Alan Macdonald - a divine comedy

ALAN MACDONALD

A Divine Comedy

ALAN MACDONALD

A Divine Comedy

Tony Davidson

A Divine Comedy

The Enduring paintings of Alan MacDonald

by Tony Davidson

Sometimesit is obvious that a painting will survive, that it will be passed down generations and find a way into the lives of yet unknown others. Such works strike wonder and reverence with every new world they open. These paintings are the ones which will hang for centuries proudly in public places. Alan Macdonald’s latest large painting ‘Inferna’ (2.5m x 2m) does this and much more. When its older sister, ‘The Temple of Life,’ was in the gallery last year, I was inspired enough to begin a short story describing the world in the painting; where the main figure, a strong lady, rises from a sea of mud-people. It is this central character’s strength and bravery that creates the world we see, just as it is the perseverance of an artist that creates works like these. In Macdonald’s work, we are always thrown onto the psychiatrist’s couch with egos, ids, super-egos and architypes of all types in a grand performance. Here, Shakespeare meets oil and linen, and, like the main figures in his paintings, they are conjured into existence from nothing more than a blank canvas.

The Tower of Life

ALAN MACDONALD oil on linen 48cm x 48cm

‘Inferna’ (opposite) is inspired by Dante’s inferno, the first part of his epic poem ‘The Divine Comedy’ (finished the same year as the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.) It shows the nine circles of hell described by Dante: limbo (1), lust (2), gluttony (3), greed (4), wrath (5), heresy (6), violence (7), fraud (8) and treachery (9). It is a subject tackled by many artists in the seven-hundred years since Dante first wrote his poem, but Macdonald brings a completeness in his version, and it is captivating. We see an infinity of souls spiralling into limbo, while five tiers down heretics burn in their sixth-circle tombs. At the base of Macdonald’s tower (rather than the innermost concentric circle) are the treacherous, frozen from the warmth of God’s love for an eternity. Even the rather doodish Satan is frozen. This lowest level is strangely more fatalistic than even the burnings above, and that is what Dante intended. The whole story takes place around the helter-skelter of the red dress of a second or probably the first Satan. This is another circle, the world beyond the ‘infirna.’ I have just ordered a copy of ‘The Divine Comedy,’ not to read, but as a guide to this incredible painting.

Macdonald’s other new work, ‘Euphorus,’ stages another epic play; with its ceaselessly active actors telling more of the stories that make us human. Euphorus (400-

330BC) is known for his universal history which covered another seven-hundred years. This time from Heraclids up to Philip of Macedonia. It has taken Macdonald many years, and even more adventures in paint, to discover what works on canvas, and this is what makes his paintings so powerful. It is his complete absorption in what he does and his ability to spot the extra moment: the dynamic pulling of a cart, the chain to be tugged, the eye of the main figure, the theatrical composition - that makes these paintings ones that will remain with us for a very long time.

Tony Davidson Director of Kilmorack Gallery

Euphorus ALAN MACDONALD oil on linen 203cm x 178cm