Studio: international art (47.1909)

William McTaggart, R.S.A.

WILLIAM McTAGGART,
R.S.A., PAINTER OF SEA
AND LAND. BY ALEX-
ANDER EDDINGTON.

An intense and passionate love of nature is
the dominant characteristic of the Celtic tempera-
ment. To the Anglo-Saxon certain aspects of
nature inspire dread or fear. In the old Celtic
literature there is no sense of hostility between
man and Nature in her wildest or gloomiest moods ;
the Celt gloried in the great expanses of earth and
sea and sky, was sensitive to every passing phase,
easily stirred to emotional activity and responded
alike to the influences of storm and sunshine. He
loved Nature for herself, thinking not of what she
might produce for him in the way of utility. He
delighted in the contemplation of the beautiful,
and rose to the glories of the sublime.

It is this pure innate love of nature that is the
inspiring source of the work of Mr. McTaggart.
It is found in his early pictures, but becomes more
and more evident with the passing of the years until
latterly humanity takes its place not as something
superior to but part of the nature he seeks to paint.
His career has been a consistent artistic progression
with no looking backward or divergence into
wayward paths. It has been a progression from
grave to gay, from a limited field to a wide
horizon, from the definite and the minute to the
freedom of mastery over the means of expres-
sion, until in these latter days there is no British
landscape painter who has a more complete
power of presenting Nature in her richest and
most glorious effulgence of brilliant sunlight
than is possessed by Mr. McTaggart. He
dazzles by the force of the impression he pro-
duces. Others excel him in repose, equal or
even surpass him in the mystery and witchery
of certain aspects of nature, but no Scottish
artist approaches him in placing on canvas a
full and complete orchestration of colour or in
the realisation of motion, whether it be in cloud,
in wave, in vegetation or in the figure.

Born in the parish of Campbeltown, where
his father was a farmer, Mr. McTaggart as a
boy, working entirely on his own initiative,
commenced to model from clay on the farm.
Apprenticed at the age of twelve to Dr.
Buchanan, who dispensed his own medicines,
McTaggart utilised his considerable spare time
in drawing crayon portraits, and then painted
in oil, though he had neither the benefit of
teaching nor example. Armed with an intro-
XLVII. No. 196.—Jui.y, 1909.

duction to Sir (then Mr.) Daniel Macnee, he went
to Glasgow, and after spending a short time in
portrait painting in that city he followed Mr.
Macnee’s suggestion and removed to Edinburgh,
where he entered the Trustees Academy and
became a pupil of Robert Scott Lauder. There
he worked in association with Orchardson, Pettie,
Paul Chalmers and Hugh Cameron, remaining for
seven years under Scott Lauder’s guiding influence
and also taking some lessons in anatomy. Like
others of his “ brither Scots” Mr. McTaggart made
excursions to Ireland, not for the study of landscape
but on portrait painting expeditions to provide the
wherewithal to carry on the winter studies in Edin-
burgh.

It was in the exhibitions of the Hibernian
Society in Dublin that Mr. McTaggart first showed
examples of his work, not appearing as an exhibitor
in Edinburgh until 1855 with portraits in water
colour. Three years afterwards he showed five
subject pictures, and from then onwards portraiture
gradually fell into a subsidiary position, though
never wholly disappearing from the range of his
art. In 186 r, his first landscape, The Cornfield, via.?,
exhibited. It is a noteworthy tribute to the quality
of Mr. McTaggart’s work that while still a scholar
he was in 1859 elected an associate of the Academy

PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM MCTAGGART, R.S.A.

BY HENRY W. KERR, R.S.A.