i am pleased to find myself in the tranquility of the Queen's Gallery. I try to work out why I have to pay to get in when she has so much and I may be paying her wages with my taxes. I suppose the place functions like an independent business, and despite myself, I love it.
It's opulent and not crowded. I look at the exhibition Scottish Artists 1750-1900: From Caledonia to the Continent.
This is the first ever exhibition devoted to Scottish art in the Royal Collection and brings together paintings, drawings and miniatures collected by monarchs from George III to Queen Victoria.
It includes the work of painters who were born in Scotland and travelled abroad, such as Sir David Wilkie, and of those whose inspiration remained firmly rooted in their native land, such as Alexander Nasmyth.
In particular, the exhibition highlights the importance and influence of artists whose work was shaped by the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment.
I am interested to learn about Sir David Wilkie who was one of the most successful painters of the Regency period and was greatly encouraged by the Regent. Born in Fife, trained in Edinburgh, Wilkie settled in London in 1805 and began regularly exhibiting at the Royal Academy. At this time old master genre painting was hugely popular and expensive. Wilkie consciously emulated scenes, charging similarly high prices, but the meaning of his work shifts with the tide of British culture in the later eighteenth century towards a more celebratory (some would say sentimental) treatment of ordinary people. Teniers painted ‘peasants’; Wilkie painted the ‘the salt of the earth’. Wilkie’s royal career involved succeeding Raeburn as Limner to the King in Scotland in 1823 and Lawrence as Principal Painter in Ordinary to the King in 1830; he remained in these positions until his death, although Queen Victoria disliked his work.
David Wilkie, The Penny Wedding 1818.
Wilkie chose to depict a type of marriage ceremony, common in Scotland, where the guests each paid a penny towards the expenses and anything left over went towards the couple’s new home. The subject was already known, having been treated by David Allen (1744-96) in a painting in Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick. The idea of the subject would seem to be that no richer couple could be happier, more loving, gracious and handsome, and no father of the bride could offer hospitality more generous and convivial than this, laid on by the community as a whole. Money certainly couldn’t buy a better fiddler than Niel Gow (1727-1807), clearly recognisable here; Robert Burns’s description of his ‘kind open-heartedness, mixed with unmistrusting simplicity’ would probably sum up Wilkie’s intention in the scene as a whole.
In 1825 Sir David visited France for the third time, at the start of a three-year visit which included an extended stay in Spain. His first-hand experiences are combined here with contemporary interest in the Spanish struggle for independence from Napoleon. The two-month siege of Saragossa in 1808, when the local guerrilla leader Don José de Palafox y Melci led heroic, ill-equipped citizens to victory, had been commemorated in poetry and prose, most notably by Byron in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Here Agostina Zaragoza (the 'Maid of Saragossa') steps over her dead husband and lights the fuse in the cannon.
Sir David Wilkie, The Defence of Saragossa, 1828
Agustina Raimunda María Saragossa Domènech, or Agustina of Aragón (1786 – 1857) was a heroine who defended Spain during the Spanish War of Indepence, first as a civilian and later as an officer in the army. Known as "the Spanish Joan of Arc", she has been the subject of much mythology.
In the summer of 1808, Zaragoza, was one of the last cities in northern Spain not to have fallen to Napolean's forces and was therefore, by the time of the siege, choked with vast numbers of refugees. In early June, the French began to advance on Zaragoza, which had not seen war for about 450 years and was held by a tiny provincial force.
On June 15, 1808, the French army stormed the Portillo, an ancient gateway into the city defended by a heavily outnumbered volunteer unit. Agustina, arriving on the ramparts with a basket of apples to feed the gunners, watched the nearby defenders fall to French bayonets. The Spanish troops broke ranks, having suffered heavy casualties, and abandoned their posts. With the French troops a few yards away, Agustina herself ran forward, loaded a cannon, and lit the fuse, shredding a wave of attackers at point blank range.
The sight of a lone woman bravely manning the cannons inspired the fleeing Spanish troops and other volunteers to return and assist her. After a bloody struggle, the French gave up the assault on Zaragosa and abandoned their siege for a few short weeks before returning to fight their way into the city, house-by-house. Despite the eventual defeat, Agustina's action became an inspiration to those opposing the French.
