NORAH MCGUINNESS HRHA (1901-1980) Snipe on a Donegal Bog Oil on canvas, 40.5 x 51cms (16 x 20'') Signed Exhibited: Norah McGuinness Exhibition,The Dawson Gallery Dublin, June-July 1972, cat. no....

NORAH MCGUINNESS HRHA (1901-1980) Snipe on a Donegal Bog Oil on canvas, 40.5 x 51cms (16 x 20'') Signed Exhibited: Norah McGuinness Exhibition,The Dawson Gallery Dublin, June-July 1972, cat. no. 13 where purchased by Mr. & Mrs Nesbitt Waddington This painting screams out Norah McGuinness. With its strong, almost Georgian, colours and its hieratic bird it could be by no other hand. It is quintessential McGuinness: the tilted plane, the linear quality, the colour-patterning, the paring back to basics. The tight-knit composition could almost be a detail from the Bayeux Tapestry. In creating such a strong mise- en- sc?ne for her one character she is opening up the space which that character owns. She gives us this defined area of space to contemplate but she also suggests the further space caught in the snipe's eye. He is not engaging with the viewer but with his world. By rendering him still and silent she is inviting the viewer to pause and examine the compositional spaces of her narrative. In his glorious isolation, the snipe is the curator of nature's museum, the bog, which preserves the remains of flora, fauna and man's history. Of course the main protagonist in this scene is not the bird at all but the character taking centre stage and the spotlight : water. The progenitor of the bog and the lifeline of the snipe, water is the sine qua non of this scene. Everything we see here is dependent upon it. She links the two, the snipe and the pool, by mirroring their forms: the soft swell of the bird's chest with the contours of the pool, the beak with the bulrushes; and their colours : the white of the underfeathers mirrors the water with its reflected sky whilst the cryptic colouration of the bird's back, which allows it to blend into the background, necessarily apes the colours of the bog. A typical, timeless piece: McGuinness at her best. S?le Connaughton-Deeny, 2011

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