RSA Scottish Art
A Dream of the Nor’ Loch and Edinburgh Castle
 | Artist: James Paterson |
| Title: A Dream of the Nor’ Loch and Edinburgh Castle | |
| Year: c. 1904 | |
| Medium: oil on canvas | |
| Dimensions: | |
| Suggested topic: | |
| Source: RSA Diploma Collection | |
| View full screen image of this work | |
| Open print version of this work | |
| Description: James Paterson was associated with the Glasgow Boys, but in the 1890s he settled in Edinburgh and became part of the art establishment in that city. James Paterson was a landscape specialist and during his time in Moniaive, Dumfriesshire, he painted an important series of works close to his home. His later paintings, carried out in Edinburgh, became more decorative and imaginative. This piece, A Dream of the Nor' Loch and Edinburgh Castle, represents the artist's fanciful vision of Edinburgh Castle either before the draining of the Nor' Loch (where Princes Street Gardens is now situated) or in the future with the castle in ruins and the gardens flooded again. The title defines the image as a dream, and this romantic and mysterious painting certainly has dream-like quality. It is also a very timeless image as it could indeed depict the distant past or represent an imaginary future. The composition is dominated by the Castle Rock, illuminated by low sunlight and with a distant crescent moon floating in the strangely coloured sky. The loch is fringed with dark trees and reeds. The Castle appears jagged and derelict. The rock is dominated by vertical lines and brush strokes, while the sky is rendered in sloping horizontal bands.In order to instil this image with a sense of mystery and romance, Paterson has used unusual and unnatural colour schemes. The deep khaki of the trees and grass makes them seem very lush and alive, but they almost seem to glow in the gloom. The sky is rendered in coloured bands of russet, jade green, deep cream and lilac - a very spooky and strange colouring for a sky. Have you ever dreamt of a real place and imagined it to be transformed in your dream as something completely different? If you could consciously create a dream-like place, what would it be like? | |
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