See 'The Glasgow Boys' Paintings at Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow

Queen Victoria loved Scotland.  As a result, in the late nineteenth century, romantic landscapes, society portraits and sentimental pictures of the poor dominated the Edinburgh Academy and the Glasgow Institute. 

Landseer's stunning painting of a stag, Monarch of the Glen, was typical of the works of art that glorified Scottish pride through scenes of glorious lochs, mountains and wildlife.

But times were changing.

A few modern paintings from Europe and London found space on the walls of the Institute, offering a rare view of radical developments in the art world beyond Scotland. Young painters were beginning to be  inspired by French paintings of agricultural life and work depicted with realism and a lack of moral tone.

In 1877 four of the future Glasgow Boys ( James Guthrie, Edward Arthur Walton, James Paterson and William York Macgregor) were all refused membership of the Glasgow Arts Club. Unable to study art in London, Guthrie opted for art classes at the St Mungo Art Society in Glasgow, a simple club free from artistic constraints. Here he met Walton and Joseph Crowhall.

Paterson and MacGregor had gone to school together and both studied at Glasgow School of Art. However, MacGregor left to study at the Slade in London. Here he became familiar with French realist painting through his tutor,  who was a friend of Edgar Degas.

As individuals some Glasgow Boys would travel all over the world, including Japan and Morocco, to paint. But in the late nineteenth century the hot-house atmosphere of the Parisian cutting-edge art world was the place to be!   And what a contrast it must have been to Glasgow!   Imagine being a young man in vibrant Paris, young men full of life and talent, able to work in complete freedom!

Amongst those Glasgow Boys who worked in draughty Paris studios and whose paths crossed were James Paterson, Alexander Roche, Thomas Millie Dow, William Kennedy and John Lavery.

All the Glasgow Boys were united by their enthusiasm for the French habit of painting outdoors in natural light – a method known as plein air.

Plein air painting was initiated by the Baribizon artists, a group of painters who, in 1848, worked in the village of Barbizon, near Fontainebleu in France. They were influenced by the English painter, John Constable, and their aim was to counteract Romanticism and bring a new reality to their work by painting rural life without sentimentality. (Paul Gauguin worked en plein air in Brittany whilst developing his increasingly Symbolist style.)

On their trips back to Scotland the Boys spent time in the village of Cockburnspath in Berwickshire which served the same objective –  working outside in the landscape with a new realism, freshness of colour, an interest in tonality and bold, visible brush-strokes.

Their subjects, agricultural labourers and peasants, were painted with a dignity usually reserved for society portraits and a monumentality normally associated with history painting.

Have a look at this painting, Old Willie,  by James Guthrie (below).The same status is given to this dignified elderly man as would have been given to a duke. He is the main subject of the work, his upper body dominates the canvas and he looks out at the viewer with a gaze that is frank yet vulnerable.

The Glasgow Boys found respect and acknowledgement in London, America and in Europe. Their work became less naturalist and developed a more decorative, linear and Symbolist approach. Some of their work came to be exhibited at the Royal Academy in London.

But what they ultimately desired was acceptance by their own Scottish art establishment.

As the years went by many of the Boys did become acceptable to the Scottish art establishment by compromising their art. Others drifted away from Scotland altogether to pursue their own projects or to protect their artistic integrity. Ties of friendship were inevitably broken.

Whilst never quite relinquishing all they had learned from their foreign experiences, for some of the Boys inevitably the paintings of agricultural labourers gave way to more profitable portrait paintings, often influenced by Whistler, or depictions of the lives of the rich middle classes.

Amongst the inevitable backward-looking subjects, some fine pieces of work were produced which showed middle class life in a realistic light. In particular, The Tennis Party by John Lavery (below), although not popular with the Scottish establishment, was an extraordinary example of realism applied to a modern subject.

The Glasgow Boys, were products of a mighty industrial city. They were  acknowledged as masters of naturalism in Europe and America, but were unappreciated in Britain for many years.

Now, however, they have been given their rightful place in British art history.

Despite the conservatism of their later years and their rejection of artists like Matisse, there is no denying that the dogged determinism of the Glasgow Boys paved the way for the next generation of great British painters – the Scottish Colourists.

Source:

The Glasgow Boys by Roger Billcliffe (John Murray, 1985)

Further Information:

Here is a link to the Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow where you can see the permanent collection of The Glasgow Boys.