The image of Agustina as the saviour of Zaragoza has, however, also overshadowed her later actions. She became a rebel leader, helping to organise raids and attacks that harassed the French. As the strategic situation deteriorated for the French Army, her role became increasingly orthodox as supplies and training were covertly provided by the Duke of Wellington.
Agustina began to fight for the allied forces as Wellington's only female officer and ultimately rose to the rank of Captain. I am really intrigued as to how a woman could achieve all this in the nineteenth century in Spain of all places, which is renowned for it's machista culture. I am a pacifist but I admire her very much.
After the war, Agustina married a doctor and, late in life, she became a familiar sight in Zaragoza as a respectable old lady, wearing medals, who used to go for walks around the Portillo. Agustina de Aragón died at the age of 71. Until 1870 her remains lay in the Church of our Lady of Pillar until 1908 when she was moved to the Chapel of the Annunciation in the Church of Our Lady (Nuestra Señora del Portillo).
Sir Joseph Noel Paton (1821 – 1901) was a Scottish artist, illustrator and sculptor. He was also a poet and had a deep seated interest in, and knowledge of, Scottish folklore and Celtic Legends. This was an era when there was a huge revival of interest in the Celts.
He was born in Wooer's Alley, Dumfermline, to Joseph Neil Paton and Catherine MacDiarmid, designers and weavers in the town. He is the brother of the sculptor Amelia Robertson Hill and the landscape artist Waller Hugh Paton. He also had one brother, Archibald, and two sisters, Catherine and Alexia, who all died in childhood; Paton erected a monument on the grave of his parents and dead siblings in later life, the grave was probably originally unmarked. It lies on the north side of Dumfermline Abbey and is a distinctive red granite Celtic Cross amongst other smaller sandstone markers.
Paton attended Dunfermline School and then Dunfermline Art Academy, further enhancing the talents he had developed as a child. He followed the family trade by working as the design department director in a muslin factory for three years. Most of his life was spent in Scotland but he studied briefly at the Royal Academy in London in 1843. While studying in London, Paton was asked him to join the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The invitation to be was turned down by Paton. This is surprising as he used the Pre-Raphaelite style and became a painter of historical, fairy, allegorical and religious subjects.
In 1858, he married Margaret Gourlay Ferrier and the couple had eleven children (seven sons and four daughters). Their eldest son, Diarmid Noel Paton (1859–1928), became a regius professor of physiology in Glasgow during 1906 while another son, Frederick Noel Paton (1861–1914), was appointed as director of commercial intelligence to the government of India in 1905 but was also a noted illustrator.
Paton's early paintings received critical aclaim. He was made an associate of the Royal Scottish
Academy in 1847 and a fellow in 1850. In 1865, he was appointed Queen's Limner for Scotland. Two
years later he received the knighthood and in 1878 was conferred the degree LL.D. by the University
of Edinburgh.
Paton died in Edinburgh on 26 December 1901, and is buried in Dean Cemetery. His daughter,
Hamilton Lora (1868-1921), is buried 10m to his east with her husband, Robert Scott
Moncrieff (1862-1923).
Sir Joseph Noël Paton (1821-1901)
Home (The Return from the Crimea) 1859
In this painting a corporal in the Scots Fusilier Guards has arrived home in the early hours of the morning after completing a tour of service fighting in the Crimean War (March 1854 - Feburary 1856). His wife and mother put down their sewing and reading to embrace him as he collapses in a chair, exhausted and wounded. His head is bandaged and he has lost his left arm, just one of the many casualties of a ‘modern’ conflict which saw death and injury on all sides from both battle and disease. Souvenirs of war, including a Russian infantry helmet, folded letters on the table and a Crimean campaign medal, contrast with the innocent slumber of the child in the cot in the background, and with the reminders of peaceful pursuits: a fishing rod hangs from the rafters and a violin can be seen over the bed. While the mood is poignant, the underlying theme of Christianity as a source of strength and hope during times of hardship is symbolised by the open Bible, the glowing church seen through the window, and the composition itself, which in the arrangement of the three figures echoes that of a Lamentation, with Christ supported by Mary Magdalen and the Virgin Mary. The scene is dramatically lit by an unseen fire which the women have kept alight throughout the night to provide a welcome for their loved one.
