Lot 142: Carey Clarke PPRHA (b.1936) View on the Aran

Carey Clarke PPRHA (b.1936) View on the Aran Islands Oil on canvas, 50 x 60cm (19.6 x 23.6") Signed, dated 1971 verso Provenance: From a Private Dublin Collection In a landscape and figurative tradition the artist is imbued with a sense of the literal value of technique and it's underpinning of the vision of the artist. A very precise draughtsman, Clarke brings a quirky almost isometric projection to many of his landscapes. The landscape as set out for our delectation is a fine example of a village on Aran still based on the old rundale system of farming. The painter uses the device of the line of cottages to act as the middle line horizon and then the stone walls to create a vivid internal design. By using the wooden spar in the left foreground he arrests the moment and brings the eye to the old bed springs creating another line of interest. The figure walking up the hill towards the viewer gives the overall scale to the wider landscape and indeed scales the entire composition. By using dynamic asymmetry he painter brings the eye to the coloured doors of the houses in the Clachan and then anchors it by the little headstones seen on the headland against the sea, where the eye follows the spume of the tidal currents leading the eye to the distant mainland shore. The final note is the artist's signature which in the French tradition is a visual anchor more than it is a record of the maker of the work. Ciarán MacGonigal, December 2008