Barbara Rae

The Caledonian Antisyzygy

duncan macmillan

The Caledonian antisyzygy is a term invented to describe the supposed harnessing of conflicting opposites under the common yoke of the Scottish character. It is a trope of Scottish literature defined by James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde . Perhaps it goes even deeper than that , however, and this antisyzygy is actually rooted in the Scottish landscape itself. There is hardly a piece of fertile land in Scotland where, as you look at it, you are not aware at the same time of the wild hills beyond or around it. Nor are they just a backdrop; like the antisyzygy, they are an integral but starkly contrasting aspect of the same landscape. Away from the wilder mountains where there is no cultivation, in both the Highlands and the Lowlands it is this relationship of green fields and wild hills that form s the distinctive Scottish landscape. Although very different, they belong together, for it is the shelter given by the high ground that makes possible the fertility of the fields of the low ground.

Nor need the hills be mountains. The Lammermuirs that shelter the fields of East Lothian on one side and of Berwickshire on the other rise to no more than seventeen hundred feet. You can go from fertile field to wild hill in no time at all, but because Scotland’s climate exists on a knife edge, as you climb you go from temperate low ground to near sub-Arctic high ground. There can be snow on the Lammermuirs any time between September and May but all within sight of some of the most fertile land in the country. To touch on this contrast, Sir Walter Scott called his darkest and most romantic novel The Bride of Lammermoor and through Lucia di Lammermoor , Donizetti’s operatic rendering of Scott’s story, the name of the hills has become universally familiar. In her remarkable pictures Barbara Rae has explored this land of contrasts and has found there a drama of similar mood to that explored by Scott.

Under the restrictions of the pandemic of 2020–22, Barbara Rae couldn’t travel to the Arctic as she had done in several previous years, so she made what was perhaps an instinctive choice, and turned to paint the Lammermuirs in winter. Indeed, you could

Letting the Paint Do the Talking

This is your second Lammermuir project. Why do you paint the Lammermuirs?

I discovered the Lammermuirs in 1997. I was taken by their accumulated history – they are full of collective and personal memories. I always return to areas that absorb and intrigue me, and was pleased to be able to revisit this area of Scotland. I became fascinated by this seemingly barren, wild area so close to Edinburgh. I painted there in December, January and February, often in deep snow, and outside in the freezing weather. I was attracted to the low sunshine during winter months in the hills.

In late 2019 a trip I had planned to the Antarctic was cancelled by the organising company. With no other trip abroad possible owing to Covid restrictions, visits to the Lammermuirs were easily organised. The area can be reached in an hour from Edinburgh, where I live, and I can be home again the same day.

I created studies there in the depths of winter, often after snow. Despite my eagerness to catch the best of the day out on the hills, caution is required. On one occasion a large police officer stopped me from attempting to reach the top of the moor in really bad weather. He did the right thing! I was driving a car totally unsuited to icy and snow-covered roads so exposed to the elements.

What draws you to the Lammermuirs and how do the images you make there follow on from your Arctic works?

Initially I found it quite difficult to change my palette from the cool colours of the Arctic to the earthy colours of the moors. In the Arctic there are very few traces of human presence, but there is a spirit of the place. The Lammermuirs are so much smaller, and the area is full of signs and traces of its past history and present usage. Its intimacy brings together competing commercial and leisure activities. The rapidly changing weather there is very different too, obscuring and then revealing its nature. The land has been worked and reworked and its past history layered.

If gates predominate in some of my images, that’s because there are so many. They mark out human territory – exactly the imprint I search for in areas infused with historic significance.

You don’t like to think of these works simply as landscapes. Is the human presence important to you? Certainly in your Arctic works, it seemed to be the human story that was often uppermost in your mind, even faced with wilderness.

The human presence is absorbed into the spirit of the place – that’s my inspiration. An appreciation of the history of the Lammermuirs is essential to an understanding of what we see now.

barbara rae in conversation with duncan macmillan

Different Views

maureen barrie

More than twenty years ago, on a business trip to Bath, I was fortunate enough to catch Barbara Rae’s exhibition ‘The Lammermuirs – An Lomair Mòr’ at the Adam Gallery. For me, these glorious paintings validated the importance of the Lammermuirs within the Scottish landscape. Juxtaposed with these earlier paintings, her new work from the region presents a unique insight into both artist and subject.

The Lammermuirs lie around 30 miles south-east of Edinburgh. Part of the Scottish Southern Uplands, these outstanding moorlands are undeniably challenging to access. Few roads run through them, and public transport is non-existent. Concealed by East Lothian to the north and the Scottish Borders to the south, they remain relatively undiscovered.

