RSA Scottish Art
Coire-na-Faireamh*, in Applecross Deer Forest (*Translation "a high place where watch was kept")
 | Artist: William Beattie Brown |
| Title: Coire-na-Faireamh*, in Applecross Deer Forest (*Translation "a high place where watch was kept") | |
| Year: 1883 | |
| Medium: oil on canvas | |
| Dimensions: | |
| Suggested topic: natural environment | |
| Source: RSA Diploma Collection | |
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| Open print version of this work | |
| Description: William Beattie Brown was a prolific landscape painter who was attracted to the wild and remote parts of Scotland.This painting is an example of Brown's later work. It is a dramatic representation of one of the steepest passes in the north-west Highlands, Bealach na Ba (Pass of the Cattle). Even today, the road that crosses this spectacular landscape is a difficult one, and is in fact the highest road in the UK. In the 19th century, a journey into these unforgiving hills could be a fatal mistake. Shepherds and cattle-drovers were amongst the few people who would ever experience such a landscape firsthand. Wild landscapes such as this were not always seen as picturesque or dramatic, and it was not unusual for city-dwellers to regard this kind of place as ugly or terrifying.It is painted remarkably freely (for its date) in dark, heavy colours and distinctive tones. The softness of the fading light in the sky and reflected on the surface of the loch contrasts strongly with the rugged, looming mountains, roughly executed in cold, dark greys. It evokes very forcefully the idea of a remote and desolate wilderness. A single deer is positioned in the empty landscape, both to give a focal point to the composition and to emphasise the absence of human beings in this place. The mood of this painting is very emotive. The lower half shows a calm, almost pastoral landscape, while the upper half by contrast seems angry and barren. Even the solitary deer seems to view the mountains with a fearful eye. Are landscape paintings such as this still relevant now that humans can create technology to survive in such a terrain? Or are they more relevant than ever when the environment of our world is changing so unpredictably? | |