This picture is unusual as it is a view on the bridge, rather than of it. The young man leaning casually on the wall, with his artist’s accoutrements by his side, is Carlow-born Frank O’Meara, an artist greatly admired by Lavery and a key member of the artistic community in Grez. His apparent indolence epitomises the easy pace of life in the village, while the manner in which he observes the women lingering in conversation close by is indicative of visiting artists’ keenness to find new subjects. The picture’s even tonality and subdued palette are typical of the style, often referred to as Rustic Naturalism, developed by the French painter Jules Bastien-Lepage and popularised throughout Europe, North America and as far away as Japan in the last decades of the nineteenth century.
March 2016
Royal Academy, London, 1886
Impressions and Realities - An Exhibition of British, French and Irish Paintings, 1850-1930, Pyms Gallery, London, 1985
Irish Renascence: Irish Art in a Century of Change, Pyms Gallery, London, 1986
Frank O'Meara, The Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin; The Crawford Gallery, Cork; The Ulster Museum, Belfast, 1989
The Painters in Grez-sur-Loing, Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, Kofu; Fuchu Art Museum, Tokyo; Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya City; Nariwa Museum, Okoyama; Sakura City Museum of Art, Sakura, 2000-2001
Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880-1900, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2010-2011