The name Lammermuir – An Lomair Mòr in Gaelic – is thought to have come from the Old English words lamba and mor, lambs’ moor, with the Scottish word for moorland, muir , being substituted later. Sheep have been reared there since Neolithic times and traces of sheep-farming can be seen everywhere, with the remains of abandoned pens and folds commonplace.

Unlike Barbara’s visits to the Lammermuirs, which are highly productive, my own are much more orientated toward leisure. They began back in the 1960s. My father held the opinion that living by the seaside negated the need for summer holidays, but day trips to the Lammermuirs were the exception. As boys, he and his friends used to cycle to the moors and camp overnight. He had happy memories of those times and wanted us to have a similar experience. Unfortunately, when he first suggested this, there was a fair amount of opposition, mainly concerning the lack of amenities. ‘Why can’t we go to Dunbar instead?’ My father would respond: ‘Don’t look for what’s not there – just embrace what is there.’ And of course he was right.

North Berwick, where I was brought up, is only about twenty miles from the moors, but everything in the Lammermuirs was so different to where we lived.

Shepherd's wife wearing an 'ugly' bonnet, Humbie, East Lothian, c. 1925 National Museums Scotland

Burnt Heather Hill, 2020

17 × 38 cm

Mixed media on paper, sketchbook

Moor Gate diptych 120 × 238 cm

Mixed media on paper

Night Sky – Green Gate

50 × 50 cm

Mixed media on paper

Southern Law – Winter I

28 × 28 cm

Mixed media on paper

Southern Law – Winter II 28 × 28 cm

Mixed media on paper

Dark – Penshiel Hill

29.5 × 29.5 cm

Mixed media on paper

Sheep Track

29.5 × 30 cm

Mixed media on paper

Red Sky – Lammermuir 38 × 38 cm

Monotype

Field Gate – Priestlaw

38 × 38 cm

Monotype

Index of Works

Above Garvald 53

Across the Moorland – Lammermuir 58

Black Gate – Blythe Edge 96

Blackburn Ridge I 72

Blackburn Ridge II 72

Blackburn Ridge – January 73

Blue Gate 88

Border Church 48

Burnt Heather 49

Burnt Heather Hill 26–27

Burnt Heather – Lammermuir 54

Burnt Heather – Priestlaw 36

Byrecleugh Ridge 113

Cransha ws 13, 82

Dark Gate 44

Dark Gate (2020–21) 78

Dark Gate – Lammermuir 38

Dark Gate – Lammermuir (2020 –21) 76

Dark Gate – Priestla w 41

Dark – Penshiel Hill 104

Dark Plantation 13, 89

Dark – Priestla w 69

December Hill 112

Field Gate – Priestla w 121

Green Gate – Moor Path 39

Green Gate – Priestla w 40

Green Gate – Southern La w 43

Green Moor Gate (56 × 56 cm) 13, 81

Green Moor Gate (98 × 98 cm) 90

Herd’s Hill 98

Herd’s Hill I 95

High Moor – December 32 Hill Farm 56

Hillside Patterns – Burnt Heather 59

January Af ternoon 109

January Moor 37

January – Penshiel 85

January Sunset – Lammermuir 42

Kilpallet Rig – Winter 106

Lammermuir – Burnt Heather 28

Lammermuir – December 32

Lammermuir Farm 55

Lammermuir – Januar y 54

Lammermuir – Late Sun 29

Lammermuir – Moor Pattern 50

Moor Gate 34

Moor Gate diptych 13, 64–65

Moor Gate (2020–21) 77

Moor – Januar y Sun 108

Moorland – Gifford 33

Moor – Late Januar y 108

Moor Marks 80

Moor Path 94

Night Path 75

Night Ridge 74

Night Sky – Green Gate 93

Night Sky – Lammermuir 55

Night Sky – Priestla w 122

Nor th Har t Law 70

Priestla w 43

Priestla w (182 × 182 cm) 66

Priestlaw (98 × 98 cm 68

Priestlaw Moor III 69

Pylons – Lammermuir 51

Red Gate 87

Red Sky – Green Gate 36

Red Sky – Lammermuir 120

Red Sky – Priest Law 36

Scarlaw 86

Scarlaw Rig 84

Sheep Track 105

Snowfield 110

Snow – Herd’s Hill 103

Snow – Lammermuir 30–31

Snow – Penshiel 114

Southern La w – December 100

Southern La w – Winter I 101

Southern La w – Winter II 101

Southern La w 97

South Light 92

Track to the Moor 36

Weather La w 62

Winter Af ternoon 48

Winter Field 57

Winter Fields – Lammermuir 45

Winter Gate 116

Winter Light – Lammermuir 118

Winter – Penshiel I 13, 102

Winter – Penshiel II 102

Winter Sunda y – Lammermuir 52

Yellow Gate – High Moor 35

Yellow Moon 87