Art: Check out art by Deborah Brown, Yeats and Paul Henry

Des O'Sullivan previews canvases by Yeats and Paul Henry at Whyte's and art by Deborah Brown at James Adam

Red Figure, 1957, by Deborah Brown at James Adam.

The two figures depicted by Yeats in The Top of the Tide (1955) seem to contemplate something out there and out of reach. The men — one suggestive of the 18th century — are made to seem partly transparent In a vibrant landscape of blues and yellows.

The context of the painting, made by Yeats in his 80s, is the fragility of human existence. The artist declared it ready for exhibition in February 1956 and died a year later, in March 1957. In a catalogue note, Dr Roisin Kennedy quotes Beckett on Yeats: "One does not realise how still his pictures are till one looks at others, almost petrified, a sudden suspension of the performance, of the convention of sympathy and antipathy, meeting and parting, joy and sorrow."