{"id":4050,"date":"2025-03-19T14:23:21","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T18:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/?p=4050"},"modified":"2025-03-24T17:01:57","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T21:01:57","slug":"jack-butler-yeats-quiet-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/jack-butler-yeats-quiet-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Butler Yeats Quiet Men"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.kadence-column4050_1d2f6f-ee{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-column4050_1d2f6f-ee{-webkit-flex:0 1 100%;flex:0 1 100%;max-width:unset;margin-left:unset;margin-right:unset;}.kadence-column4050_1d2f6f-ee > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column4050_1d2f6f-ee > .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-column4050_1d2f6f-ee > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(--global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column4050_1d2f6f-ee > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column4050_1d2f6f-ee > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column4050_1d2f6f-ee > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column4050_1d2f6f-ee{position:relative;}@media all and (min-width: 1025px){.wp-block-kadence-column.kb-section-dir-horizontal>.kt-inside-inner-col>.kadence-column4050_1d2f6f-ee{-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-column4050_1d2f6f-ee > .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-column4050_1d2f6f-ee{max-width:100%;-webkit-flex:1;flex:1;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}.kadence-column4050_1d2f6f-ee > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column4050_1d2f6f-ee 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-4050_872e96-d0 .kt-block-spacer{height:60px;}.wp-block-kadence-spacer.kt-block-spacer-4050_872e96-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-4050_872e96-d0 .kt-divider{width:100%!important;}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-4050_872e96-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>Quiet Men<\/em>, 1946<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, 2022.61<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1242\" height=\"952\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/yeats-quiet.jpg\" alt=\"Quiet Man\" class=\"wp-image-4051\" style=\"width:1202px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/yeats-quiet.jpg 1242w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/yeats-quiet-300x230.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/yeats-quiet-1024x785.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/yeats-quiet-768x589.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1242px) 100vw, 1242px\" \/><\/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>Painted during Jack B. Yeats\u2019s productive later years,&nbsp;<em>Quiet Men<\/em>&nbsp;evinces an artist clearly focused on exploring, and ultimately undermining, the discipline of painting, its most privileged genres, materials, and techniques. The work likely depicts a line of solitary figures, taking up their daily posts on the benches of St. Stephen\u2019s Green, Dublin.<sup>1<\/sup>&nbsp;Performing a more or less common ritual at the time, these quiet figures could, from this vantage, take in the everyday life of their city and no doubt ponder, like&nbsp;<em>Ulysses<\/em>&nbsp;(1922) protagonist Leopold Bloom, the intersection of the banal and the epic. A fellow Irish writer and theorist of exile and dislocation, James Joyce (1882\u20131941) was in fact one of Yeats\u2019s most abiding admirers. \u201cJack Yeats and I have the same method,\u201d he once supposedly stated, cryptically.<sup>2<\/sup>&nbsp;What is meant here by \u201cmethod\u201d remains an enigma, but we might offer some guesses by looking closely at Yeats\u2019s surfaces, where representation finds itself given over to the abstract materiality of paint, performing microscopic interactions of color, liquidity, and canvas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These materialist explorations possess a critical edge, as if to negate and refuse painting\u2019s most privileged act, the application of paint to canvas. The British critic John Berger (1926\u20132017) once speculated that Yeats may have, at times, abandoned the hallowed tool of the easel painter, the paintbrush, in favor of simply smearing paint onto canvas directly from the tubes themselves, using the \u201cnozzle\u201d as a means of mark-making.<sup>3<\/sup>&nbsp;Yeats, then, brought his painterly degradation both to the tools and to the very hand of the painter\u2014that privileged seat of academic skill and personal expression. Negating it in favor of the commoditized, ready-made tube of paint, Yeats\u2019s marks separate themselves from the hand of the master, declaring themselves as mere matter, no more or less privileged than the wet mud or dispersing fog that we see in&nbsp;<em>Quiet Men<\/em>. This is classic Bloom, whose epic journey unfolds over the course of a single, banal summer\u2019s day in Dublin. Finding himself formed and reformed by a collage of literary styles spanning the history of the English language, Bloom moves from human protagonist to microscopic \u201cspeck\u201d to mere emanation of linguistic material. At his core, Bloom is an absence, like the barely pigmented nothingness at the center of Yeats\u2019s picture.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-ub-divider ub_divider ub-divider-orientation-horizontal\" id=\"ub_divider_500808ac-19a9-4a12-a5ac-a77a9e0c0633\"><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. See Hilary Pyle,&nbsp;<em>Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonn\u00e9 of the Oil Paintings<\/em>, vol. 3 (London: Deutsch, 1992), 670.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2. Quoted in Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn, 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), 19. See also Richard Ellman,&nbsp;<em>James Joyce<\/em>&nbsp;(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), 715.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>3. John Berger, \u201cThe Life &amp; Death of an Artist\u201d (1960), 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<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><strong>Marjorie Howes<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><br>Associate Professor, English &amp; 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\/howes.jpg\" alt=\"Marjorie Howes\" class=\"wp-image-4052\" style=\"width:78px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/howes.jpg 200w, https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2025\/03\/howes-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>His childhood in the West of Ireland gave Jack Yeats the subject matter that dominated his artistic life. His representations of rural people he saw there often invite conflicting interpretations. He was sympathetic to Irish republicanism, both before and after the War of Independence, and some observers have suggested that Yeats, like certain members of the Irish Literary Revival, had a tendency to idealize the Irish peasantry. Others have argued that his work emphasizes the mystery and dignity of his subjects and foregrounds the difficulties of representation. This enigmatic expressionist oil from his later period embodies such ambiguity. The title may invoke Maurice Walsh\u2019s short story \u201cThe Quiet Man,\u201d which was first published in 1933 and became famous for its depiction of an Irish countryman as the strong, silent type who is capable of explosive violent action. It was later adapted into John Ford\u2019s iconic film&nbsp;<em>The Quiet Man<\/em>, starring John Wayne and Maureen O\u2019Hara. The \u201cquiet men\u201d in this painting can be interpreted along these lines as Irish people, even Irish revolutionaries, whose stillness belies their capacity for movement or violence. On the other hand, they are consigned to the margins of the scene and threaten to disappear into the similarly colored background or fall out of the frame altogether. The center of the painting is both filled with light, in contrast to the darkness of the men, and eerily empty, suggesting limits on what the viewer can see.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<style>.wp-block-kadence-spacer.kt-block-spacer-4050_940a6d-0f .kt-block-spacer{height:60px;}.wp-block-kadence-spacer.kt-block-spacer-4050_940a6d-0f .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-4050_940a6d-0f .kt-divider{width:100%!important;}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-4050_940a6d-0f\"><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)Quiet Men, 1946 Oil on canvasMcMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Carolyn A. and Peter S. Lynch Collection, 2022.61 Kevin LoteryAssistant Professor, Art History Painted during Jack B. Yeats\u2019s productive later years,&nbsp;Quiet Men&nbsp;evinces an artist clearly focused on exploring, and ultimately undermining, the discipline of painting, its most privileged genres, materials, and [&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-4050","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\/4050","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=4050"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4447,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4050\/revisions\/4447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/museum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}