HUGH BUCHANAN C A P I TA L C I T Y
THE
SCOTTISH
GALLERY
CONTEMPORARY ART SINCE 1842
Hugh Buchanan Capital City 29 November to 23 December 2019 16 Dundas Street·Edinburgh eh3 6hz +44 (0) 131 558 1200 mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk scottish-gallery.co.uk
[1] signet library fragment watercolour¡38 x 28 cm
T H E S C O T T I S H G A L L E RY edinburgh¡ mmxix
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FOR E WOR D gu y peploe
We present Hugh Buchanan’s Capital City, an exploration of the character of Edinburgh, viewed through the multiplicity of its capitals and columns. We particularly thank Adam Wilkinson and the artist for their written insights. The Classical tradition of the city is present in the proportion and detail of so many of Edinburgh’s great buildings, but light, or the lack of it, defines the city’s character. Buchanan’s palette, the servant of light, is timeless: he rejoices in gloomy veils of time as well as in contemporary tungsten, neon, or clear daylight. The sharp detail derived from his extraordinary watercolour technique emerges from the sub fusc, but Buchanan is not content with the traditional, ambient charms of his medium and will take a piece of emery paper to his surfaces, to reveal light again, by removing the pigment and nap of his heavy-duty paper. Thus, he creates a spotted effect which recalls Warhol or Lichtenstein, or an intense, brilliant hotspot, as if the architectural form has been dissolved in sunlight or magnesium flash. The conception of some of the paintings in series, or blocks of four – the final tonal applications of paint being something like screen prints – also recalls the work of Warhol and that of another great printmaker and biographer of Edinburgh, James Pryde. Elsewhere, patterns of dappled light float like lichens over the stone of the Royal Scottish Academy. The Petra-red, stolid, stove-pipe columns of the Caledonian Hotel speak of a dusty, industrial history and the Leith Customs House is rendered like an ancient silver-gelatin print. Old College becomes a portal of grim authority and we look up to the Corinthian detail of the columns of the Signet Library as if through tinted, limpid water, the city inundated like a vision of Atlantis. Buchanan’s references are not limited by any identity: he appeals to human history in the form of Edinburgh, as Shelley invokes Ozymandias, but makes contemporary images as enigmatic as any modernist and as cogently beautiful as a Renaissance master.
opposite: detail from Art College Painting [cat.11]
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[2] colonnade, royal scottish academy watercolour¡76 x 101.5 cm
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[3] triglyphs and metopes, royal scottish academy i watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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[4] triglyphs and metopes, royal scottish academy ii watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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[5] pink playfair, royal scottish academy watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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[6] purple playfair, royal scottish academy watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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[7] entablature, royal scottish academy watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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C A PI TA L S OF T H E M I N D ada m wilk inson
A great tr anslator, when approaching a poem or piece of prose, does not just translate each word for word with an outstanding technical competence, but goes further, bringing the reader’s focus onto the weft and weave of the piece, understanding the texture and real meaning as much as the language itself. Hugh Buchanan is an outstanding translator of the language of Classical architecture. It is a language that many have forgotten how to speak, driven to incoherence by the lack of a clear vocabulary in the Babel of contemporary architecture and townscape. Classical architecture of all ages – Ancient Greek, Roman, Palladian, Neo-Classical and, sadly rarely, modern Classical – all use the same vocabulary. At its most simple, this includes a base, a column, a capital and some form of entablature. It creates a dialogue across cities, across time and across cultures. The vestiges of this vocabulary are to be found in every modern house churned out by the mass house builders as an echo of a forgotten time – their products still include a skirting board, which acts as the base for the column of the wall. However, the capital, which in a domestic setting forms the decorative plasterwork cornice, has been lost, at best to a piece of plastic coving. This loss of the Classical language was deliberate. In the inter-war years in central Europe, and in the post-war era, Classical architecture was rejected wholesale and a New Jerusalem was built in the modern style where bombs and the wrecking ball had done their work. That rejection must, in part, have been influenced by the way in which the totalitarian regimes of the 1930s and 40s sought to align themselves with the glories of the Classical past through the use of its architectural forms, but now, over seventy years on, even the reasons for the loss of that vocabulary have been forgotten. A hundred and fifty years earlier, Classical architecture was owned by those who aspired to a better world. Its strict forms defined entire cities, nowhere more so than in Edinburgh. It spoke of the Enlightenment, of the improvement of the condition of cities for their residents, of the education of their children – and also of their humanism. The Classical system of proportion, correctly used, does not soar as a Gothic vault, but encourages low horizons and a scale that feels accessible. As well as forgetting how to
