Category Archives: 20th-century

20th-century, 20th-century

Painting en plein mer

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Paintings of the sea almost always show the ocean as a 2D surface. Whilst we know that there is a depth of material, of colour, of light and shadow, beneath the constantly moving water, we can neither see nor hear it. Yet there are paintings of the Scottish sea beneath the waves.

Zarh Pritchard (1866-1956), regularly bathed in the Firth of Forth from Portobello beach from the age of 10 and in his teens, he began to sketch what he had seen when swimming below the waves. Following an education in Art in Edinburgh, he learned in Tahiti how to paint below the surface. His were the first underwater paintings, proper seascapes.

His biographer, Elizabeth N. Shor writes that ‘for his underwater work Pritchard used lambskin soaked with oil and brushes thoroughly soaked in oil. Wearing a diver’s helmet, serviced by a tank from a boat on the surface, he sank to the seafloor with a coral or stone weight, selected the view that he wanted, had his canvas and materials lowered to him from the boat above, and painted for about half an hour’.

From Amazing Stories, 1948

 

He painted, fully immersed, off Tahiti and Scotland and other shores.

His paintings give us a different view of the Scottish seas, a space

Zahr Pritchard. 1910. Bream in 25 Feet of Water Off the West Coast of Scotland. Brooklyn Museum.
20th-century, Place and Space

St Kilda in space

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Space is experienced and understood by artists in different ways. There are empirical studies which support this conclusion, but it is simpler to compare two paintings of the same ‘space’, in this case the ‘empty’ seas around St. Kilda.

Walker, Frances; Passing St Kilda; Fife Council; 
Rodger, Jean; Approaching St Kilda, Outer Hebrides; NHS Tayside; 

The painted surfaces are not simply a record of the physical three-dimensional reality that will be experienced at a specific latitude and longitude on the planet’s surface.  These two artists inhabited that space and each brought back a memory of a unique experience. From his empirical observations, Golledge concluded that it is misleading to analyse human special understandings by referring to an objective ‘real’ environment.  To develop his point bluntly, the single authentic world does not exist and an analysis of paintings should instead focus on how painters react in relation to how they perceive the space around them.

20th-century, 20th-century

‘Painter of stirring genius’: call for Joan Eardley centenary show.

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For some time, I have been energised by the hegemonic role of English art within British art history scholarship. A Gramscian-style analysis suggests that Scottish, Irish and Welsh (sub)cultures are limited in form and direction by the power and blind-spots of British cultural definitions. Hence, an artist like William McTaggart or Joan Eardley is allocated a peripheral status, and their work is not seen and largely ignored by people outside Scotland.

Eardley, Joan Kathleen Harding; (1921-1963),Self-portrait; National Galleries of Scotland;

Today, 24th May 2020, the Guardian called for a UK exhibition of Joan Eardley’s work, quoting author Laura Cumming as saying that  ‘it is both a shock and a scandal to me that in all these years she (Eardley) has had no such recognition outside Scotland. This is the equivalent of ignoring a Käthe Kollwitz, a Gwen John or a Louise Bourgeois. London needs to wake up to Eardley.’

Link to guardian article.

Eardley’s work is powerful and different. Look it up and judge for yourself.

Eardley, Joan Kathleen Harding; Breaking Wave; Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow;
Eardley, Joan Kathleen Harding; Salmon Net Posts; Tate.

 

20th-century, 20th-century

Scottishness

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William Crosbie. 1944. Cessnock in Summer. Watercolour. 47.6 x 66 cm. Private owner.

Cessnock in Summer depicts an industrial landscape in the burgh of Govan. Big ships were built there, goods traded across the Atlantic. The colours are pale, bright enough but hemmed in by upright shapes and blocks of black. The human figures cluster at the bottom right, their space invaded by the sea. This is a painting with social and political meanings, related specifically to a Scottish place.

When Scotland’s society and/or politics is noticeably distinctive then it causes friction with other British people. Murray Pittock tracked this by analysing the perception of Scottishness by media in England, post-1707. His article is fascinating (link below). He concluded that negative stereotyping waxed when the Scots were noticeably different, waned when they were not. Any Scottish behaviour thought to challenge or take advantage of existing arrangements was met with an outbreak of complaint that contrasted English virtues with Scottish vices. This perhaps explains why modern British red-top newspapers and right-wing politicians are so forthright about characterising anti-Brexit Scots as parasites and subsidy junkies. At the election in December 2019, 74.9% Scots voters did not support the current UK government.

Murray Pittock (2009) To See Ourselves as Others See Us  European Journal of English Studies, 13:3, 293-304.

20th-century

Place, belonging, identity (& Joan Eardley)

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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.

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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;
20th-century, 20th-century

The Fisher Lass, c1914

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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.’