Adams
Lot 105
Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (1932-2016), The Lovers, After CourbetOil on canvas, 70 x 111cm (27½ x 43¾'')Signed versoExhibited: Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast, One Man Show, March 1981; label verso with title 'After Courbet'.Literature: 'Basil Blackshaw - Painter' edited by Brian Ferran, Illustrated Plate 108, pg. 102Basil Blackshaw once told me “I steal from good artists and bad artists. It’s what you do with the theft is what matters. Even a bad artist can help you to resolve a problem.” he said. ‘The Lovers’ or should we rename the painting ‘Gráinne agus Gráinne’ is Blackshaw at his mischievous best - stealing an idea yet uniquely giving his ‘otherness’ to Courbet’s interpretation of the same subject.The work has an echo too of Irish artist Michael Farrell in his interpretation of Boucher’s sexually erotic and provocative ‘Mademoiselle O’ Murphy..’Blackshaw’s painting is very much in the vein too of the Donegal Gaeltacht seanchaí Neidí Franc who habitually started his storytelling seisiún with the refrain.. “Ní raibh mé riamh gan aon scéal ach dá mbéinn gan aon scéal do chumfainn m’féin scéal” but suddenly ‘duende’ took hold and lifted the performer and listener into a celestial world.Basil has created his own story in this painting. It too invokes thoughts of eroticism inspired by ‘Baudelaire’s ‘Fleurs du Mal’ poetry. The physical presence is temporary ... the viewer enters another world once the eye falls on the lovers whose depiction is ephemeral and emotionally charged. Herein rest the foundations for a thesis on this most érotique oeuvre by Basil Blackshaw.Eamonn Mallie, March 2019A renegade and cowboy of the Irish art scene, Basil Blackshaw is known for pushing the boundaries of art and representation. Blackshaw made a career from depicting the shunned and marginalised of society, bringing to the fore subjects that many might have considered ‘tasteless’. In this, the painter found a comrade in Gustave Courbet, a French Realist and radical working in the 19th century.Despite his daring approach, Courbet ushered in a new reign of art in France and, for this, he would have gained respect from Blackshaw. One of Courbet’s more scandalous works was his ‘Sleepers’, commissioned in 1866 for a wealthy Turkish diplomat. Although erotic pieces were already in circulation, Courbet shocked the critics and viewers with this piece as, unlike previous images of the subject, Courbet painted his work on a grand scale, affording it an importance which was hitherto unprecedented. Such was the outrage at this lurid display, ‘Sleepers’ was mentioned in a police report of 1872 after its exhibition in a window and was used to demonstrate the lack of morality and principle held by the artist.In his ode to Courbet, Blackshaw has taken his work one step further. Unlike Courbet, who titled his work ‘Sleepers’, Blackshaw removes any pretence of ambiguity and boldly declares the piece as ‘The Lovers’. He strips away the non-essential elements of luxury; the flowers, the discarded jewellery and the prettily painted glass, disallowing any distraction from his main subject. In a wash of white and pink, the tousled bedsheets become inextricably linked to the bare flesh that so disrupted them, whilst the figure of one woman blends into that of the second, highlighting the intimacy of their tryst. The broad, confident brushstrokes, indicative of Blackshaw’s style, unapologetically lay bare the physicality of this scene and force us to confront one of the key characteristics of human nature. Nestled unashamedly in their comfort, ‘The Lovers’ lift the veil on a topic often considered as indecorous and glorify a subject that, in terms of Blackshaw’s work, would have walked hand in hand with the disparaged of society.Helena Carlyle, March 2019
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