RSA Scottish Art

Borthwick Castle

Small web image of Borthwick CastleArtist: Robert Gibb
Title: Borthwick Castle
Year: 1831
Medium: oil on panel
Dimensions:
Suggested topic:
Source: RSA Diploma Collection
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Description: Robert Gibb specialised in painting picturesque aspects of the Scottish and English Lakeland countryside at a time when tourism was still in its infancy.In Borthwick Castle Gibb has painted a fifteenth-century tower keep high on its vantage point above the wooded Gore Water, in Midlothian. The castle itself was built as a defensive building, but now it is overgrown with trees and bushes and is neither needed nor effective any more as a fortress. In the 19th century, when city dwellers were just beginning to find the open countryside an attractive place to visit, at a time when trains were about to make longer journeys possible, a place such as this had great appeal. Castles in an unspoiled rural location symbolised an earlier age of history, chivalry and great battles. But why would all of this be attractive to city dwellers? Perhaps because life in the city was becoming stifling, polluted, stressful and unnatural?Gibb has shown the castle rising into bright sunshine from the deep shade of the river in the foreground. The curving dark cloud on the left not only adds a sense of drama to the scene, it acts as part of the composition to lead the eye back to the castle itself. The broad sky and the distant horizon give a feel of openness and airiness to an image which would appeal to tourists, whether it was accurate or not.The scene has been painted with precision, and the loving care taken by Gibb to depict it romantically adds to the pleasant, pastoral mood. The trees have florid, curly leaves and the lushness of the landscape is shown by the rich, verdant palette and the soft shapes. The final touch is the figure riding a horse in the foreground, added as much for a sense of scale as to magnify the tranquillity of the scene.