Evening, Malahide Sands

Artist Nathaniel Hone (1831 - 1917)

Datec. 1883

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions85 x 126 cm

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Donated by the artist, 1904.

Object number206

DescriptionNathaniel Hone was Ireland's first great naturalistic painter. His departure for Paris in 1853 marked a turning point in Irish art and he was the first Irish artist of significance to study in France where he was to spend eighteen years. Although painted in Ireland, Evening Malahide Sands, work shows the impact of Hone's time in France with the Barbizon school of naturalistic painters, in particular, Millet, Corot and Harpignies. He did several versions of this scene but this work is widely recognised as one of his great paintings. Like most of Hone's works, it is undated but it was exhibited at Royal Hibernian Academy in 1883 and is generally thought to date from the early 1880s.

Hone lived near Malahide and knew this stretch of beach very well. In the lower left foreground, a young boy and girl gather seaweed. In the distance on the right, a group of oyster-catchers is perched on the rocks. The grey and brown tonalities of the land are enlivened by the touches of white, mauve and pale yellow. Hone excelled at painting the sky and in this work, the sun has set and the last of the sunlight is reflected on the clouds. A crescent moon rises in the skies contributing to the air of stillness in this painting. Hone presented this painting to Hugh Lane in 1904, when Lane was starting a collection for a Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin.

'There is greater intensity than is usual in Mr Hone's work. There is something thrilling in this twilight trembling over the deserted world... There is some magic in the vision made up of elemental light, darkness and loneliness, and we feel awed as if we knew the Spirit was hidden in His works." (AE) George Russell, 1908 Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Illustrated Catalogue.

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