RSA Scottish Art
Shifting Shadows
 | Artist: Robert Gemmell Hutchison |
| Title: Shifting Shadows | |
| Year: c. 1913 | |
| 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 RSA | |
| Description: Robert Gemmell Hutchison was influenced by the work of McTaggart and also by a group of contemporary Dutch painters known as The Hague School. He favoured simple domestic subjects, and painted them with an emphasis on light and atmosphere. Shifting Shadows, as its title suggests, is a painting about the transient effects of light and shade. Typically, Hutchison has selected the mundane subject of a women pegging out sheets on a washing line, to show the effects not only of sunlight but also the fresh breeze. Hutchison has clearly spent some time watching ordinary scenes like this and built up a sense of the natural beauty he could uncover by painting objects blowing around in dappled sunlight. Even the woman seems to be blown around by the wind, and the trees and bushes in the background have been painted with free brushwork to suggest a lot of movement. A restrained palette and free, vigorous brush work are central to the effect of this painting. The palette is broadly limited to blues, greens, white and black. Tonally the darkly coloured dress of the woman is the only dark area of the painting - the rest varies from mid- to high tones. The paint has been applied thickly in places, especially the grass. Not only has Hutchison created a very rich and textural surface in this area, he has also succeeded in showing a very convincing impression of sunlight filtering through the trees. There are no parallel lines in this picture, and all of the supposedly vertical poles are pitched at different angles - an effect artists use to create the impression of movement and used here to enhance the feeling of wildness and energy. This all contributes to a feeling of chaotic, exuberant liveliness. It is very difficult to imagine what the wind looks like, so artists have often come up with ways of depicting the wind through the use of objects. Can you think of other objects or substances that you could use to depict motion of the wind? | |
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