The Artist and the Sea
Arthur Melville Adventures in Colour
Marion Amblard
Perrine Davari
1 Arthur Melville, A Cairo Street, 1883, Watercolour on paper © Fleming Collection
1 Thomas Buttersworth, The Arrival of George IV at Leith Harbour, 1822 1 2 Thomas Buttersworth Hannah Clarke Preston MacGoun, St 2 Andrews Fisherfolk © City Art Centre, Hannah Museums MacGounand Galleries Edinburgh
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City Art Centre, Edinburgh Until 8 May 2016 ‘The Artist and the Sea’ includes approximately 40 artworks drawn exclusively from Edinburgh’s City Art Centre collection. The works on display span different time periods and mediums, from painting, engraving and etching to a sculpture by Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925– 2006), a silk screen by Robert Tavener (1920–2004) and a calotype entitled Two Newhaven Fishwives by David Octavius Hill (1802–70), a pioneer photographer in Scotland. Hill collaborated with Robert Adamson (1821–48) and together they produced many photographs of the fishing community of Newhaven, which today form a valuable record of 19th century life in a Scottish seaside village. This exhibition demonstrates that the sea has been inspiring Scottish artists for several centuries. One of the earliest works on display is Shipping at Leith Port (1824) a pencil drawing by Alexander Nasmyth (1758–1840), often called the father of Scottish landscape painting. Other 19th century pieces include paintings by Thomas Buttersworth (1768–1842) and William McTaggart 66 | ART
2 Arthur Melville, Orange Market, Saragossa, 1872 Watercolour on paper © Fleming Collection
(1835–1910), the latter sometimes called ‘the Scottish Impressionist’ for his free brushwork and his rendering of light and atmospheric effects. Buttersworth was a marine painter who had been a seaman during the Napoleonic wars. His painting The Arrival of George IV at Leith Harbour (1822) commemorates the King’s visit to Scotland, the first British monarch to visit the country since 1651, and several ceremonies were orchestrated to celebrate the event. The Preaching of St Columba (1895) is one of two oil paintings by McTaggart dealing with the beginning of the Gaelic Christian civilisation in Scotland; this picture shows St Columba preaching at Gauldrons Bay on the Kintyre peninsula where the painter grew up. In 1920 Samuel John Peploe (1871–1935) visited Iona for the first time, returning regularly thereafter, and was inspired to paint numerous views of the island, such as A Rocky Shore, Iona (c.1929). The Obsession (1966) by John Bellany (1942–2013) depicts fishermen at the gutting table and is reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. Drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh Until 17 January 2016 inspiration from his admiration of the Old Masters and from his childhood in Port Seton, a fishing village on the east coast of Scotland, Bellany painted this work at the beginning of his career. Besides famous works by some of Scotland’s leading artists, the exhibition also provides us with the opportunity to see The Comet (Smack) (1809), a painting that has only recently been attributed to William John Huggins (1781–1845) and has received conservation treatment ahead of the show. Dr Marion Amblard teaches at Université Grenoble Alpes and is a researcher in British studies. She is a member of the French Society for Scottish Studies City Art Centre, 2 Market Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1DE T: (0)131 529 3993 edinburghmuseums.org.uk/venues/ city-art-centre Open: Monday to Saturday 10am–5pm, Sunday noon–5pm
Even to those less acquainted with the particulars of Arthur Melville’s work, the first painting in the exhibition, A Cabbage Garden (1877), may appear familiar. Before being exhibited on the grand upper floors of the Scottish National Gallery, it was permanently displayed in the basement alongside other Scottish artworks in the collection. Somewhat overlooked, yet brilliant, it is a fitting symbol for the artist himself (1855–1904), who, despite being a master of watercolour, closely aligned with the Glasgow Boys, is only receiving his first retrospective now, over a century after his death. A Cabbage Garden immediately demonstrates Melville’s mastery of colour; green and red hues of the cabbage leaves swirl across the canvas in brilliant contrast. This dexterity in colour is most vivid not in his oils, however, but in his watercolours, the medium in which the artist took his most daring adventures in colour. The first two rooms of the retrospective are the most compelling; they exhibit Melville’s aptitude for watercolour through a parade of pieces
inspired by the artist’s travels through Europe and the Middle East in the 1880s. From his quicker watercolours to his more ambitious compositions, the skills he demonstrates are rarely paralleled. Two loans from the FlemingWyfold Art Foundation – Orange Market, Puerta de los Pasajes (1892) and Highland Glen (1893) – are exhibited in these rooms. The detailed orange reflections in the refracted blue water of the Orange Market create a sparkling, absorbing work. Highland Glen shows Melville’s understanding of the very nature of watercolour itself, with only the need for a minute number of brushstrokes to convey the feeling of the landscape. Perhaps this is what the artist meant when he stated that ‘accidents are the making of a picture’. He understood that the simplest stroke of his brush held the possibility of describing the entire composition, giving way completely to the character of the painting in just one movement of his hand. Moving into the third and final room of Melville’s retrospective, the viewer is met by his large-scale oil paintings.
These have a murkier palette, one distinct from the vivid colours and adventurous nature of Melville’s watercolours. The chronologically ordered exhibition closes with shades of grey, works sapped of the energetic colourfulness of earlier days, creating an unexpectedly melancholic note in a brilliant and animated exhibition. Perrine Davari is an artist and writer based in Edinburgh Scottish National Gallery, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL T: (0)131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org Open: Daily, 10am–5pm, 7pm on Thursday
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