ATTRIBUTED TO ROBERT CARVER (c.1730-1791)
Elegant Fisherfolk on the Dargle below the Dahool
Oil on canvas, 100 x 126cm

 

Provenance: Private Collection, Ireland

 

This attribution given...

ATTRIBUTED TO ROBERT CARVER (c.1730-1791)
Elegant Fisherfolk on the Dargle below the Dahool
Oil on canvas, 100 x 126cm

 

Provenance: Private Collection, Ireland

 

This attribution given to Carver by the late Knight of Glin is on stylistic grounds following an examination in 2002. The painting had been thought to have been by George Barret (c.1732 1784) who, along with numerous others had painted this same view. Barret, under the patronage of Viscount Powerscourt had painted repeatedly in the area, including a similarly positioned view, also with elegant figures, as did William Ashford with his A View of the Dargle Valley, County Wicklow, Showing the Moss House and Elegant Figures in the Foreground and James Coy, who exhibited views of the Dargle and the Powerscourt Waterfall at the Society of Artists in 1772. It was also the subject of an aquatint after Thomas Sautelle Roberts.

 

Carver, the younger, studied under his father Richard (d. 1754), a landscape painter from Waterford and also under Robert West at the Dublin Society Schools. Strickland notes that he had a distinguished career as a scene painter in Dublin and subsequently in London. On the revival at Crow Street on 29th November, 1768 of the popular old pantomime, A Trip to the Dargle, a new scene of the waterfall painted by Mr. Carver was shown for the first time. This set painting was described as an Astonishing Effect of the Representation of the Waterfall at Powerscourt. Emily, Countess of Kildare wrote in 1762 that the stage set of the waterfall was the prettiest thing I ever saw, much beyond that at the opera and so like that at Powerscourt, that you actually fancy yourself in the very place.

 

The present work, Elegant Fisherfolk on the Dargle Below the Dahool is one of a number of known works depicting views on the Dargle, near Powerscourt, Co. Wicklow. A large cliff to the left dominates the composition, its thrusting vertical formations of rock giving the sense of enormity required by notions of the sublime. A river flows rapidly through torrents formed by rocks fallen from the cliff above. The boulders dividing the torrents are deliberately and symmetrically laid out like stepping-stones. On the brow of the nearest hillock to the right a small gazebo-like structure suggests that the setting is part of a landscaped estate rather than a natural, untamed scene. In the foreground, well dressed figures amuse themselves a gentleman and lady toward the centre of the composition fish from a boulder while to the right a group of three converse as they walk. One of these seems to point out the natural attractions of the scenery suggesting that they are early tourists, themselves devotees of the sublime. While the figures give scale to, and stress the immensity of, the landscape at the same time their peaceable enjoyment of it, strolling and fishing before, perhaps, taking tea in the gazebo or pavilion above, somehow tames and civilizes the scene.

 

The painting is carefully and artfully composed. It is constructed from a series of diagonal and horizontal lines with a strong central focus created by the recession of the landscape through the gorge and the carefully positioned boulders at the very centre of the picture. These compositional devices, which could be seen as crudely schematic in the hands of a lesser artist, are here subtly reinforced by the fall of the sunlight along the diagonal from upper left to lower right and particularly by the glorious burst of sunlight which illuminates the vista glimpsed through the gap in the rocks. Paradoxically despite the fast flowing water the harmonious symmetry of the picture and its unified palette give a strangely still and peaceful feel to the picturesque view of the sublime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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