Establishes studio, 3 Albert Studios, Battersea (Spring
1952). Meets Jean Lurçat (1892-1966), the guiding reformist in modern
tapestry design (summer 1952). Lurçat's perfecting of the system
of tons comptés, together with Francois Tabard - integrating
the work of designer and weaver - leads le Brocquy to adapt his early small-scale
flat (gouache) cartoons into full-scale numbered cartoons, woven by Tabard
Frères & Soeurs in editions of nine (inclusive of the Edinburgh
weavings). The artist writes: 'To Lurçat relation is paramount.
His individual expression of it is perhaps the most personal of his great contributions to contemporary tapestry. Sitting in my London studio
recently he enlarged on this theme, carefullydiscovering
the small, golden reflections and broken shadows which his glass of Irish
whiskey cast around it. Books, table, papers, trouser leg, even the rush
matting on the floor, were decorated by its presence, proclaiming for him
the woven interdependence of all things. This, his central conviction,
Lurçat has extended to the analysis of his medium. His rejection
of the painted cartoon in favour of a full-scale linear cartoon, directly
indicating each woven transition of colour and tone; his selection of a
simple range or gamme of standardised and numbered woollen dyeings;
his indication of these coloured wools on his cartoon by means of their
numbers; his choice of coarse and lively wools; his re-introduction of
the visibly large warp; all of these technical decisions sprang from a
passionate belief in the wholeness of concept and execution.'106 Le Brocquy's
numbered cartoons are in turn adapted into the 'colour-inverted' cartoons.
The artist notes: 'In Dublin during the early Forties, I became interested
in the emotional effect of colour, particularly in the relationship of
the chromatic scale to the twelve subdivisions of the primary colours,
red, yellow and blue ... At the time I was also excited by the dramatic
effect caused by the visual inversion of both colour and tone. I then noted:
"Further to the emotional character of single and interrelated colour,
lies the magic of colour inversion. Staring fixedly at a colour or colours,
the saturated eye - shifting to a white surface - precisely inverts those
colours both in hue and tonally. A retinal 'memory' emerges inverted, an entirely new perception as contrary as night from day". Some years
later in London I designed a number of tapestries for Tabard Frères
& Soeurs, Aubusson ... But further to these first cartoons, my excitement
regarding the drama of colour-inversion encouraged me to indicate at the
time second versions of these linear cartoons, inverted both in colour
and tone.'107 The tapestries Irish Tinkers (1948), Garlanded
Goat (1949-50), Allegory (1950), Adam and Eve in the Garden (1951-52), Cherub (1952), Eden (1952), establish le Brocquy's
ongoing association with the well-known region of Aubusson. The critic
Edward Sheehy writes: 'Le Brocquy's designs are among the best of their
kind I have seen, not excepting those of Lurçat. Garlanded Goat,
with its formal dignityand
subtle harmony of colour, should find a place in one of our public buildings;
though perhaps the authorities might fear the implication that the animal
should be adopted as a national emblem ... Unlike most Irish painters,
he is the reverse of facile invention; or perhaps it would be more true
to say that he has elected to concentrate on the realisation of particular
themes, to realise, through means that approach the formality of abstraction,
what are finally purely human values. Boy with Flowers, or Child,
show him the master of a type of formal simplification which still retains
a sense of innocence and wonder.'108 In 1953, the artist's paintings of
children give rise to a growing body of work. Following Child with a
Toy Moon (1951) and Child with Flowers (1951), entered in Tendances
de la Peinture Britanique Contemporaine, Galerie de France, Paris (October
1952), paints Adolescent (1953), Child Sleeping (1953), Child
and Dog in a Room (1953), Child in a Dark Room (1953), Child in a Yard (1954; Dublin City Gallery The
Hugh Lane). Alistair
Smith remarks: 'Ensuing works show children alone in interiors, whose space
is difficult to discern - an unfathomable, directionless environment. They
gaze full-face from the canvas, confronting the spectator like saints in
Byzantine mosaics, achieving an intensification of the sacerdotal atmosphere
of the Families.'109 Acknowledging that children have always tended
to enter his paintings, the artist explains: 'What fascinates me about
the child, though, is a certain primitive quality. I have often wondered
if one could see human beings more clearly stripped back to Palaeolithic
circumstance. Since that is not possible, then perhaps children may provide
us with some insight into our original depths ... I am thinking of the
child's transparence. In his imaginative little book The Inheritors,
William Golding evokes early palaeolithic Man. In Lord of the Flies he perceives, in a contemporary group of children, much the same condition.'110
Le Brocquy's recurrent images of children depicted
in isolation will culminate the following year in Child with Flowers (1954), Child in
a Spring Field (1954), Tired Child (1954; Ulster Museum), Child
Alone (1954). Work included alongside Bacon, Leger, Sutherland, Marini, Moore, in Collectors
Choice, Gimpel Fils (August 1953), Terrence Mullaly writes in The
Arts News and Review: I found Louis le Brocquy's Man Writing,
one of the most compelling pictures in the whole exhibition and it is also
of particular interest, as it is a recent work and represents a break with
the style still generally associated with him ... The Man Writing makes it perfectly clear that le Brocquy has made great advances, it is
disturbing, yet poignant.'111
NEXT
106 Louis le Brocquy, 'Thoughts on our Time and Jean Lurçat', Ark 17 (London: Royal College of Art, 1956) . Reproduced in exhibition
catalogue Louis le Brocquy, Seven Tapestries 1948-1955 (Dublin:
Dawson Gallery; Beffast: Ulster Museum 1967) and Louis le Brocquy, Aubusson
Tapestries (Dublin: Taylor Galleries 2000; Agnews, London May, 2001).
107 Le Brocquy, 'Artist 's Note', exhibition catalogue Louis le Brocquy, Seven Tapestries 1948-1955 (Dublin: Dawson Gallery; Beffast: Ulster
Museum 1967) and Louis le Brocquy, Aubusson Tapestries (Dublin:
Taylor Galleries, November 1999; Agnew's, London, May, 2001).
108 Edward Sheehy, 'Paintings and Tapestries by Louis le Brocquy. The Victor
Waddington Galleries', Dublin Magazine (March 1952).
109 Alistair Smith, 'Louis le Brocquy: On the Spiritual in Art', exhibition
catalogue Louis le Brocquy, Paintings 1939 - 1996, (Dublin: Irish
Museum of Modern Art, October 1996 - February 1997) p. 33.
110 Statement made to the editor, March 2005.
111 Terence Mullaly, 'Gimpel Fils', The Arts News and Review (London,
August 1953). |
Adam and Eve in the Garden colour-inverted
1951-52, Aubusson
tapestry, 140 x 275 cm
Atelier René Duché, edition 9
Child in a Yard, 1953
oil on canvas, 132 x 96.5 cm
Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane
|