All posts by joboyd

Educator, trainer, writer, learner. Just beginning PhD with St. Andrews and Lincoln Universities. Current title is 'Power in Place: What do paintings of Scotland’s seas and coasts, from Victorian to Modern times, reveal about Scottishness?' Recently advised on Science curriculum development in N. Nigeria (2015-19). From 2012-15, supported the Ministries of Somaliland and Puntland to clearly define and update the curriculum in formal and non-formal educational sectors.
20th-century

Place, belonging, identity (& Joan Eardley)

Imagine, if you will, what kind of day Joan Eardley had as she stood on the foreshore painting this picture of the sea-foam at Catterline, a coastal village on the North Sea in Scotland.

Eardley, Joan Kathleen Harding; Flood Tide; East Dunbartonshire Council.

An artist’s sensory experiences (of the sound of the water, the touch of the wind, the smell of seaweed and brine, the grind of sand on the skin) must surely, like everyone else’s sensory experiences, be incorporated into what they feel and do, into their way of being in the world. The resultant painting then comes full circle, because it in turn influences everyone who looks at the picture. Each viewer thinks about this portrait of the sea, incorporates something of what the artist has left there and carries around a new perspective, even when they themselves go to the sea in the future.

It is no surprise that many visit Catterline to ‘see’ what Eardley saw, to compare the painted place with the ‘real’ place. This small thought experiment begs the question: how do people experience the Scottish sea and what has it added to their sense of self?

Eardley at Catterline.  Photograph by Audrey Walker, 1950s

 

 

20th-century, 20th-century, Place and Space

Lilian Strang Neilson, 1938–1998.

Lil Neilson was from Fife and trained at Dundee Art School. She lived for a period in Catterline, spending much time with her friend and mentor Joan Eardley.

Rough Seas, Todhead Lighthouse; Maggie’s Dundee.

The subject of this painting, Todhead Lighthouse, is a specific place south of Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire. The lighthouse was designed by David Stephenson. The brushwork is a swirling churning movement in blue, a contrast to her later works which with an extended lighter palette require the viewer to do more thinking.

This one, for example, has the intriguing title of ‘Woman Unknown to Herself‘. It seems to echo the sea but what else is hidden in there?

Woman Unknown to Herself; Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums;
19th-century, 19th-century, Art-historical analysis of painting

Joseph Henderson, 1832-1908

Henderson was a close friend, and eventually father-in-law, of artist William McTaggart. He painted many seascapes, depicting the Scottish seas in different conditions and with particular attention in later work to the atmosphere and lighting of specific places.

This sequence of images (from 1stdibs website) show how he  used many pigments and complex brushwork to craft a moving breaking wave.

post 2000

California waves

This painting is by an artist who is based in Southern California on the San Diego coast. Though her comments (below) could be spoken by an artist on the Fife coast, would Scotland’s seas ever be depicted in a painting like “Incoming Tides”?

Sherry Krulle-Beaton: “I have always lived within a relatively short distance from the sea. What captivates me as an artist is the sea presents me with all the examples and principles of design. At the same time doing so with a mood changing spectrum such as crashing of thunderous waves to the soft roll of sand pebbles rushing back toward the sea. Living in a coastal community has made me more aware of how the ebb and flow, motion and moods of the ocean can influence my art.”

From Sparks Gallery

Light thoughts

Northern coasts and seas

What’s up North?

This is a photograph of the Galloway coast, a favourite haunt of seascape artists. It’s ‘up north’ for many U.K. residents, but not for those who paint here.

Northerly places are usually assumed to be tougher to live in. They languish in colder weather and there are fewer people around. The imagined harshness and loneliness is accentuated because the North has mountains whilst other parts of Britain have hills. The Northern seas are part of the stereotypical Scottish landscape of the mind, which has in turn been portrayed as bleak and/or mystical, empty and/or abandoned, romantic or post-industrial wasteland. Any artist might build the clichéd elements into their world view. However, those who have lived in Scotland for an appreciable length of time might also have incorporated the actuality, what they could sense of the environment and absorb from the country’s culture.

 

21st-century, Complex thoughts

Scottishness?

This is a poem by Don Paterson that was commissioned in 2005 to mark the publication of Scotland’s Cultural Commission.

We, the Scottish people, undertake
To find within our culture a true measure
Of the mind’s vitality and spirit’s health;
To see that what is best in us is treasured,
And what is treasured, held as common wealth;
To guarantee all Scots folk, of whatever
Age or origin, estate or creed,
The means and the occasion to discover
Their unique gift, and let it flower and seed;
To act as democratic overseer
Of our whole culture: wise conservator
Of its tradition, its future’s engineer,
The only engine of its living hour;
To take just pride in all our diverse tongues,
Folks and customs – and also what is yet
Most distinct in us: our infinite songs,
Our profligate invention and thrawn debate;
To honour our best artists, and respect
Not just the plain cost of their undertaking
But the worth of what they make, and every act
Of service and midwifery to that making;
And to discover, through our artistry
And fine appreciation of our art,
What we are not – so know ourselves to be
The world, both in microcosm and part,
And recognise in this our charge of care
To friend and stranger, bird and beast and tree,
To the planetary and local space we share.
We will do this wakefully, and imaginatively.

