Scottish Culture - Scotland - page 936

CLASSICAL PORTRAITISTS
Perhaps the most famous Scottish painting is the portrait Reverend Robert Walker Skating
on Duddingston Loch by Sir Henry Raeburn (1756-1823), in the National Gallery of
Scotland. This image of a Presbyterian minister at play beneath Arthur's Seat, with all the
poise of a ballerina and the hint of a smile on his lips, is a symbol of Enlightenment Edin-
burgh, the triumph of reason over wild nature.
Scottish portraiture reached its peak during the Scottish Enlightenment in the second
half of the 18th century with the paintings of Raeburn and his contemporary Allan Ram-
say (1713-84). You can see many fine examples of their work in the Scottish National
Portrait Gallery. At the same time, Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840) emerged as an im-
portant landscape painter whose work had an immense influence on the Scottish art of the
19th century. One of the greatest artists of the 19th century was Sir David Wilkie
(1785-1841), whose genre paintings depicted scenes of rural Highland life.
THE SCOTTISH COLOURISTS
In the early 20th century the Scottish painters most widely acclaimed outside of the coun-
try were the group known as the Scottish Colourists - SJ Peploe (1871-1935), Francis
Cadell (1883-1937), Leslie Hunter (1877-1931) and JD Fergusson (1874-1961) - whose
striking paintings drew on French post-Impressionist and Fauvist influences. Peploe and
Cadell, active in the 1920s and 1930s, often spent the summer painting together on the
Isle of Iona, and reproductions of their beautiful landscapes and seascapes appear on
many a print and postcard. Aberdeen Art Gallery, Kirkcaldy Museum & Art Gallery and
the JD Fergusson Gallery in Perth all have good examples of their work.
THE EDINBURGH SCHOOL
In the 1930s a group of modernist landscape artists called themselves the Edinburgh
School. Chief among them were William Gillies (1898-1978), Sir William MacTaggart
(1903-81) and Anne Redpath (1895-1965). Following WWII, artists such as Alan Davie
(1920-) and Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) gained international reputations in ab-
stract expressionism and pop art. The Dean Gallery in Edinburgh has a large collection of
Paolozzi's work.
CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
Among contemporary Scottish artists the most famous - or infamous - are Peter Howson
and Jack Vettriano. Howson (1958-), best known for his grim portraits of Glasgow down-
and-outs and muscular workers, hit the headlines when he went to Bosnia as an official
war artist in 1993 and produced some disturbing and controversial works. Croatian and
Muslim, an uncompromising rape scene, sparked a debate about what was acceptable in a