Paul Henry RHA (1877-1958)
Evening, c.1924-5
Oil on canvas, 39 x 59cm (15¼ x 23 ¼") 
Signed

Provenance: Private Collection, Co. Cork.

Exhibited: Dublin, The Studio Merrion Row, Dublin c.5 - 19th...

Paul Henry RHA (1877-1958)
Evening, c.1924-5
Oil on canvas, 39 x 59cm (15¼ x 23 ¼") 
Signed

Provenance: Private Collection, Co. Cork.

Exhibited: Dublin, The Studio Merrion Row, Dublin c.5 - 19th July, Pictures by Paul Henry, Catalogue no. 21

Literature: S. B Kennedy, Paul Henry, Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations, Yale University Press, 2007, page 225, catalogue no. 617

 

By now, as S.B Kennedy notes in his catalogue raisonne on the artist, figures had all but disappeared from Henry’s compositions, as he focused solely on landscape views. It is taken to its purest form in this work, a simple scene, completely uninterrupted, without the usual cottages or haystacks to give us a sense of people who would have lived there.

 

It still retains the broad panoramic approach of earlier paintings and its size, larger than his usual works, heightens that sense of space. We are positioned on the edge of lake looking out and across at the mountains in the distance. There is a seamless transition between where the water and the land meets, with the blue grey mountains rising above. They are reflected in mirror image in the still surface of the water below. The elements have become interchangeable, moving straight from water to land, and from mountain to sky. He has used quicker upright brushstrokes to describe the sharp edges of the rocks in the foreground, and shorter strokes for the coarse grassy bank.

 

Henry often painted evening scenes, enjoying the changing of the light, as dusk is falling, casting blue and purple shadows across the landscape. A softer light streams through the large billowing cloud passing by the centre, while longer veil-like wisps stretch across the skyline behind. A sense of stillness pervades the scene and he has used a limited palette to distil everything down to the essential elements.

 

Niamh Corcoran, September 2023

 

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