Noel Paton first exhibited a painting of this subject at the Academy in 1856 (Norfolk, VA, Chrysler Museum of Art). It was widely praised for its blend of emotional realism, patriotism and topical subject matter (peace having been achieved through the Treaty of Paris two months earlier). Lady Eastlake wrote, ‘Paton’s picture of a soldier, one-armed, footsore and ragged, returned home, and the mixed emotions of wife and mother is the picture: few came away from it with dry eyes. It is a superb thing’ Queen Victoria, who evidently was shown the painting in advance, was of the same mind: ‘It is a good Exhibition this year, with many pretty pictures, the most striking amongst which being I think, Paton’s Return of the Crimean Soldier, which we already saw at the Palace’. She went on to note, ‘it is beautiful in sentiment & execution, though perhaps a little wanting in colour’, and when the royal couple commissioned this slightly smaller version, they made some suggestions for improving the colours and light. Paton agreed with the criticism and wrote that such changes ‘…would have been carried out on the present Picture had it been in my power to retain it but one day longer on my easel’
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert took a keen interest in the plight of British soldiers during the Crimean War. The Queen inspected regiments before their departure, signed the commission of every officer herself and awarded medals in person, placing particular emphasis on their quick distribution. She also offered pensions for those who, like Paton’s corporal, lost limbs in battle.
Text adapted from 'Victoria and Albert: Art & Love', London, 2010
Noel Paton first exhibited a painting of this subject at the Academy in 1856 (Norfolk, VA, Chrysler Museum of Art). It was widely praised for its blend of emotional realism, patriotism and topical subject matter (peace having been achieved through the Treaty of Paris two months earlier). Lady Eastlake wrote, ‘Paton’s picture of a soldier, one-armed, footsore and ragged, returned home, and the mixed emotions of wife and mother is the picture: few came away from it with dry eyes. It is a superb thing’ Queen Victoria, who evidently was shown the painting in advance, was of the same mind: ‘It is a good Exhibition this year, with many pretty pictures, the most striking amongst which being I think, Paton’s Return of the Crimean Soldier, which we already saw at the Palace’. She went on to note, ‘it is beautiful in sentiment & execution, though perhaps a little wanting in colour’, and when the royal couple commissioned this slightly smaller version, they made some suggestions for improving the colours and light. Paton agreed with the criticism and wrote that such changes ‘…would have been carried out on the present Picture had it been in my power to retain it but one day longer on my easel’
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert took a keen interest in the plight of British soldiers during the Crimean War. The Queen inspected regiments before their departure, signed the commission of every officer herself and awarded medals in person, placing particular emphasis on their quick distribution. She also offered pensions for those who, like Paton’s corporal, lost limbs in battle.
Text adapted from 'Victoria and Albert: Art & Love', London, 2010
David Roberts (1796 – 1864) is especially known for a prolific series of detailed lithograph prints of Egypt and the Near East that he produced from sketches he made during long tours of the region (1838–1840). These and his large oil paintings of similar subjects made him a prominent Orientalist painter. He was elected as a Royal Academician in 1841.
David Roberts was born near Edinburgh, the son of John Roberts, a shoemaker, and Christian Richie. At the age of 10, he was apprenticed for seven years to a painter and decorator named Gavin Beugo. During this time he studied art in the evenings. After his apprenticeship was complete, Roberts's first paid job came in the summer 1815, when he moved to Perth to serve as foreman for the redecoration of Scone Palace. Roberts returned in the spring of 1816 and lived with his parents while looking for work.
His next job was to paint scenery for James Bannister's circus on North College Street. This was the beginning of his career as a painter and designer of stage scenery. Bannister liked Roberts's set designs and on 10 April 1816 engaged him at a salary of 25 shillings per week to travel with the circus on a tour or England.
For the first few months of 1817, Roberts worked as the stage designer's assistant at the Pantheon Theatre, Edinburgh. However the Pantheon was a financial failure and closed in May 1817, putting Roberts out of work. He reluctantly returned to house painting, working on the mansion house of Abercairny, near Perth, designed by Gillespie Graham. Although he was working from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. he took the opportunity to sketch in the woods around the mansion in the evening. He followed this up with a stint painting imitation wood and marble at a mansion at Condie, near Bridge of Earn, in Perthshire. Roberts returned to Edinburgh in January 1818, where he took employment with John Jackson, a decorative painter. Working for Jackson, Roberts decorated Dunbar House and then the library of Craigcrook Castle.
