The Coastal Road ©John O’Grady
7″ x 9″ x 0.75″ oil on canvas, ready to hang.
$227 (approx €202, £171) with free shipping.
The Wild Atlantic Way is a road that hugs the west coast of Ireland stretching 1400 km from Donegal in the north west to Co Cork in the south.
The term ‘Wild Atlantic Way’ sounds like a bit of marketing and it is. It’s a recent innovation that aptly describes the landscape and seascape, in all its rugged and elemental splendour.
This painting brought up memories of a visit to Achill Island in Co Mayo where Paul Henry made many of his landscapes.
Immersed in the energy and vitality of the coast, you turn a bend or reach the top of a headland and there, in front of you, a new vista opens up, stunning, in turn revealing a calm sea sprinkled with silver lights and next an angry ocean swirling and crashing against the land.
It’s a dynamic place, surprising, spectacular.
On that day, rain clouds were rising over distant headlands like mighty sculptures dwarfing the land below.
While touring the island, the weather was fine to start with and fairly quickly turned from fine rain to mist to downpour and back to a bright autumnal day.
Each change was captivating.
This painting is my recollection of a moment during that visit. I also realised I am unconsciously exploring variations on a theme: I created a similar, albeit larger, painting last July called Spirit of Water III.
In that post I mention how the painting might have been an antidote to last summer’s 40°C. At the moment, it’s in the mid 30s here so perhaps these things surface involuntarily.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the painting.
Hi John, I have only recently subscribed but it it very uplifting to get emails of your work on a Sunday night before the Monday blues get a chance to descend!!!
Your paintings are great you capture the atmosphere very well with purple/grey. The west coast of Ireland feels like there is a strong magnetic force out on the horizon that’s just draws you in. Sligo being my favourite ‘land of hearts desire’. Keep up the good work John. I’m an amateur artist but love the escape into the imagination which is boundless and full of timeless energy. Best regards. Irene Feeney
Hello Irene,
That’s great to hear that Sunday evening posting works for you. Thank you for commenting, the west coast is certainly a ‘magnet’ for me and a constant source of creativity and memories that surface. I can understand your draw to Sligo it is a very special place and a great inspiration for your own art I imagine.
Your coastal paintings always captivate me, John. This one brought to mind our friend Seamus Heaney:
Lovers on Aran
The timeless waves, bright, sifting, broken glass,
Came dazzling around, into the rocks,
Came glinting, sifting from the Americas
To possess Aran. Or did Aran rush
to throw wide arms of rock around a tide
That yielded with an ebb, with a soft crash?
Did sea define the land or land the sea?
Each drew new meaning from the waves’ collision.
Sea broke on land to full identity.
Hello Jo,
Thank you for posting this beautiful poem by Seamus, you are both always welcome! I think it’s a perfect fit.
The combination of colours creates a rather wistful atmosphere which I often get with your sea paintings John. The light is exquisite. I think it may be the sense of looking out across to the land – of leaving or perhaps of coming home. It is lovely.
Hello Chris,
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. This sense of longing you get from this painting is an interesting one I have not thought about even though there is a strong tradition of writers and painters who expressed that feeling including Paul Henry who spent time on Achill.