{"id":4044,"date":"2025-03-19T14:18:27","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T18:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/?p=4044"},"modified":"2025-03-24T17:00:25","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T21:00:25","slug":"jack-butler-yeats-rushing-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/jack-butler-yeats-rushing-waters\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Butler Yeats Rushing Waters"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc{max-width:100%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}.wp-block-kadence-column.kb-section-dir-horizontal:not(.kb-section-md-dir-vertical)>.kt-inside-inner-col>.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc{-webkit-flex:0 1 100%;flex:0 1 100%;max-width:unset;margin-left:unset;margin-right:unset;}.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;}.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(--global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc{position:relative;}@media all and (min-width: 1025px){.wp-block-kadence-column.kb-section-dir-horizontal>.kt-inside-inner-col>.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc{-webkit-flex:0 1 100%;flex:0 1 100%;max-width:unset;margin-left:unset;margin-right:unset;}}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.wp-block-kadence-column.kb-section-sm-dir-vertical:not(.kb-section-sm-dir-horizontal):not(.kb-section-sm-dir-specificity)>.kt-inside-inner-col>.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc{max-width:100%;-webkit-flex:1;flex:1;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}.kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column4044_eb5d34-dc mobile-section\"><div class=\"kt-inside-inner-col\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"774\" height=\"114\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/01\/lynch-logo.png\" alt=\"Carolyn A. and Peter S. Lynch Collection\" class=\"wp-image-2922\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/01\/lynch-logo.png 774w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/01\/lynch-logo-300x44.png 300w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/01\/lynch-logo-768x113.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 774px) 100vw, 774px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<style>.wp-block-kadence-spacer.kt-block-spacer-4044_6f4c61-d0 .kt-block-spacer{height:60px;}.wp-block-kadence-spacer.kt-block-spacer-4044_6f4c61-d0 .kt-divider{border-top-width:1px;height:1px;border-top-color:#f1f1f1;width:100%;border-top-style:solid;}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.wp-block-kadence-spacer.kt-block-spacer-4044_6f4c61-d0 .kt-divider{width:100%!important;}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-4044_6f4c61-d0\"><div class=\"kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center\"><hr class=\"kt-divider\" \/><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><strong>Jack Butler Yeats (1871\u20131957)<\/strong><br><em>Rushing Waters<\/em>, 1947<br><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oil on canvas<br>McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Carolyn A. and Peter S. Lynch Collection, 2021.24<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"894\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/yeats-rushing.jpg\" alt=\"Rushing Waters\" class=\"wp-image-4045\" style=\"width:1202px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/yeats-rushing.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/yeats-rushing-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/yeats-rushing-1024x763.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/yeats-rushing-768x572.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-not-stacked-on-mobile has-background is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\" style=\"background-color:#f1f1f1\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Kevin Lotery<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><br>Assistant Professor, Art History<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/lotery.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Lotery\" class=\"wp-image-4046\" style=\"width:78px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/lotery.jpg 200w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/lotery-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Jack Butler Yeats was a famously independent painter who never aligned himself with any school or avant-garde, despite having lived through periods of great innovation in both modern painting and avant-garde culture. As the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett (1906\u201389) declared in his homage to the painter, Yeats was \u201cincomparable,\u201d his \u201cgreat solitary oeuvre\u201d resisting the art historian\u2019s desire for easy comparison.<sup>1<\/sup>&nbsp;A painting like&nbsp;<em>Rushing Waters<\/em>&nbsp;might, for example, remind us of the German expressionist tactic of investing the bare, naive application of paint with erotic charge or political agitation. Alternatively, it might call up postwar painters like Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier, or Francis Bacon, whose brutal paintings, contemporaneous with&nbsp;<em>Rushing Waters<\/em>, also invited spectators into scenographies of bodily disfiguration and painterly dispersal, stilled forever by the fact of having been painted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But as Beckett noted enigmatically, Yeats\u2019s marks were too \u201cdispassionate\u201d for all that, and in late works like&nbsp;<em>Rushing Waters<\/em>&nbsp;the painter\u2019s icy, \u201cinhuman\u201d dispassion takes center stage.<sup>2<\/sup>&nbsp;Here, we are given an image of a lone figure lacking interiority, its boundaries dissolving into mere pigment, like mud and water running down a surface. One is reminded of the key understanding of \u201clate work\u201d as articulated by German Jewish thinker Theodor W. Adorno (1903\u201369) in 1937. Adorno sees an artist\u2019s final works not so much as a coherent composition but as mere aesthetic matter that has departed and abstracted itself from the hand of the aging \u201cmaster\u201d who created it.