Kildonan. James McLachlan Nairn (1859-1904). 1886. H 86.4 x W 116.8 cm. Collection: Glasgow Life Museums. Accession no. 1199, acquired as a gift from Thomas Galloway, 1907. Reproduced from Art UK by Jacqueline Banerjee, on the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
James Caw writes that Nairn's talent was recognised early on, before he left for New Zealand. He reports that Kildonan was one of those works that showed "a healthy sense of colour and tone, good feeling for Nature and workman-like craftsmanship." He goes on to say that by the time he died, he was celebrated as "the most brilliant artist in New Zealand," and that there he delighted in "the sun and had an affection for the cloudy 'southerly' '.... His landscapes are not microscopic studies of trees or hills or plants — they are bits snatched out of the wide, open day, with bees and air palpitating through the picture" (384). This painting, with people at ease on a pleasant day, chatting in the long grass by a bay, with cliffs in the background, certainly suggests his direction of travel. — Jacqueline Banerjee
Bibliography
Caw, James L. Scottish Painting 1620-1908. Edinburgh: T.C. and E.C. Jack, 1908: 345-84.
Kildonan. Art UK. Web. 11 August 2022.
Created 11 August 2022