The Shifting Vistas: 250 Years of Scottish Landscape exhibition at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre, running from June 24 2023 to June 2 2024, exposes nature’s raw beauty through the depictions of Scotland’s landscapes. Landscapes have long been a source of inspiration for artists across centuries and crafts, and Scotland provides the best of untouched scenery. Beauty as nature intended. Scotland’s landscape has familiarities with the rest of the world; what commercialisation has ruined elsewhere can be found in its rivers, lochs, farms, mountains, hills, villages, and people. This charm was well documented by artists who also gave a unique insight into the land’s economic development, one which tells a timeless story to be understood by all.
Spanning a couple centuries, the historic and contemporary artworks include paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures. Today’s artists have a new interpretation of Scotland’s landscapes, many highlighting the climate crisis in their work. They grapple with what these consequences will mean not only for the planet but for the next generation of artists. The Shifting Vistas: 250 Years of Scottish Landscape exhibition features dozens of pieces of work from artists across the globe, many who found solace in Scotland’s landscapes. Artists highlighted below include: Jon Schueler, James Cadenhead, Samuel John Peploe, Charles Oppenheimer, Sir James Lawton Wingate and Alexander Nasmyth.
Jon Schueler (1916-1992)
One of the most striking pieces in the exhibit is a pair of canvases by American artist Jon Schueler. The dreamy, liminal landscape depicted by Schuler touches on the delicate and airy fusion of light, island and sea. Lines and shadows, colour and space all suggest the bodies of sky, land and water. Schueler grew up in Milwaukee, and served as a navigator with the United States Army Air Corps during the Second World War; it’s no surprise that his art showed an appreciation of the vast skies.
Like many of the artists in the exhibit, Schueler visited Scotland during his career, and couldn’t resist but to create art. It’s said he was enamored by Scotland’s turbulent weather and ever-changing skies. Though the pieces have a monotone color palette, the bold strokes tell an emotional tale. As he said in an interview in 1971, “The sky gave me the freedom to respond. It changes, shifts, moves, there is no form it cannot become: there is no change that cannot take place. Each moment is its own. It mirrors life’s infinite change, infinite variety, infinite possibility.”
James Cadenhead (1858-1927)
James Cadnehead was one of few Scottish artists who experimented with printmaking, the process of creating art by printing. For those unfamiliar with this technique, Katsushika Hokusai’s The Underwave off Kanagawa was made with this same method. Though unrelated, Candehead had a great interest in Japanese art, one which is reflected in most of his work.
A native of Aberdeenshire, the dusky woodlands were familiar to the artist. He illustrated the hills and forests, and though his work is relatively autumnal, still captures the gleam of silver birch trees, a dominating species of tree in the Highlands due to the cool climate. The tranquil eeriness translates beautifully through his work.
Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935)
Samuel John Peploe was a Scottish painter and a member of the Scottish Colorist movement. This group of four artists included Samuel John Peploe, Francis Cadell, John Duncan Fergusson, and George Leslie Hunter. After studying at the Académie Julian in Paris, he was inspired to bring the European artistic trends he learned to his homeland, Scotland. Peploe’s work is primarily known for his still life and landscapes, while focusing on the use of bold colors and strokes.
Later in his career, he focused on the Scottish landscape. He was first introduced to the island of lona in 1920 by his friend and fellow Scottish Colorist member, Francis Cadell. The island soon became his sanctuary, as he returned to the island almost every year until his death in 1935. The bright white beaches lended themselves to his style and purpose. This piece of work feels confident, and intense, but the familiar connection Peploe had with this land shines through.
Charles Oppenheimer (1875-1961)
Though not a native Scotsman, Charles Oppenheimer may have captured the beauty of Scotland better than any artist with his piece, A Late Snowfall, Galloway (1936). This image is of Kirkcudbright, a small town within Dumfries and Galloway. Many renowned artists went through the (now non-existent) Kirkcudbright Artists colony, including Hornel, MacGeorge and Mouncey. Oppenheimer would remain here for the rest of his life, on local rivers and lochs, producing his best works in, and of, Kirkcudbright.
This painting is serene, similar to other small towns in rural Scotland during winter months, where snow remains untouched. Snowy landscapes were a speciality of his, allowing Oppenheimer to demonstrate his sensitive handling of light, and Kirkcudbright’s picturesque scenes.
Ravi Agarwal (b. 1958)
Ravi Agarwal is an Indian photographer, writer and environmental campaigner. In 2017, Agarwal undertook a research residency in the Scottish Highlands supported by the John Muir Trust. Through his creative practices, he addresses the future of the natural world as we know it. This piece is part of a wider collection titled Nàdar / Prakriti, meaning ‘nature’ in Scottish Gaelic and Hindi. He explores the pressures facing nature in Scotland and his homeland of India, where landscapes represent more than nature but also inform of culture, politics and the indigenous communities inhabiting them.
This piece depicts a densely-planted former timber plantation close to Schiehallion, a mountain near Pitlochry. Plantations such as these were heavily exploited, but in the same breath – industrial-scale replanting also secured their livelihood today.
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004)
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was a Scottish abstract painter, and though she spent most of her life in Cornwall, her works were strongly influenced by the Scottish landscape. Her paintings often follow the same few principles; bold colors, geometric lines and bold intentional brushwork.
It was during several trips to the Isles of Scilly in the early 1950s that this piece was conceptualized. It is almost sculptural, despite being a painting. Not afraid to make a statement, her use of perspective and color brings this 2D rock formation off the canvas.
Sir James Lawton Wingate (1846-1924)
Sir James Lawton Wingate is best known for his traditional aesthetics, and it was by his interpretation of Scottish nature that he won respect in Scottish art, despite not hailing from a Fine Art background. It is said that Wingate was not well-to-do, and so alongside working, he began taking morning classes in the Glasgow School of Art, a leading art school in Scotland. But still, his ability to execute natural scenes with detail and accuracy, whilst still being about to incorporate his own flair is unrivaled.
The location of this painting is thought to be Beinn a Bheithir near Ballachulish, with Loch Leven in the foreground. The greens and blues, buffed with grays to recreate the crisp, bright Scottish climate, are signature for Wingate. If there is one piece of his to see in-person, it’s this.
Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840)
The exhibit curators saved the best for last, with this rich piece from Edinburgh-born artist Alexander Nasmyth. Following a two-year spell in Italy in the 1780s, he shifted focus to concentrate on landscapes. He was an expert at promoting the dreamy, romantic landscape of Scotland’s natural landscape.
This piece depicts a scene of Edinburgh’s most recognised views; Edinburgh Castle and Arthur’s Seat, with the tranquility of the Water Leith in the foreground, with two men perched along it. His ability to create harmony earned him the unofficial title of ‘the ‘founder of the landscape painting [school] of Scotland’ by David Wilkie.
In all, the Shifting Vistas: 250 Years of Scottish Landscape exhibit pays homage to the old, while also wholly reflecting the current state of the Scottish creative landscape. Each craft and artist is finding new ways to interpret new ideas–or reinvent old ones. Art is born at the observation of nature, and this exhibit lends itself as proof of that.
Written August 2023
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