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speak this language, we have forgotten how to teach it, yet a little study goes a long way to making sense of our towns and cities. In this exhibition, Hugh reminds us of the ability of the language of Classical architecture to move us – not through oppressive displays of power, but through the movement of light. In an insta world, he creates a series of analogue filters to draw our focus to the most important parts of those poems in stone and plaster that he is translating for us. He shows us a Playfair capital bathed in light, or how layered pilasters, in becoming abstracted, can help us to consider the effect that the architect was really trying to achieve. Close-up study of both the drawings and the carved stones suggest that Playfair was especially particular about his stonework. Buildings that should seem familiar become alien through the offbalancing use of colour and texture. Some of the paintings appear to have been faxed over to the gallery, making us look harder to understand them and making us literally see them in a new light. We see the mighty Doric order, with its fluted columns and simple capital, that speaks of Edinburgh’s self-aware alignment with Athens in the early 19th century. The volute scrolls of the Ionic order, sitting atop slender columns, find their way into so many commercial buildings in the city, but also to the College of Surgeons. There, they distinguish the discipline of its members from that of the physicians on Queen Street, belying their origins as barbersurgeons. Likewise, the Ionic is used to distinguish the National Gallery from the Royal Scottish Academy to its north on The Mound. The deeply cut acanthus leaves of the Corinthian order – craftsmanship of the highest order rendered for us, the viewer, by another craftsman – are reserved for the most important buildings, such as the libraries of the institutions, temples of learning. This exhibition is an important achievement on two grounds. Firstly, a traditional medium is used with a traditional subject matter in an original way to challenge the viewer. Secondly, it reclaims and uplifts the Classical language of architecture as a language of intelligent aspiration amongst the meaningless chaos that is so often unthinkingly inflicted on our towns and cities. Let us hope that others follow. a da m w ilk inson has held the post of Director of Edinburgh World Heritage since 2008, returning to Scotland to answer the siren call of Edinburgh. He led the influential campaign group sav e Britain’s Heritage (2001–8) and works to support colleagues across the globe in the management of their complex historic cities.
opposite: detail from Signet Library Capital i [cat.23]
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[8] george street, capital i watercolour¡38 x 38 cm
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[9] george street, capital ii watercolour¡38 x 38 cm
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[ 10 ] art college painting (after monet) watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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[ 11 ] art college painting watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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[ 12 ] customs house leith watercolour¡51 x 51 cm detail shown opposite
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[ 13 ] study for ‘ionian white and gold’ watercolour·38 x 28 cm
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[ 14 ] ‘ionian white and gold’, dundas house watercolour·51 x 51 cm
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C A PI TA L C I T Y hugh buch a na n
in m y most r ecent ex hibition at the scot tish ga ll ery, in 2017, I celebrated 250 years of Edinburgh’s New Town. In retrospect, I felt that there were two areas of Edinburgh’s heritage that I could have developed further. Firstly, the extraordinary variety and quality of the city’s capitals and columns and, secondly, the texture of the stone itself. This exhibition explores both those areas. To deal with the stone first. For many years now I have had a picture in my head, but was never able to get it down on paper. It was a picture of a corner of Robert Adam’s Old College. No corner in particular – any of a number of locations would have done. The grey stone would be stained with yellow and green lichen, scuff marks from generations of students and strike marks from the matches of countless smokers. I had always wanted to create a composition that encapsulated the character of Edinburgh through these textures, old and new, combined with the stern dignity of ancient Rome. Eventually, I realised that the key to this painting was in the preparation. I had to paint the stone first and the subject later. First of all, I had to find a very large, hard-wearing paper. I settled on a heavy-duty French paper – Arches. Then, through agonising periods of experimentation – of wiping and rubbing with rags – the texture of that stone began to emerge. Last of all, I had to find compositions that comfortably sat upon the random, accidental marks that I