Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1909 (Heft 28))

D. O. HILL, R. S. A.

THERE are two spots in Edinburgh closely associated with
David Octavius Hill. In an earlier number of Camera Work—
1905—Mr. Craig Annan gave an interesting, detailed account
of that artist’s methods of Photography; it was with the desire
to write a few notes on him as painter as well as ‘father of
pictorial photography’ that early this summer I made a pilgrim-
age to ‘Auld Reeky’ to refresh my memory concerning the husband of my old
friend, the sculptress, Amelia Hill. One spot is the garden-girt Newington
Lodge built for D. O. Hill in the last years of his life, by his wife, out of the
proceeds of her own art. On some room-walls there still hang one or two oil
paintings of shore and sea, or stretches of strath with distant hills, soft in
color, delicate in feeling, and warm with sunset glow; on other walls are
sheets of portrait photographs framed and hung without much regard for
effect. The other spot I visited is the studio on Carlton Hill, where so
many of those portraits were taken, and where “The Disruption of the
Church of Scotland” was painted. In the estimation of himself and of
his friends, D. O. Hill was a painter by intention, a photographer by
accident. The unexpected happened. His reputation no longer rests on
his work as a painter, for in that capacity he is practically unknown to the
young generation of picture lovers. His one important portrait composition
which at the end of twenty years of labor was ranked as “ a great and enduring
work of art” is now chiefly known as the incentive towards the production of
the remarkable series of portrait photographs which entitle him to the name of
fatherof modern pictorial photography. Indeed it is difficult now to see any of his
landscape paintings, they are for the most part in private collections in Scot-
land. The most important are a series of sixty paintings of Scottish scenery
which were reproduced by the best line engravers of the day as illustrations
to “The Land of Burns,” with letter press by ‘Christopher North’ and Robert
Chambers; but, unfortunately, more than half of the originals were destroyed
by fire. D. O. Hill was an enthusiastic member of the Royal Scottish Acad-
emy from its foundation, and in the capacity of Secretary piloted it through
many of its early difficulties before it became an established national institu-
tion. Though he rarely omitted to send a picture to the yearly exhibitions, this
secretarial work of thirty years duration seriously interfered with his career as
an artist.
In his life of Turner, P. G. Hamerton thus describes the quality of D. O.
Hill’s paintings: “they are poetic in feeling .... their artist has many
of the qualities of a landscape painter, such as a love of luxuriance in vegeta-
tion, a fine sense of distance, an enjoyment of light, and a proud affection for
Lowland Scottish scenery, which made his heart sensitive to its rich beauty. ”
In oils his handling was smooth and soft, and he had a partiality for shore-
scapes painted in greys under sunset skies. His water-colors were clear and
fresh, the color washed on in strong tints and finished with a certain amount

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