The young man has caught a silver trout with a hazel wand and berry, but as he goes to blow the fire aflame the trout has turned into a girl who calls him by name and runs away in the brightening morning light. His lifelong quest as a wanderer (upper left) is to hear her call his name again, and kiss her lips.

W B Yeats’ poem The Song of Wandering Aengus is the theme upon which the painting is based, and addresses an unrequited love that lasts till old age. The setting, although largely imaginary, is loosely based on 4th-millennium BC neolithic monuments and astronomical structures near Dublin .

Available for purchase from the studio (see works available)