had created. So evolved the four paintings of Old College. The viewpoints were eventually higher than scuff marks and fag ends would ever have reached, but the feeling is the same. The paintings of the Royal Scottish Academy emerged in a different, warmer, palette, the colonnade abstracted to become, with its serried grooves, something like the Bridget Rileys on show inside at the time. And, in a warmer palette still, just along Princes Street to the west, the Locharbriggs sandstone of the Caledonian Hotel became another subject. The red stone added warmth to the surprisingly complex rhythms of plinths and columns that make up the Caledonian’s façade. By painting on top of marks randomly applied with boards, I found that I could create something akin to a Hill and Adamson photograph and, doubling back in my wanderings to Lauriston Place, I found that, by sandpapering my paintings of the opposite: detail from Bucranae, Old College Quad [cat.18]
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[ 15 ] old college watercolour¡101.5 x 101.5 cm
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portico of Edinburgh College of Art, I could create something close to the work of Monet. For the Bank of Scotland on The Mound, I again used texture applied with boards – horizontal this time – to suggest a printer about to run out of ink, a faulty t v monitor, or simply the building viewed across the street through Venetian blinds. Returning for a moment to the façade of Old College and the capitals of the church of St Andrew and St George in George Street, I have used black on textured grey. This is what Edinburgh used to look like and, like many of its residents, that combination of colours has a certain gloomy charm. I have explored, as Sir James Gunn did in his group portrait of G.K. Chesterton, Maurice Baring and Hilaire Belloc (National Portrait Gallery, London), the surprisingly different qualities of the various black pigments: Jet Black, Lamp Black and Ivory Black. Jet Black is the darkest; velvety and opaque, and has to be applied last. Always at the back of my mind is Magritte’s enigmatic tonal symphony The Black Flag (National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh), but, while black and grey may be the authentic colours of Edinburgh, new technology has seen Playfair’s lobby at the Royal Scottish Academy lit with pink light and the Signet Library, the masterpiece of Playfair’s teacher William Stark, bathed in fluorescent colour. Some of my interiors reflect these developments. Rivalling the Signet Library as Edinburgh’s finest interior is William Chambers’ Dundas House in St Andrew Square. I painted the exterior at night in 2017, but the hallway is just as magnificent and would have served T.S. Eliot equally well as London’s church of St Magnus Martyr as an example of that ‘inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold’ referred to in The Waste Land. Light, how it enters a room or plays across a façade, is always at the heart of my work and, by choosing the corner of a room or a building, I aim to evoke the whole. So it was for me in the Signet Library. The soft light falling through the central cupola as it catches the dust motes, reminds me of Yeats’s Lake Isle of Innisfree, where ‘peace comes dropping slow,’ or, perhaps, of Pink Floyd’s ‘million bright ambassadors of morning’ from the song Echoes. These dust motes I again evoke by rubbing with sandpaper on the heavily textured Arches paper. But, sometimes, the light can be fierce and direct as it strikes the gilded and burnished capitals at a low angle early in the year. Bouncing light, reflected light, irradiating the undersides of acanthus scrolls as well as their tops. Sometimes, in the shaded areas, I used l ed spotlights to illuminate the subject at close quarters and, here, Stark’s exquisite mastery is revealed. With their gently splayed foliage bunched so close together that, in some areas they resemble a forest of sea anemones, these are surely Edinburgh’s most finely modelled capitals.
opposite: detail from St Andrew and St George [cat.20]
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[ 16 ] bucrana, old college quad watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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[ 17 ] bucranae, old college quad study watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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[ 18 ] bucranae, old college quad watercolour¡101.5 x 101.5 cm
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[ 19 ] study for st andrew and st george watercolour¡38 x 28 cm
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[ 20 ] st andrew and st george watercolour¡66 x 66 cm
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[ 21 ] corinthian columns, signet library watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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[ 22 ] signet library interior watercolour·101.5 x 76 cm following pages
[ 23 ] signet library i watercolour·51 x 51 cm
[ 24 ] signet library ii watercolour·51 x 51 cm
[ 25 ] signet library iii watercolour·51 x 51 cm
[ 26 ] signet library iv watercolour·51 x 51 cm
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[ 27 ] burnished gold, signet library watercolour¡76 x 101.5 cm
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[ 28 ] morning light, signet library watercolour·51 x 51 cm following pages
[ 29 ] signet library capital i watercolour·51 x 51 cm
[ 30 ] signet library capital ii watercolour·51 x 51 cm
