RSA Scottish Art
Studies of Antiquities
 | Artist: James Drummond |
| Title: Studies of Antiquities | |
| Year: undated | |
| Medium: watercolor & ink on paper, with notes | |
| Dimensions: | |
| Suggested topic: still life | |
| Source: RSA | |
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| Open print version of this work | |
| Description: James Drummond was an Edinburgh artist who was particularly interested in Scottish history. His major paintings portray such important events as the Entry of Mary, Queen of Scots to Edinburgh and the Edinburgh riot remembered as The Porteous Mob (both paintings are in the National Gallery of Scotland). These paintings are full of action and colour and contain lots of carefully researched detail.Studies of Antiquities is a page from an album that contains sketches of figures in historical costume, drawings of historic buildings and ideas for compositions. During the mid-19th century there was a surge of interest in artefacts of the past as illustrated on this page: “Chalice” (ecclesiastical drinking cup), “Paten” (ecclesiastical plate), and “Bishop's Staff” (crozier). The notes shown on the same page at the bottom, in 19th-century copperplate handwriting, record the discovery of these items in the tombs of St Magnus Cathedral, Orkney, in 1848.Drummond has taken care not to decorate or beautify the appearance of these objects when he has painted them. The colour palette used is not chosen for aesthetic impact, but as a record of the colours and tones of the items as they were when Drummond viewed them. The paint is delicately applied, and fine brushes would have been used to render the details. This notebook page is not intended to be viewed as a composition like a landscape or a portrait. Rather, Drummond is presenting the viewer with visual evidence, recorded with great accuracy and placed on a blank background. This scientific style of presentation allows the viewer to regard the objects in isolation, rather than in flattering surroundings or in a meaningful context. Later in the 19th century, photography would begin to replace drawing and painting as a method of faithfully documenting visual information about an object. What methods would be used nowadays to visually represent historical artefacts such as these? | |