RSA Scottish Art
Lamlash Bay, Isle of Arran
 | Artist: Waller Hugh Paton |
| Title: Lamlash Bay, Isle of Arran | |
| Year: 1865 | |
| Medium: oil on canvas | |
| Dimensions: | |
| Suggested topic: | |
| Source: RSA Diploma Collection | |
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| Open print version of this work | |
| Description: Waller Hugh Paton, younger brother of the “fairy painter” Joseph Noel Paton, was one of the few Scots who worked in the highly finished manner of the English Pre-Raphaelites. Lamlash Bay, Isle of Arran demonstrates Paton's meticulous accuracy and attention to detail and his ability to create an astonishingly luminous sky through the use of oil paint. Arran was a popular destination for 19th-century landscape painters, as it was remote yet easily accessible by train and ferry. According to a notebook this painting was painted in a week “..... from scraps made at Lamlash the year before.” The successive lines of hills receding into the distance, and the meandering road draw the eye into the scene. The haystacks and rocks and the details of the little pool on the left all give the painting a great sense of realism. There is also a great deal of space created in this composition, adding to the tranquillity of the scene. Landscapes were not always seen as beautiful. Wild and remote places were often seen as fearful and bleak until the Romantic period of literature. Rural landscapes subsequently became more picturesque to city dwellers, and this helped to encourage a new exploration of the countryside by the middle classes. Later, working-class people would go on day trips to escape the foul air of the industrial cities and to experience the beauty of nature firsthand. The mood of this painting is very tranquil. The water is calm and the light is evocative of a warm summer evening with golden tinges catching the mountain peaks. Paton has perfectly captured the quality of light of a Scottish island in the dusk. If you had never seen a place like this before because you lived in a city, would this painting encourage you to visit? Knowing that this scene is a combination of several scraps or hurried drawings, does it still seem romantic and picturesque? | |
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