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Edwin Hayes RHA RI ROI (1819-1904)Smacks Running for ScarboroughOil on canvas, 105 x 140cm (41¼ x 55'')SignedExhibited (probably): 1871 London, Royal Academy, as 'Freshening Gale, Scarboro: Fishing Boats Returning to Harbour'.Edwin Hayes was born in Bristol but spent much of his childhood living in Dublin. Growing up next to the city’s busy ports, a love of the sea was firmly imbedded in the artist and he sought to experience it at its rawest. An avid sailor in his youth, Hayes used his knowledge to gain employment as a steward’s boy on a ship bound for America and the glory of the Atlantic was laid bare before him.Arguably, this hands-on approach is what enabled Edwin Hayes to create superlative works, with each painting being imbued with an atmosphere that could only be evoked from experience. In ‘Smacks Running for Scarborough’, the North Sea has been transformed into an aching belly of water, with each cavernous dip threatening to swallow those within it. As a thriving fishing town in the 19th and 20th centuries, Scarborough’s inhabitants would not have been strangers to the perils of the sea and, here, Hayes manages to capture the everyday struggles of the industry. Through the use of vigorous brushstrokes on the water, Hayes injects a tangible energy into his picture, the rolling waves swaying the viewer’s vision so that we can feel the boat lurch beneath us. The sails bellow outwards in their fight with the wind, mimicking the bent bodies of the fishermen as they bow their heads against the salty sting of the spray. Drawn to this activity surrounding the central boat, we are urged to follow the gaze of the helmsman as he stares out to sea and share in his anguish at the impending storm. Indeed, it is as if the menacing darkness has brought with it such trepidation that even the sails themselves are trying to flee in the opposite direction. In contrast to this, the clouds above the shore have parted to unveil the land as a beacon of safety, an immovable mass against the uncertainty of the water. Although the fishermen’s livelihoods depend on the sea, Hayes has painted her as a volatile and unforgiving provider, ready to render her servants helpless with only a moment’s notice. It is, ultimately, to the land that they must go, banished by her threat.For artists, such as Hayes, who endured a genuine love affair with the sea, it is this fickleness that yielded an endless source of inspiration and subject matter. Despite a prolific career, each of Hayes’ seascapes carries its own unique beauty, the shifting colours and weather patterns flitting through his canvases as clouds across the sky.Helena Carlyle, February 2019
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