In 1818, the Pantheon Theatre reopened in Edinburgh. Initially, a company from London with their own scene painters was in residence, but after they left, Roberts was able to get work as a scene painter. As there was no separate painting room, Roberts had to paint sets directly on the stage, which was occupied by rehearsals during the day and performances in the evening. Therefore, Roberts generally began work after the evening production had finished, working through the night. Roberts's work was noticed by the stage-manager, Mr. Monro. After the Pantheon closed, Monro moved on to the Theatre Royal Glasgow where he arranged for Roberts to be hired as a principal scene-painter.
In 1819, Roberts became the scene painter at the Theatre Royal in Edinburgh. There Roberts met the Scottish actress Margaret McLachlan, said to be the illegitimate daughter of a Highland gypsy girl and a clan chief. They married in 1820, "for pure love". Although the marriage did not last long, it produced Roberts' only daughter, Christine, who was born 1821.
Although he was making a living from scene painting, it was around this time that Roberts began to produce oil paintings seriously. In 1821 he became friends with the artist William Clarkson Stanfield, who joined him to paint scenery at the Theatre Royal, and Roberts developed his love of landscape painting. In 1821 the Fine Arts Institute of Edinburgh accepted three of Roberts's paintings – views of Melrose and Dryburgh abbeys – two of which sold. At Stanfield's suggestion, Roberts also sent three pictures to the 1822 Exhibition of Works by Living Artists, held in Edinburgh.
In 1822 the Coburg Theatre, now the Old Vic in London, offered Roberts a job as a scenic designer and stage painter. He sailed from Leith with his wife and their six-month-old Christine and settled in London. After working for a while at the Coburg Theatre, Roberts moved to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane to create dioramas and panoramas with Stanfield.
A miniature by Roberts from this time shows Margaret as a delicate woman with blonde ringlets, holding the smiling three-year-old Christine. But Roberts' family life was not as idyllic as this picture suggests: Margaret had become an alcoholic, and eventually, in 1831, Roberts sent her back to Scotland to be cared for by friends. Roberts may have burned some letters from this period in shame at his wife's drinking problem, but he was unusually frank in a letter to a friend, David Ramsay Hay. Roberts and Hay had been an apprentices together, and Hay had been seeing a mistress since his own wife had started drinking.
"If you do not know our cases are almost parallel. Yours is not as bad as mine, having some consolation. The state of my nerves is such I can scarcely write. But thank God she leaves tomorrow—I hope for ever."
In the autumn of 1824 he visited Normandy. His paintings based on this trip began to lay the foundation of his reputation; one of them, a view of Rouen Cathedral, sold for 80 guineas.
While he built his reputation as a fine artist, Roberts's stage work had also been commercially successful. During the second part of the 1820s, and in addition to English and Scottish scenes, Roberts painted views of prominent buildings in France and the Low Countries including Amiens, Caen, Dieppe, Rouen, Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent, sometimes making several paintings of the same scene with only minor variations.
In 1832 he travelled in Spain and Tangiers. He returned at the end of 1833 with a supply of sketches that he elaborated into attractive and popular paintings. The British Institution exhibited his Interior of Seville Cathedral in 1834, and he sold it for £300. He executed a fine series of Spanish illustrations for the Landscape Annual of 1836.
J M W Turner managed to persuade Roberts to abandon scene painting and devote himself to becoming a full-time artist. Roberts set sail for Egypt on 31 August 1838. His intent was to produce drawings that he could later use as the basis for the paintings and lithographs to sell to the public. Egypt was much in vogue at this time, and travellers, collectors and lovers of antiquities were keen to buy works inspired by the East or depicting the great monuments of ancient Egypt.
In 1851, and again in 1853, Roberts visited Italy, painting the Ducal Palace, Venice, the Interior of the Basilica of St Peter, Rome, Christmas Day, 1853, and Rome from the Convent of St Onofrio.
His last volume of illustrations, Italy, Classical, Historical and Picturesque, was published in 1859. He also executed, by command of Queen Victoria, a picture of the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1851. In 1839 he was elected an associate and in 1841 a full member of the Royal Academy and in 1858 he was presented with the freedom of the city of Edinburgh. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_City)
The last years of Roberts' life were occupied with a series of views of London from the Thames. He had executed six of these, and was at work upon a picture of St Paul's Cathedral as seen from Ludgate Hill, when he died suddenly. He collapsed on Berners Street on the afternoon of 25 November 1864 and died at home that evening. The symptoms, described as apoplexy, were probably those of a stroke.
