Scottish Art Pick: James Guthrie & the Miracle of Light - Esther

Schoolmates

Nowadays we’re used to bringing the past to life, to relating people in the past to modern times in order to sympathise, empathise & understand. We try to gain access to the works & deeds of long-gone characters from history by humanising them, elevating them to more than mere names on a page & we try to bring them back. We can approach artists & their work in this way or we can simply appreciate what they’ve left behind without context. Doing the latter can be a mere exercise in examining technique & style, possibly projecting our own contexts.

Miss Helen Sowerby

Separating art from the artist has proven to be fraught with problems for many of us but an artist’s humanity is interesting & often brings us closer to the work. Artists become like jigsaw puzzles - we are rightly in an age of reckoning & self-examination - but trying to piece together James Guthrie (1859-1930) the man has been difficult. It’s as if he had two careers & later I’ll explain how, but it’s impossible for me to look at his work & not wonder at the sort of person he was: the conversations he had, the things that worried him, the things he liked.

Boy With a Straw

The Wash

His father did not approve of his ditching law to become a painter & if we consider this in a modern family context, it’s easy to imagine the tensions & difficulties James’s decision would have caused. At that time, young people were often more reliant on their parents’ financial & social support. He wound up being mostly self-taught. Whilst he lived in London, his parents arrived on their way to emigrate to New Zealand where they would join his siblings. His father died just as they planned to go however & this resulted in both James & his mother returning to Glasgow. We can picture his mother trying to re-establish everything without fulfilling her dreams of a new life. Later on, when James lived in a more rural setting, his mother joined him, proving her serious intentions as regards support of his artistic career. This makes one wonder whether she had been supportive all along…

In the Orchard

He started out painting what he wanted to paint, following his interests & influences. His lack of formal training is said to have caused James a number of problems, for instance in resolving difficult compositions, dealing with larger canvases & in making successful group portraits. He even destroyed one painting in a fit of frustrated temper when it wouldn’t pull together in the manner he’d hoped & had to be persuaded not to pack in the painting & return to law. This is understandable & given his immense talent, somewhat reassuring to the forever flawed artist.

The Bridge, Crowland

James Guthrie was greatly influenced by the French artist Jules Bastien-Lepage & his solitary figure paintings, depicted outdoors & almost silhouetted against expansive backgrounds. Many of the group of artists (including James Guthrie) lumped together using the shorthand “The Glasgow Boys” venerated Bastien-Lepage & his airy images. Here in Aberdeen there is not only a beautiful & well-regarded painting by James To Pastures New, but also one by Jules, Going to School. It’s very pleasing to think of their paintings under the same roof when considering their connection. As an aside, it also pleases me that not only did James use a stuffed goose as a picture reference for To Pastures New, he also borrowed a live one.

 To Pastures New 

Going To School (Jules Bastien-Lepage)

One of the elements I admire most in James’s painting - & there are many to admire – is his handling of light. There are nights in Scotland when the sky is light almost until midnight. It almost makes up for the intensely dark winters when all you can think about is being home, tired, warm & hopefully dry. But in summer your evening stretches out, you’re less inclined to go to bed early & you remember that you are an animal whose life is determined by your physical needs & the turning of the planet. So however much you may love the dark, you learn to love the light & sometimes crave it. & throughout the year, even throughout a day the light changes with or without bright sun & lends a special kind of life to everything it touches. For James Guthrie to capture such a thing so successfully is enthralling, uplifting.

Poppleton

Yet he & his contemporaries reacted against the sentimental depictions of Scotland in their art, despite their many rural & naturalistic themes. Their interest in French Realism led them to rebel against the “gluepot” art of their predecessors, a pejorative term used to describe a stereotypical, condescending Victorian view of Scotland. Their interest lay in tipping the balance in favour of the rural, the human & the natural world.

A Funeral Service in the Highlands

Despite James Guthrie’s use of impressionist, wide, squared-off brush strokes he was capable of creating a thrilling realism. His treatment of light in A Hind’s Daughter makes the sky feel bigger than he’s painted it. The high horizon, the natural pose & gaze come together to convince all the senses that you are present. 

A Hind’s Daughter

One of my favourite paintings by anyone is Old Willie – the Village Worthy, a staggering portrait of almost unbelievable sensitivity, accomplishment & beauty. As in the portrait of James’s brother Errol, he captures a fondness, a playfulness & an interaction.

Old Willie

Dr Errol Guthrie

Later, he turned his back on the painting he once wanted to do & embraced what he’d previously fought. As he became busier with academic posts, his work focused on the commissioned portraiture of wealthy patrons, famous military men & international heads of state. The works are of course technically brilliant & tremendous likenesses (the age of photography reveals it) & they are often impressionist masterpieces. But it’s such a switch. I find myself wondering whether his father would have preferred this career to the one he developed earlier on. Might this have been a compromise between the life of law & the life of art?

The Stonemaker

In later life, Walter Stoneman, a photographer favoured by royalty & politicians captured some fine images of James. Some of these are almost painterly themselves in terms of positioning pose & lighting. Once again, I’m tempted to imagine James in reality, perhaps discussing Walter’s ideas, shifting around in his seat & getting into what he knows perfectly well is the best light.

James Guthrie, we salute you.

Self Portrait