RSA Scottish Art
Murroes Bridge, Angus
 | Artist: James McIntosh Patrick |
| Title: Murroes Bridge, Angus | |
| Year: c. 1975 | |
| Medium: oil on canvas | |
| Dimensions: | |
| Suggested topic: | |
| Source: RSA Diploma Collection | |
| View full screen image of this work | |
| Open print version of this work | |
| © the artist’s family | |
| Description: James McIntosh Patrick was a landscape specialist and many of his paintings reached a nationwide audience through their use as posters for regional railways in the 1950s and 1960s. This painting, Murroes Bridge, Angus, describes the route to the village of Murroes, two miles north of Broughty Ferry, to the east of Dundee. This view shows a traditional place; the walls of the bridge have been very carefully built up using small flat wedges of stone. It is a farming area, and the road winding through it cuts through fields and past old iron barns. The freshly ploughed field is attracting birds to come and look for food. The scene shows a bright but cool late autumn day. The trees are nearly bare and long shadows break up the golden sunlight. McIntosh Patrick's painting depicts the view in a highly realistic manner, with bright yet naturalistic colours. He has observed the colours of the scene carefully. For example, the stream is a bright blue, because the dark water is reflecting the bright blue of the sky just like a mirror. The brush work is careful and accurate, but Patrick has also used some looser strokes in the foreground grass and the cloudy sky. Although it appears casual, the artist has chosen his viewpoint carefully to use the lane to help lead the eye into the middle distance. The figures sitting by the bridge are small in relation to the overall setting and this helps to lend the trees an added sense of grandeur. The focal point of the canvas is the distant farmhouse, which is not only pointed to by the curving road but is framed by the trees on either side. | |
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