Alcool de Serpent sur Table

Artist Micheal Farrell (1940 - 2000)

Date1981

MediumAcrylic on canvas

Dimensions125 x 259 cm

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Purchased, 1981. © The Estate of Micheal Farrell.

Object number1466

DescriptionAlcool de Serpent sur Table 1991

Acrylic on canvas, 125 x 259 cm
Purchased 1981

Michael Farrell established a reputation both at home and internationally for his hard edged abstract style of painting. However, feeling the need for a more personal and human art he later reverted to figurative imagery. 'Alcool de Serpent sur Table' , although painted over a decade after his break from abstraction, in many ways forms a link between the two styles. The vast monochromatic grey background, stretching the entire width of the canvas is in keeping with the modernist emphasis on the flatness of the canvas. However, the beautifully painted curves of the Parisian bar table and the corked bottle containing a snake, provide an illusion of depth which contradicts this insistence on the two-dimensionality of the medium. The snake in the bottle may be a reference to a form of alcohol distilled in parts of France with the help of a pickled snake, or it may be a pun on the idea of 'the demon drink'.

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