In Jack Yeats’s Driftwood in a Cave, a man clad in a long coat strides out of the dark into a luminous void. Looking on from behind, the viewer is left to imagine what he sees—presumably the sea whose tides brought the driftwood strewn to either side. The stark frame created by the mouth of the cave focuses attention on the figure rather than on the landscape, inviting a reading of the scene in terms of allegory or subjective experience.

from Snay, The Donald and Marilyn Keough Collection of Irish Art (Notre Dame, 2019)