RSA Scottish Art
Gardenstown
 | Artist: William George Gillies |
| Title: Gardenstown | |
| Year: c. 1932 | |
| Medium: oil on canvas | |
| Dimensions: | |
| Suggested topic: | |
| Source: RSA | |
| View full screen image of this work | |
| Open print version of this work | |
| © the RSA | |
| Description: William George Gillies was strongly attached to Scotland and almost all his landscape paintings depict views of his native country. Gardenstown is one of them. This small fishing village on the coast of the Moray Firth was one of his favourite painting spots visited over several summers of the 1930s. His usual working method was to sketch as much information as he needed and work it up later in the studio. Gillies's early work was fairly sombre and controlled but this changed completely after he saw the work of Edvard Munch in 1931. Colour is used as a dramatic tool to express the artist's personal interaction with the landscape, and is equally conveyed through the vigorous brushwork. Intense mid-range blues dominate the painting and Gillies has successfully attempted to capture the energy and turbulence of the Scottish weather by powerfully blocking in areas of dramatic sky and reflecting these colours on the surfaces of the buildings. The same buildings, fences and shrubbery have mainly been outlined with broad, heavy simplified sweeps of his brush and become semi-abstract blocks of flattish colour. Although scale has been used to describe the relationship between the foreground and background, there is no strong intent to convey depth. Instead the artist is more interested in communicating an ever changing landscape through the moods and rhythms created by the fast-moving clouds onto the land below. Compare this painting to Florence. Do you think he has captured the character of each place successfully? Think of the methods he has used to achieve this. | |
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