David Roberts (1796-1864)
A View in Cairo 1840
Roberts’ early career as a scenery painter at the Drury Lane Theatre is evident in his topographical paintings which, although largely accurate, evoke a romanticised atmosphere, with theatrical lighting and dramatic viewpoints. Despite the success and high prices commanded by his paintings, it is for his collection of lithographs, executed by Louis Haghe and published by subscription between 1842 and 1849 under the title, ‘The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia’ that Roberts is now best known. This publication was dedicated to Queen Victoria.
Text adapted from 'Victoria and Albert: Art & Love', London, 2010
John Phillip ( 1811-1867 ) was a best known for his portrayals of Spanish life. He started painting these studies after a trip to Spain in 1851. He was nicknamed "Spanish Phillip".
Born into a poor family in Aberdeen in Scotland, Phillip's artistic talent was recognised at an early age. Lord Panmure paid for Phillip to become a student in London briefly in 1836, paying for his education at the Royal Academy.
While at the academy, Phillip became a member of The Clique, a group of aspirant artists organised by Richard Dadd. The Clique identified as followers of William Hogarth and David Wilkie. Phillip's own career was to follow that of Wilkie very closely, beginning with carefully detailed paintings depicting the lives of Scottish crofters. He moved on to much more broadly painted scenes of Spanish life influenced by Murillo and Velázquez.
Phillip's early works tended to depict pious Scots families. In 1851 he visited Spain, after he was advised to travel to southern Europe for his health. Thereafter he concentrated on Spanish subjects. The first of these, The Letter Writer, Seville, displayed the influence of Pre-Raphalelite tradition, a movement he had previously opposed, along with most other members of The Clique, despite his friendship with Millais, one of its leaders. He was so influenced by his travels that he advised other artists to do the same. Some artists, such as Edwin Long, took this advice and were similarly inspired.
In the late 1850s and 1860s Phillip's style became much broader and more painterly, in line with Millais's late work. Phillip's two most important paintings in these years were The Early Career of Murillo (1864) and La Gloria (1865). The first depicted the young Murillo drawing his art from Spanish street-life; the second portrayed a Spanish wake for a dead child. Phillip was commissioned to paint the wedding in 1858 of Victoria, Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia.
Phillip married Richard Dadd's sister. Like her brother she became insane. Phillip also died of a stroke, these were the days before we had treatments for hypertension.
John Phillip
The Dying Contrabandista 1858
At this date Spain was a fashionable source for stories of love and death, Bizet’s Carmen being a famous example. The country was a remote and exoctic location, a far cry from the mass tourism of today.v Here a wounded smuggler dies in the arms of his beloved, whilst clutching a Rosary. The young woman holds a mirror to his lips to see if he is still breathing. Two of their companions keep guard.
John Phillip
The Letter-Writer of Seville 1854
His landscapes are all of actual places, and architecture is usually an important element. Some works were painted to illustrate the effects that new buildings would have on an area, such as Inverary from the Sea, painted for the Duke of Argyll to show the setting a proposed lighhouse.
Nasmith had a great interest in engineering, and proposed several ideas that were later widely used, although he never patented any of them.
He was employed by members of the Scottish nobility in the improvement and beautification of their estates.
Nasmyth set up a drawing school and "instilled a whole generation with the importance of drawing as a tool of empirical investigation"; his pupils included David Wilkie and David Roberts, and it was probably from him that John James Ruskin (father of John Ruskin) learned to paint as a schoolboy in Edinburgh in the later 1790s.
Nasmyth died at home, 47 York Place in Edinburgh. He was buried in St Cuthbert's Churchyard, at the west end of Princes Street.
View of the High Street and Lawn Market 1824
Alexander Nasmyth
I listen to Alexander McCall Smith talk about the artist on the audio guide. He described Edinburgh at this time. Sewage was chucked from the windows of the new six storey 'sky scrapers'. There is something egalitarian about rich and poor all living in the same block, (rich at the top chucking poo); a sad contrast with British cities today.
After tea and a muffin in a rather sorry for itself coffee chain I head for my weekly talk on Buddhism. Bodishattvas today. That could be another post.
The journey home goes smoothly.
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