Pat O'Donahue's Farm, Kerry
Artist
Alexander Helwig Wyant
(American, 1836 - 1892)
Date1870
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions18 x 30 in. (45.7 x 76.2 cm)
ClassificationsOil Painting
Credit LineCharles F. Smith Fund
Terms
Object number1944.19
DescriptionWhile in Europe in 1865 and 1866, Wyant spent several months traveling and sketching the countryside of Wales and Ireland. He recorded a number of scenes of the rocky landscape in county Kerry--subjects to which he would return for fresh inspiration throughout the next decade. One of these Irish scenes, “Pat O'Donahue's Farm, Kerry”, depicts a barren, craggy landscape in the shadow of a lofty mountain range. At the left is a river; a small rowboat lies beached on its sandy bank. The rocky hillside is dotted with sheep and surmounted by a simple thatched cottage whose smoke beckons the small figure walking up the road to take shelter from the coming storm. Somber blue and green tonalities dominate the painting, which is concerned with evoking the thick atmosphere of the looming storm and its effect on the changing light and atmosphere of the isolated landscape. The free brushwork and evocative treatment of the landscape in Wyant's Irish scenes marks a new direction in his painting, revealing the influence of Constable and Turner, whose pictures he had recently admired in London. These works represent his experiments with a looser, more painterly style during a time when he was also producing canvases in the more detailed manner of the Hudson River School, such as the panoramic “Tennessee” (1866; Metropolitan Museum of Art). The New Britain canvas shows an uncharacteristic painterliness in depiction of the sky and of the farmhouse and sheep, which virtually blend into the rocky hillside. This evocative use of color contrasts with the carefully delineated topography of the riverbank and boat. Wyant’s overlap of two radically different manners of painting—the detail of the Hudson River School and the more evocative and poetic Tonalist style--has produced some confusion for scholars, including Wyant's student, the landscapist Bruce Crane, who have attempted to date Wyant's canvases from this period.(1)
The composition and overall treatment of “Pat O'Donahue's Farm, Kerry” resembles several other Irish scenes by Wyant, most notably “View in County Kerry” (1870s; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and “Afternoon” (Worcester Art Museum, Mass.). All three vary slightly in their depiction of various elements of the scene and in their degree of detail or painterliness, but seem to based on a common source, possibly “Afternoon”.(2)
Wyant exhibited “Pat O’Donahue’s Farm, Kerry” several times in the 1870s, most notably at the National Academy of Design in 1876. Although landscapes generally received much less critical attention than in previous years, a reviewer for the “New York Times” listed the picture among the "most striking works in the exhibition."(3)
MAS
Bibliography:
Eliot Clark, “Alexander Wyant” (New York: privately printed, 1916); Eliot Clark, “Sixty Paintings by Alexander H. Wyant” (New York: privately printed, 1920); Robert S. Olpin, “Alexander Helwig Wyant”, 1836-1892, exhib. cat. (Salt Lake City: Utah Museum of Fine Arts, University of Utah, 1968); Robert S. Olpin, "Alexander Helwig Wyant (1836-1892), American Landscape Painter: An Investigation of His Life and Fame and a Critical Analysis of His Work with a Catalogue Raisonné of Wyant Paintings," Ph.D. diss., Boston University.
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