Janette Kerr

What, if anything, is distinctively Scottish about art from Scotland?

Is there a ‘unique‘ gift or are we ‘the world, both in microcosm and in part‘.

‘What is yet most distinct in us’?

20th-century, 20th-century

The Fisher Lass, c1914

John McGhie. The Fisher Lass. c1914. Oil on canvas. 100 x 121.5 cm.

The Fisher Lass portrays a sublime, stormy sea in the background, a socially realistic young woman with a basket of slippery fish in the foreground. She is placed parallel to the waves, dark head receding into pale surrounding highlights, crowned by wheeling gulls. Her contour is fatigued and buffeted by the wind, as are the gulls and the flapping fabrics. The light and shadow, sombre colours and the fine even brushwork create a realistic portrait of a solid person at work in a specific, albeit romanticised, environment. The viewer feels that this person is real and may even peer at her face. Indeed, this was Jessie Hughes of Pittenweem, born in 1892 and hence around 22 years of age when she was painted. She lived in the house nearest the sea. John McGhie (1857 – 1952), the artist, trained in Scotland, England, France and Italy, and eventually settled in Fife. He favoured the ‘plein aire’ approach to capturing landscapes and people at work. 

The Scottish Fisheries museum is located next to the harbour in Anstruther, Fife. It holds a varied collection of paintings of Scotland’s seas and many are on permanent display.

The website http://www.scotfishmuseum.org describes the museum’s aim as follows:

‘Situated in a wonderful collection of historic buildings on the harbour of a small and beautiful fishing port, we are a charitable trust which has become a national institution with an international reputation.

Reaper & Museum

Our principal aim, in all of our efforts with regard to the displays in our extensive museum and our many educational and research activities, is to excite informed interest in the development of the Scottish commercial fishing industry among people of all ages in and beyond Scotland. The core story that we have to tell is the history of how, through a constant process of innovation, the Scottish fisheries became such an important part of the lives of so many Scots.’

 

Art-historical analysis of painting, Asks for response, Light thoughts

Dreamboats. Get away from it all!

A little research experiment to while away those virus hours. You can send your thoughts to me via messenger, email, in the comments below or even on a sanitised postcard.

Imagine yourself standing in each of the five different landscape paintings in turn and write a few sentences to describe what you experience whilst you are there.

1.

 

2.

 

3.

 

4.

 

5.

19th-century, 20th-century, 21st-century, Museums and galleries

Paintings of the Scottish seas in the Scottish Maritime Museum

The Scottish Maritime museum is located in Irvine, Ayrshire. It holds a varied collection of paintings of Scotland’s seas though few are on permanent display.

The website https://www.scottishmaritimemuseum.org/ describes the museum as follows:

‘Based in the West of Scotland, with sites in Irvine and Dumbarton, the Scottish Maritime Museum holds an important nationally recognised collection, encompassing a variety of historic vessels, artefacts, fascinating personal items and the largest collection of shipbuilding tools and machinery in the country. The buildings and sites which the Scottish Maritime Museum occupies are themselves part of the heritage collection.

The Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine is housed within the vast, glass-roofed Victorian Linthouse. This A listed ‘cathedral of engineering’ was formerly the Engine Shop of Alexander Stephen and Sons shipyard in Govan before being salvaged and relocated to Irvine in 1991.

The Scottish Maritime Museum in Dumbarton is located on the site of the former, influential and innovative William Denny Shipyard and features the world’s first commercial ship testing facility, the Denny Ship Model Experiment Tank.’

 

Ideas, Light thoughts, Place and Space

Up North


Scotland lies between the 55th and 60th parallel north, the same latitude as Kamchatka, St. Petersburg, Alaska and Quebec. It has over 18 hours of daylight in June, less than 6 in December. In his book,The Idea of North, Peter Davidson introduced the idea of something he called ‘true north’ that everyone carries within them (and personal, different from geographic magnetic north). You can never arrive there; its always ‘up’ from where you are. The imagined North is usually assumed to be tougher to live in. It languishes in colder weather and there are fewer people around. Its harshness and loneliness is accentuated because the North has mountains whilst other parts of Britain have hills.

The Northern seas are part of the stereotypical Scottish landscape of the mind, which has in turn been portrayed as bleak and/or mystical, empty and/or abandoned, romantic or post-industrial wasteland. Any artist might incorporate the stereotypical elements into their world view. However, those who have resided in Scotland for an appreciable length of time might also be expected to have incorporated the actuality, what they could sense of the environment and absorb from the country’s culture.

John Schuler, 1957, The Wave.