Part 5

To revive more distinctly local Scottish memories one must turn to the name of Thomas Fairbairn (1821-1885). Originally a shop-lad with a firm of dyers in Glasgow, Fairbairn had no rose-paved road to travel to attain his desires, and it is by his sketches of old houses and localities around Glasgow that he at first became known, and latterly by his literal paintings of forest scenery. Attracted by the wealth of subject at Cadzow, in Hamilton, it was there that in 1852 he met Sam Bough, who greatly influenced his further artistic outlook, as the English borderer did that of many other painters, and who twenty-three years later was lauded as being one of the most important figures in Scottish art.

Another prominent artist at the time was J. Crawford Wintour (1825-1882) who, though chiefly concerned with oil painting, showed his rarest artistic achievements in water-colour landscapes. To him and Bough the credit is due for creating a greater interest in that medium and branch of art than it had hitherto enjoyed. Nevertheless the various exhibitions gave but scanty appreciation to the water-colour painters. In their organizers’ minds the medium employed seemed to be rated higher than a work of art, despite water-colour being the one almost entirely employed by the supreme artists of China and Japan. Works in it were exhibitionally a little less than ignored, with the result that in Glasgow on December 21, 1877, ten enthusiasts held the first preliminary meeting of the now important Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water-Colours. The only member of that faithful gathering now living is the Society’s present Vice-President, A. K. Brown, R.S.A. It was not, however, until two months later that the Society was definitely formed, due to the proposition of Sir Francis Powell and seconded by William McTaggart, Powell being elected its first president and the virile Sam Bough vice-president on March 4, 1878. In November of the same year the new Society held its first exhibition in which 172 pictures were shown; and in February 1888, as the only representative art body of its kind in Scotland, it was empowered to use the prefix “Royal.” Its present membership numbers seventy-nine, of which eight are honorary, under the presidency of E. A. Walton, R.S.A. That the Society has been the means of promoting a wider public interest in water-colour painting in Scotland has been clearly evinced, and of recent years its exhibitions (now and again not entirely confined to the work of its members) have unquestionably stimulated a general interest in the art. Yet the day seems still far off when a more united appreciation will be based on a picture as a work of art, regardless of the value placed upon the medium in which it is produced.

In comparison with the old water-colourists’ slightly tinted drawings, p the chief elements most markedly notable in the modern development are the more extensively varied methods employed, aided considerably by the scientifically discovered greater range and assured permanency of pigments and materials. Technically, I think, the art of painting is closely allied to the art of acting; the actor utilizes voice and make-up according to the emotions and character he wishes to express, in the same way that the painter’s subject and thought to be fully indicated call for a process and technique affinitive with them. Within recent years it became the fashion amongst water-colour artists to strain the medium beyond its limited powers, the result being heavily framed works competing in a feeble way with oils, and subjects that would certainly have been better rendered artistically had this medium been employed.

With the exception of the work of De Wint and Cox, the greatest influence recognizable in the work of many of the Scottish water-colourists is of Dutch origin and easily traced to such masters as Anton Mauve, Josef Israëls, Bosboom and the Maris brothers; so much so in fact that with certain artists it has been difficult to discern the difference between many of their own paintings and those of the men by whom they were so obviously inspired. The method employed was as follows: after the drawing had been roughly suggested, the paper was submitted to a tubbing and scrubbing, so that the colour ate its way in until finally more direct and stronger touches were applied, desired lighter portions being wiped out while wet, or slicked up with a little body-colour. The method, though losing much that is inherently beautiful in water-colour, is nevertheless one which most aptly suggests certain phases of landscape dealing with poetic sentiment and mystery.

The one perfect artist in Scotland who most originally adopted the process was Arthur Melville (1855-1904). What good there was in it he certainly extracted; Melville, too, seldom resorted to the aid of body-colour. I have known him, if unsatisfied with any portion of his painting, to deliberately cut it out and dexterously insert a fresh piece of paper, and much trouble and experience went to bring about the apparent ease with which his work appears to have been done.

Another method extremely popular with some artists, though perhaps practised more on the Continent, was the almost entire use of body-colour on a tinted ground, a method which brings water-colour painting into a closer relation to that of oils. In other than capable hands it has a tendency to lack freshness, giving an opaque and chalky quality to the work. But when used by a few artists in this country who have fully realized its possibilities and limitations, some excellent results have been achieved, pre-eminent amongst them being those by the Newcastle artist, Joseph Crawhall, by whom his many Scottish associates were inspired to a remarkable degree. His paintings, principally of birds and animal life, in the various exhibitions were always outstanding, and to-day there is little if any work of this character being done that can surpass it.

