拍品专文
'The hand can act as an independent being to bring about the emergence of the image' - so Louis le Brocquy stated in his lecture at the Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines at the Université de Nice in February 1979. He believed that 'there is a brain in the hand' and that, therefore, it is a powerful creative force in its own right.
Le Brocquy's gentle, pale palette, as evident in the present work, was used against the context of the political instability and horror of the conflict in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s. His control and cool, transparent pigments in his figurative works of this time are employed to extol the terror of the times and, as Dorothy Walker has suggested, the 'hand turned palm down outwards as if to ward off horror, freezes the moment of terror in unbearable endurance' (see D. Walker, Louis le Brocquy, Dublin, 1981, p. 53). The disembodiment of the hand appears to be le Brocquy's way of dealing with and distancing himself from that horror at the same time as expressing it as grief.
The present work is one of only thirteen 'Hand' pictures painted between 1965-74. According to Anne Crookshank, le Brocquy locates the 'spirit of the individual' and 'sought to trap it within' these paintings (see Exhibition catalogue, Louis le Brocquy and the Celtic Head Image, New York, 1981, pp. 24-6). For le Brocquy handprints are themselves a personality, and the hand is of equal importance to the eye and the brain in the creation of the image.
We are very grateful to Pierre le Brocquy for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
Le Brocquy's gentle, pale palette, as evident in the present work, was used against the context of the political instability and horror of the conflict in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s. His control and cool, transparent pigments in his figurative works of this time are employed to extol the terror of the times and, as Dorothy Walker has suggested, the 'hand turned palm down outwards as if to ward off horror, freezes the moment of terror in unbearable endurance' (see D. Walker, Louis le Brocquy, Dublin, 1981, p. 53). The disembodiment of the hand appears to be le Brocquy's way of dealing with and distancing himself from that horror at the same time as expressing it as grief.
The present work is one of only thirteen 'Hand' pictures painted between 1965-74. According to Anne Crookshank, le Brocquy locates the 'spirit of the individual' and 'sought to trap it within' these paintings (see Exhibition catalogue, Louis le Brocquy and the Celtic Head Image, New York, 1981, pp. 24-6). For le Brocquy handprints are themselves a personality, and the hand is of equal importance to the eye and the brain in the creation of the image.
We are very grateful to Pierre le Brocquy for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.