[ 31 ] signet library capital iii watercolour·51 x 51 cm
[ 32 ] signet library capital iv watercolour·51 x 51 cm
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[ 33 ] bryce capitals, bank of scotland watercolour¡76 x 101.5 cm
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[ 34 ] bryce capitals, bank of scotland ii watercolour¡76 x 76 cm
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[ 35 ] caledonian plinth watercolour¡56 x 38 cm
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[ 36 ] parliament square watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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[ 37 ] lothian road i watercolour¡38 x 56 cm detail shown opposite
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[ 38 ] lothian road ii watercolour¡38 x 38 cm
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[ 39 ] lothian road iii watercolour¡38 x 51 cm
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[ 40 ] acanthus leaf 1 watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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[ 41 ] acanthus leaf ii watercolour¡51 x 51 cm
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[ 42 ] rutland street watercolour¡38 x 56 cm
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hugh buch anan was born in Edinburgh in 1958. The city instilled in him a love of architecture that he developed as a student of Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art. After graduating in 1981, he worked on commissions for the National Trust and, in 1987, was invited by the Prince of Wales to paint a series of interiors of Balmoral. In 1988 he was commissioned by the House of Commons to paint four interiors. Hugh Buchanan’s paintings are also in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Edinburgh City Art Centre, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Aberdeen, the Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank and the National Trust for Scotland. In 1987 he was one of Ten British Watercolourists shown at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao, Spain. In 1991 he exhibited at the Lincoln Center, New York. In 1994 he was given a retrospective by the National Trust at Petworth House. In 1998 five of his works were included in the exhibition Princes as Patrons: The Art Collections of the Princes of Wales from the Renaissance to the Present Day, shown at the National Museum and Gallery, Cardiff. In 2002 he was commissioned by the House of Lords to paint the Lying in State of the Queen Mother at the Palace of Westminster. In 2005 his paintings featured in Watercolours and Drawings from the Collection of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh and the Queen’s Gallery, London. Hugh Buchanan’s work has featured in two limited edition publications with accompanying texts by Peter Davidson: The Eloquence of Shadows (1994) and Winter Light (2010). In 2009 his exhibition of library paintings, Enlightenment, was shown at the Old Town House, University of Aberdeen. In 2013 he was invited to show a selection of library and archive paintings at the Historical Fiction Festival, Summerhall, Edinburgh, where his exhibition The Esterhazy Archive was also held. In the same year he was invited by the National Library of Scotland to paint a series of compositions of the John Murray Archive, which were exhibited at the National Library in 2015. His painting of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s passports was presented to the National Library in 2016. In the same year he was invited by Richard Demarco to paint a series of paintings of the Demarco Archive, chronicling Demarco’s collaborations with Tadeusz Kantor, Joseph Beuys, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Paul Neagu. In 2017 his exhibition at The Scottish Gallery celebrated 250 years of Edinburgh’s New Town. In 2018 his exhibition Fragments of a Classical Twilight, at the John Martin Gallery, London, examined the Beaux Arts architecture of London and Newport, Rhode Island, where, in 2019, he delivered a lecture on his work at the Redwood Library. Hugh Buchanan has served on the Government Arts and Heritage Advisory committee (1987–88), the Council of the Scottish National Trust (1991–93), Dundee Printmakers Workshop (1995–96), Dundee Contemporary Arts (1996–97) and the Scottish Arts Council (1997–2000).
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Published by The Scottish Gallery for the exhibition Hugh Buchanan: Capital City held at 16 Dundas Street from 29 November to 23 December 2019 isbn 9781 912 900 13 8 Artworks © Hugh Buchanan 2019 Text © The contributors 2019 Catalogue © The Scottish Gallery 2019 All rights reserved With thanks to James Hamilton and the staff at the Signet Library Portrait photograph by Mila Lazaro Works photographed by John McKenzie Designed and typeset in atf Garamond by Dalrymple Printed in Scotland by J.Thomson Colour Printers Cover: detail from Signet Library Capital iv [cat.29] Inside covers: detail from Corinthian Columns, Signet Library [cat.21]
THETHE
SCOTTISH SCOTTISH
GALLERY GALLERY
CONTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY ARTART SINCE SINCE 1842 1842 16 DUNDAS 16 DUNDAS STREET STREET • EDINBURGH • EDINBURGH EH3EH3 6HZ6HZ +44+44 (0) 131 (0) 131 558558 1200 1200 • mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk • mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk • scottish-gallery.co.uk • scottish-gallery.co.uk
THE
SCOTTISH
GALLERY
CONTEMPORARY ART SINCE 1842