International studio (50.1913)

Patrick IP. Adam, R.S.A.

work. True, in this earlier period there were
evidences that Mr. Adam had a greater inclination
towards that breadth of brushwork and that ten-
dency to what was once called “ impressionism ” than
his colleague and friend Mr. Lorimer, which
made it easier to link him with the men of the
Glasgow School, with whom he had no fraternal
or artistic associations. But apart from this, the
suave dainty studies of conservatories, of chiffon-
decked ladies peering through windows or wrapped
in the suffused light of the sun penetrating white
curtains and blinds, of nuns at prayer—delicate
schemes in white, grey, and pink—bear little relation-
ship to the broadly handled, boldly treated interiors
for which he is now distinguished. So recent is Mr.
Adam’s new evolution, that such a modern treatise
as Mr. Caws’ “ Scottish Painting, Past and Present,”
published in 1908, has no reference to the later
phase of the painter’s genius. The year 1908,
indeed, may be noted as that in which Mr. Adam
suddenly realized his capacity for the new work.
At the age of fifty-four it sprang, Pallas Athene like,
into existence and changed his reputation from be-
ing more or less of a Scottish into a European one.

It was in this year 1908 that the constant passing
of an open door in his house at North Berwick
drew his attention to the effect produced by the
light on the dining-room table; without hesitation
he brought his canvas into the room and painted
what he saw, and the success of this first picture was
instantaneous. Since then Mr. Adam has devoted
his time entirely to the painting of interiors, and
has achieved notable successes by his presentations
of rooms in various country and town houses in
Scotland and England. From domestic surround-
ings he extended his venue to the interiors of
churches, and in St. Paul’s in London and in the
churches of Venice and Florence he has worked
with distinction and originality. Quite recently a
second visit to Florence was the means of securing
some very noticeable studies in the Royal apart-
ments of the Pitti Palace.
What strikes the intelligent observer most in these
distinguished studies is the remarkable handling of
the light distribution, Mr. Adam’s grasp of the subtle
distinctions between direct, diffused, and contrasted
lights is unerring. Nowhere is the effect of diffused
light on architecture and furniture more brilliantly

“DINNER-TABLE AT ‘ARDILEA,’ NORTH BERWICK” BY PATRICK W. ADAM, R.S.A.
170