Water-colour, however, used direct without the assistance of scrubbing, scraping and body-colour shows without question the medium at its best. As a process used in what is termed the purist’s method, there certainly is no other that can compete with it for affinitive landscapes, and what has been done even experimentally in it, by other than water-colour artists, represents, perhaps, the finest examples of genuine art they have left us. With the exception of the short-lived George Manson (1850-1876), Tom Scott, R.S.A., R. B. Nisbet, R.S.A., and Ewen Geddes, R.S.W., one might safely say that all the Scottish water-colourists are equally conversant with oils, though in recent years Nisbet has been devoting much of his time to the latter medium.

Perhaps the first artist in Scotland to realize the brilliancy of Nature in water-colour was the late William McTaggart (1835-1910); his landscapes are all veritably untricked effects of the land’s and sea’s sunlit and wind-swept moods in which his spontaneous and untrammelled method aided to a considerable extent his ability to maintain the high artistic quality of his pictures in oils.

A less vivid outlook attracts the essentially water-colour artist, R. B. Nisbet, his landscapes being almost exclusively low-toned aspects of Nature, and technically similar to the works of the previously mentioned Dutch masters. Universally his work has been vastly appreciated and probably he can claim more official honours than any other Scottish water-colour painter. Not a few of the younger men owe some of the rarer qualities in their work to his sympathetic influence.

In companionship with Nisbet, Tom Scott is probably now, with the exception of Ewen Geddes, the only entirely water-colour painter in Scotland. His _motifs_, however, being chiefly inspired by the glamour surrounding the Borderland, are more of a figured historical nature, but not the least emotional pleasure is derived from their distinctive landscape settings.

Incidentally humble crofts and lowland scenery attract the artist in Ewen Geddes, and as a painter of snow landscapes, I doubt if there is another water-colourist who as sensitively portrays the spirit of the wintry day. But to pick and choose from amongst the many artists whose work entitles them to be more than briefly mentioned, regardless of individual precedence, one may not omit W. Y. MacGregor, A.R.S.A., whose inspiring enthusiasm as father of the famed Glasgow School of Painters is historically honoured, and whose latter-day charcoal and water-colour landscapes are not the least distinctive expressions of genuine art; while amongst younger men, prominently known, are the distinguished exponent C. H. Mackie, R.S.A., R.S.W., whose work and ideas declared in various mediums are extremely invigorating, and J. Hamilton Mackenzie, R.S.W., A.R.E., who, as well as a painter in oils, pastellist and etcher, is an admirable water-colourist. To further enumerate one must include the names of such personal landscape artists as J. Whitelaw Hamilton, A.R.S.A., R.S.W., Archibald Kay, A.R.S.A., R.S.W., T.M. Hay, R.S.W., Alexander MacBride, R.I., R.S.W., Stanley Cursiter, R.S.W., James Herald, and Stewart Orr.

But to deal more minutely with the artists who are here represented, A. K. Brown (Plate XVI) must take precedence for his untiring services rendered to the promotion of the delightful art of water-colour painting in Scotland. Though born in Edinburgh in 1849, it has been in Glasgow that the greater part of his life has been lived, and with the art affairs of that city he has been most directly connected. His early years were spent there as a calico-print designer, the artistic relationship of which soon led him to the higher ideal of landscape painting, the hills and glens as seen from a moorland road or mountain burn being the themes that most intimately allured him; yet not that aspect of the rugged inhumanity of the hills, but where man has trod, and where the shepherd’s whistle may be familiarly heard. It is, too, that sensation of friendliness felt amongst the hills that pervades his works. Treated with a methodical tenderness, they never exhibitionally assert themselves, but must be seen singly to convey their full attractiveness.

In early association next to A. K. Brown would be R. W. Allan, born in Glasgow in 1852 (Plate XV). In his young days, inspired by his father who was a well-known lithographer in the city, he certainly had not the usual students’ struggles to contend with, and was soon one of the few Scottish painters in water-colour who fully realized the beauty of the unsullied quality the medium possessed, by his broad decisive handling in comparison with the prevalent minute finish indulged in. It is now, however, about thirty-five years since he left his native city for London, where he has not only become a distinguished painter in oils, but also a prominent member of the “Old” Water-Colour Society.

Two years later than R. W. Allan, James Paterson (Plate XXI) was born in Glasgow, and is noted there as one of the first artists energetically active, with W. Y. MacGregor, in forming a bolder style of painting than had been previously fashionable, and who, with the grouping of a few other enthusiasts later, became known to the art world as the Glasgow School of Painters. Their revolutionary aims and ideals influenced to a remarkable extent artists and painting in general throughout Scotland. Though equally well known as a painter of the figure and occasional portraits, it is as a landscapist that Paterson’s reputation has been most uniquely established, his present Dumfriesshire home providing him extensively with subjects in harmony with his earlier technically broad sympathies.

