Ayr – Backs of Tenements

	Artist: Muirhead Bone
	Title: Ayr – Backs of Tenements
	Year: c. 1890 - 1900
	Medium: pencil on paper
	Dimensions:
	Suggested topic: built environment
	Source: RSA
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Description: Muirhead Bone was a talented artist across a range of disciplines. He is well known as an influential etcher (a type of printmaking) , he illustrated books on architecture, and was also one of a few official war artists commissioned by the government during the First World War.This tiny, early sketch demonstrates Bone's fascination with old buildings. It documents a part of Ayr that has changed completely and will almost certainly have been demolished. The overlapping roofs and gables and the deep shadows make this composition seem crowded and claustrophobic, which is in keeping with the feel of a poor part of a Scottish town at the turn of the 19th century. The strong, energetic pencil lines have picked out, in fine detail, the character of these ramshackle old houses. These lines are mostly verticals and sharp diagonals, but a lot of the shading is done horizontally which helps to tie the composition together. This crowded scene is also quite dark, suggesting a poor and run-down cluster of homes with narrow alleyways and cramped back courts. The darker tones suggested by the shading on the rear of some of the buildings contrasts successfully with the highlights shown by the pale colour of the paper on the side of others. The centre and left-hand side of the sketch have been more fully developed, while the right side indicates the basic outlines which Bone would have later developed.This is quite a moody and even gloomy sketch, but it shows an accurate picture of an important part of Scottish life around 1900. Compare this sketch with the painting of Vigo in Spain by James Miller. Although it seems quite similar because of the many buildings crowding together, there is a very different feel. Bone's sketch, with its wisps of coal smoke and dark birds overhead, has an oppressive feel quite unlike the light and airy feel of Miller's Vigo. Is it only the lack of colour which makes Bone's sketch seem more forbidding than Miller's?