The Champion c. 1897

Curator: Jack Butler Yeats's "The Champion" at the Harvard Art Museums has a captivating, almost dreamlike quality. Editor: It's melancholy, isn't it? The blues and greens… It feels like a memory fading, someone running from something, or towards something, maybe the same thing. Curator: The composition certainly directs our attention to the figure in motion. The watercolor is loosely applied, lending a sense of urgency. He looks determined. Editor: Is he though? Or is he being chased? The two figures to the left seem to be watching him. I wonder what they're thinking. There's a narrative here, but it's just out of reach. Curator: It's the suggestion of a story, I think, more than a fully fleshed-out one. Yeats leaves so much open to our interpretation. Editor: Exactly. It's the incompleteness that draws me in, the unspoken anxieties and hopes projected onto this anonymous runner. This champion. Curator: Anonymity being the point, I suspect. He becomes everyman, our every fleeting ambition. Editor: Yes, and that muted palette—it’s like a sigh. A champion for a moment, then back into the shadows. Quite beautiful, really.