Not so closely connected with the Glasgow School movement as James Paterson, James Cadenhead, born in Aberdeen in 1858 (Plate XVII), became somewhat imbued with its views. Like the majority of now celebrated water-colourists, oil painting claimed his first attention. Less realistic in outlook than his brother artists, his work assumed a more conceptionally decorative tendency and displayed a flat treatment, technically similar to that which one associates with the landscape artists of Japan. It was by such individual features that attention was drawn to his work, and in 1893 he was elected a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water-Colours, and nine years later an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy, where, in both exhibitions, his work shares with that of other leading artists a distinctive admiration.

Turning to the illustration _Suffolk Pastures_, by E. A. Walton (Plate XXIV), one finds the work of an artist whose ability as a painter is unanimously respected amongst his fellows. Born in Renfrewshire in 1860, he is also one who has been historically associated with the revolutionary Glasgow School; originally a landscape artist, he is nevertheless one of the leading Scottish portrait painters. But to confine my appreciation to his landscape work, it is with a lingering doubt whether it be his examples in oils or water-colours which are the more enticing if a choice were demanded. It is probably to his work in the gentler medium I would assign the talent of the man and the artist as being most completely revealed, especially favouring those drawings executed on a grey-brown millboard, or some other similarly tinted paper, with which his skilful use of body-colour mingles and expresses his prenurtured vision of design and colour harmonies for which he is so greatly esteemed.

Five years later than E. A. Walton, D. Y. Cameron was born in Glasgow (Plate XVIII). With the exception of Muirhead Bone, there is no other Scottish artist whose pre-eminence as an etcher is as universally admitted. Within recent years his reputation as a painter has been rapidly becoming as widely acknowledged. In his early etchings, oils, and water-colours, though previous masters’ influences were easily detected, his gift of selection and fitness placed his results on a higher artistic plane than those by whom he had been evidently inspired, and to-day his work is always amongst the most dignified and refined in any exhibition. Technically he resorts to no fumbled trickery, nor does he strain any of the means he uses beyond their own inherent powers. Before his landscapes one feels the mood of time and place charmingly interpreted, such moods of Nature, when the trivialities of the day have passed, or only those remain which fittingly appeal, with their silent ponderings.

In 1869, at Dalry, Ayrshire, George Houston was born (Plate XX), and it is as a painter of that part of Scotland that his name became most in evidence before the Scottish art world in 1904 by a large-scaled canvas, _An Ayrshire Landscape_, shown at the exhibition of the Glasgow Fine Arts Institute. No little praise was bestowed upon it by artists and public alike, resulting in its being purchased for the City’s permanent collection. But memories recall other earlier and smaller works creatively quite as important. To place Houston amongst the Scottish artists is to do so individually, as his work is extremely personal, both technically and compositionally. Late winter and early spring landscapes attract him most, the time, too, when the earth is just dappled with snow, and the atmosphere and undergrowth alive in all their gentle colour-harmony. A keen lover of Nature, little escapes his observation, and it is those qualities of his mind and outlook, so carefully expressed in his oil paintings, that arrest admiring attention in his water-colours of similar themes.

By age, W. Russell Flint and D. Murray Smith belong to the group of younger Scottish painters, and otherwise, similarly, both artists have been resident in England for a considerable time. It is only within recent years that their work has appeared, as it were, anew in the Scottish exhibitions. W. Russell Flint (Plate XIX) was born in Edinburgh in 1880; originally studying in the art school there, he made his home in London in 1900, where, after a short course at Heatherley’s Academy, his name and work came rapidly into prominence. In 1913 he was awarded the silver medal for his water-colours in the Salon des Artistes Français. The following year he was elected an associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours, and a full member in 1917. As an artist both figure and landscape equally reveal his versatile ability. As an illustrator, too, he can claim no less distinctive recognition by his charming imagery expressed in that phase of his talent in the publications of the Riccardi Press. Thoroughly acquainted with the medium of water-colour, he applies it with no special mannerism other than the choice his vision dictates and the subjects of his mind most emotionally demand.

Though less varied paths tempt the outlook of D. Murray Smith (Plate XXII), his spacious conceptions of landscapes are uncommonly interesting. The admirable characteristics of largeness and freedom, which earlier prophesied a coming artist in the Scottish capital where he was born, have altered little. As an etcher of illustrative landscapes in those days he gained no meagre reputation, which he has vastly enhanced in England, where he settled some twenty-four years ago. In all his works there pervades a strong affection for flat expanses of Nature, unhampered in the composition by the human element, save for friendly wayside cottages or distant villages. It is, however, those examples where even such features are the least prominent, like his unpeopled roads, that have a most abiding charm, manifesting at times a vision and technical qualities akin to the rare landscapes by the old Dutch and early English masters, and to the French in their Corotesque and lyrical love of trees. And it is, perhaps, to the lyrical aspects of Nature that water-colour is most closely allied, and in such of her voiceless poems most expressively lives the spirit of the medium. [Illustration: PLATE XV.

“THE MAPLE IN AUTUMN.” BY ROBERT W. ALLAN, R.W.S., R.S.W.]