powerscourt subjects.