<sup>3<\/sup>&nbsp;In an artist\u2019s late works, then, marks no longer \u201cexpress\u201d but revert to \u201cmasses of material\u201d that only occasionally follow the painter\u2019s commands.<sup>4<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In&nbsp;<em>Rushing Waters<\/em>, Yeats shows the human subject in the process of being exiled from the comforts and pleasures of painting, whether its genres (landscape, the portrait) or its privileged skills (drawing, modeling, the construction of perspectival space). It seems that the human figure, that most privileged subject of Western art and culture, is no longer at home in the space of painting, where it had long been celebrated and contemplated. Instead, it finds itself back in the muck, on the verge of decomposition. Beckett of course described it best, seeing in Yeats\u2019s work not the pathos of the individual, independent subject defining itself against nature (or in paint) but rather the base materiality of all things: \u201cone\u2019s ultimate hard irreducible inorganic singleness.\u201d<sup>5<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-ub-divider ub_divider ub-divider-orientation-horizontal\" id=\"ub_divider_ec15e912-7c9f-49a4-897f-5c4eeb50c8bf\"><div class=\"ub_divider_wrapper\" style=\"position: relative; margin-bottom: 2px; width: 100%; height: 2px; \" data-divider-alignment=\"center\"><div class=\"ub_divider_line\" style=\"border-top: 2px solid #ccc; margin-top: 2px; \"><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<p>1. Samuel Beckett, \u201cHomage to Jack B. Yeats\u201d (April 1954), in&nbsp;<em>Jack B. Yeats: A Celtic Visionary<\/em>, ed. Howard Smith and Stephen Snoddy (Manchester: City Art Galleries, 1996), n.p.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2. Quoted in Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn, \u201cThe Unmapped Space: Memory in Yeats, Joyce, and Beckett,\u201d in&nbsp;<em>Jack B. Yeats: Painting and Memory<\/em>, ed. Donal Maguire and Brendan Rooney (Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland, 2021), 21. See also Martha Dow Fehsenfeld and Lois More Overbeck, eds.,&nbsp;<em>The Letters of Samuel Beckett, 1929\u20131940<\/em>&nbsp;(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>3. Theodor W. Adorno, \u201cLate Style in Beethoven\u201d (1937), in&nbsp;<em>Essays on Music<\/em>, ed. Richard Leppert, trans. Susan H. Gillespie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 567.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>4. Adorno, 566.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>5. Beckett, quoted in T\u00f3ib\u00edn, \u201cUnmapped Space,\u201d 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-not-stacked-on-mobile has-background is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\" style=\"background-color:#f1f1f1\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Vera Kreilkamp<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><br>Professor, Irish Studies<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/kreilkamp.jpg\" alt=\"Vera Kreilkamp\" class=\"wp-image-4047\" style=\"width:78px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/kreilkamp.jpg 200w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/kreilkamp-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Rushing Waters<\/em>&nbsp;was created in 1947, the year that Jack Yeats\u2019s wife of fifty-three years, Cottie Yeats, died. Using the white of the canvas and a subdued and gloomy palette, Yeats painted an apparition-like figure sitting on an outcropping of rock, a book raised to his face to read. A stream rushes from behind and around the figure, spilling out into the viewers\u2019 space and moves off to the right. Light bathes the figure and the stream; the rest is framed in a darkness sparingly inflected with whites and yellows. In the characteristically expressionist and symbolist style of his late period, Yeats seems to juxtapose Ireland\u2019s literature and its western landscape tradition, both of which are deeply rooted within him and his family. The viewers of the painting may themselves be privy to the landscape described in the reader\u2019s book.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<style>.wp-block-kadence-spacer.kt-block-spacer-4044_02ae52-d7 .kt-block-spacer{height:60px;}.wp-block-kadence-spacer.kt-block-spacer-4044_02ae52-d7 .kt-divider{border-top-width:1px;height:1px;border-top-color:#f1f1f1;width:100%;border-top-style:solid;}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.wp-block-kadence-spacer.kt-block-spacer-4044_02ae52-d7 .kt-divider{width:100%!important;}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-4044_02ae52-d7\"><div class=\"kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center\"><hr class=\"kt-divider\" \/><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"383\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/01\/mcmullen-logo-gold-1024x383.png\" alt=\"Logo Gold\" class=\"wp-image-2910\" style=\"width:569px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/01\/mcmullen-logo-gold-1024x383.png 1024w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/01\/mcmullen-logo-gold-300x112.png 300w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/01\/mcmullen-logo-gold-768x287.png 768w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/01\/mcmullen-logo-gold.png 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jack Butler Yeats (1871\u20131957)Rushing Waters, 1947 Oil on canvasMcMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Carolyn A. and Peter S. Lynch Collection, 2021.24 Kevin LoteryAssistant Professor, Art History Jack Butler Yeats was a famously independent painter who never aligned himself with any school or avant-garde, despite having lived through periods of great innovation in both modern [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140560,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"margaret-sandbox","author_link":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/author\/margaret-sandbox\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140560"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4044"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4446,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4044\/revisions\/4446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}