14 by 18in. (35.6 by 45.7cm)

Title: JUSTICE, 1946
Note: A woman dusts the judge's bench in an empty court room. Light floods in from the large window to the left. The cold grey blue tones of the walls contrast with the warm impasto of orange red that dominate the foreground of the painting. In the former parts of the canvas are left untouched, while the latter are formed out of thick, highly textured pigment. This suggests the reflected sunlight on the grand furnishings of the room. An imposing red canopy surrounds the judge's chair, symbolising the authority of the court. Two tall lamps furnish the bench, making the setting appear highly theatrical, even funereal. In front, the barristers' bench with metal railings can be deciphered.The courtroom in Justice is much grander than that represented in Yeats's pen, ink and watercolour painting, The Poteen Makers (1912, NGI), which shows a more modest rural courthouse. (1) In this early work two plaintiffs stand in front of an enormous official desk presided over by two impassive magistrates. Surrounded by onlookers and guarded by policemen, the court with its official notices, ink stands and sheaves of paper, appears officious and comical.Yeats's fascination with court houses came from his awareness of their central, if controversial, position in Irish life. Yeats's favourite dramatist, Dion Boucicault and the novels of Somerville and Ross often used the troubled relationship between the Irish citizen and the colonial formality of the court to dramatic and comic effect. In 1899 Yeats sketched a man sitting in front of the incongruous classical façade of the halls of justice in Ennis, contrasting the ordinary citizen with the might and pomp of the law. In 1901 he sketched Galway's court house paying close attention to the prominent coat of arms on its pediment. His interest in the affairs of the courtroom must also have been sparked by his father's memories of his time as a barrister in Dublin. John Butler Yeats was more absorbed in sketching the various protagonists than in legal discussion and he abandoned the bar to become a professional artist. Jack also sketched court proceedings showing bewigged barristers posturing in court. (2)As in many of Yeats's late paintings, the forms in Justice are difficult to distinguish precisely. Their elusiveness asserts the idea that this is first and foremost a painting, a two- dimensional artificially produced entity that attempts to reconstruct three-dimensional space from memory and from sensory perception. Secondly its ambiguity subtly challenges the apparent logic of the courtroom and its dealings. The woman who is leaning over the desk is the only figure in the space. Her central role in the painting is emphasised by the intense daylight which illuminates her form. She extends her arm towards a large pink and blue cloth, as if laying evidence before the absent judge. Normally when the court is in sitting, no one would be permitted to approach the bench and the figure's intimate engagement with it is typical of Yeats's subversive take on such elitist formalities. He used a similar device in another painting of 1946, On the Court House Steps, which shows a vagrant reposing on the steps of Naas court house. (3)Dr. Róisín Kennedy1. Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats in the National Gallery of Ireland, (NGI, 1986), pp.26-27.2. Sketchbook 216 illustrated in Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, 1992, II, p. 722.3. Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, 1992, II, p.672.
Frame dimensions: 22.5 by 26.5in. (57.2 by 67.3cm)

Light cracking visible in the white painted aread upper left. This area appears stable and there are no signs of cracking. Otherwise excellent condition.

oil on canvas

signed lower right; titled on stretcher on reverse