CAG.3161 John Butts, A Mountainous Wooded Landscape with Figures Gathering Wood, undated, oil on canvas, 94.5 x 128 cm. Purchased, 2021.
There’s a touch of autumn in this WORK OF THE WEEK!
A Mountainous Wooded Landscape with Figures Gathering Wood by John Butts presents rolling terrain framed by trees on the cusp of seasonal change.
Several figures – sometimes known as staffage – are placed across the composition and are less incidental as in other Irish landscapes of the mid-eighteenth century. Here they are at a collective task of gathering wood, suggesting a pragmatic theme of preparing for winter.
An exact contemporary of Thomas Gainsborough, Butts’ atmospheric style owes much to a European trend in landscape painting, particularly of earlier artists Salvator Rosa and Claude Lorrain. The beautifully lit composition of this painting, however, is comparable to Poachers: View in the Dargle (c.1760), another work attributed to Butts, which is in the collection of Tate Britain.
Although his students, James Barry and Nathaniel Grogan, are now better known than him, John Butts (c.1728-1764) was noted for specialising in woodland scenes, particularly in his native County Cork and along the Blackwater Valley. That being the case, his more urban View of Cork from Audley Place (c.1750) is perhaps the most celebrated of his paintings today.
During his short life, Butts worked in Cork and, subsequently, as a scene painter at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin. His need to support a large family, as well as his penchant for alcohol, is often cited as a reason for the inconsistency found in his work.
A Mountainous Wooded Landscape with Figures Gathering Wood is displayed in our Penrose Room, while View of Cork from Audley Place (c.1750) is featured in SITE OF CHANGE: Evolution of a Building until 12 November.
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