The Year's at the Spring 1920

Harry Clarke's ‘The Year's at the Spring’ is a graphic statement in black and white, a landscape distilled down to its most essential forms. I can imagine Clarke carefully inking each shape, letting the black pool and bleed just so, creating those stark silhouettes. Look at the sun, just peeking over the mountain – it's like a tiny explosion of light against the darkness. You get a sense of drama, like something is about to happen, or maybe something already has. The boat out at sea adds to the feeling of adventure, or maybe escape. What was Clarke thinking about when he made this? I feel there’s definitely some brooding Romanticism at play, not unlike Caspar David Friedrich's landscapes, but with a touch of Art Nouveau flourish. We’re all in conversation, artists that is, across time, riffing off one another’s ideas, pushing and pulling. The painting is never really finished, just a moment in an ongoing dialogue.