A Family (painting)
| A Family | |
|---|---|
| Artist | Louis le Brocquy |
| Year | 1950–1951 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 147 cm × 185 cm (57.8 in × 72.8 in) |
| Location | National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin |
Art is neither an instrument nor a convenience, but a secret logic of the imagination. It is another way of seeing, the whole sense and value of which lies in its autonomy, its distance from actuality, its otherness.
"A Family" is a 1951 oil on canvas painting by Irish artist Louis le Brocquy. It depicts a woman half-laying on a table and gazing out at the viewer accompanied by a cat in the foreground, a man sitting hunched over in the background, and a child holding a bouquet of flowers on one side, gazing at the woman. The painting's stark grey color palette and its portrayal of dejection within the family unit attracted strong criticism from some contemporaries in post-war Ireland, while others praised the artist's willingness to address the problems of the time in the work. It is currently on display in The National Gallery of Ireland.
Depicting a stark human condition in the aftermarth of World War II, Síghle Bhreathnach-Lynch, Curator of Irish Art at the National Gallery of Ireland notes: 'The mother, lying on a table, leaning on one arm, stares out with quiet dignity while a menacing looking cat peers out from beneath the draw sheet. In the background the father sits, head bowed, in a pose suggesting total dejection. He appears to be oblivious to the small child holding a bunch of flowers; a symbol of hope. The three somberly painted figures inhabit a grey concrete bunker, lit by a bare bulb. The theme of this disturbingly bleak work is the nature of individual isolation and the breakdown of societal norms.'
A Family belongs to the artist's Grey Period (1951-55). Widely acknowledged as the artist's masterpiece from this period, the painting marks a shift in palette from the comparatively colourful work of the late forties to predominant whites and greys. The art critic John Berger writes in Art News and Review: 'His style has developed and changed; his colours are pale and severe - the Family is mostly grey; his forms, in their movement both across and into the picture, are precise. This finesse implies - because le Brocquy's motive is always human - a tenderness which is not sentimental, and a sense of wonder which is exact; one thinks twice about the quite ordinary but in fact miraculous construction of any man's back, having looked at the father in the Family.'
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