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Notes

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Jack Butler Yeats, the brother of the poet William Butler Yeats, is the foremost twentieth-century Irish painter. The title of this painting makes an enigmatic reference to the 'Barrel Man' Yeats had often seen at fairs in the west of Ireland. It cost a penny to hurl three sticks at the man, who defended himself with sticks but dropped down into the barrel for protection when hard-pressed. Yeats' title gives the painting wider connotations than a fairground side-show: the artist regarded a painting as complete if it was interpreted in many different ways by viewers.