CADELL'S ABSORBENT GROUNDS

Those of us lucky enough to visit the small but rather lovely exhibition of paintings of Iona by Cadell and Peploe at the Scottish Gallery in 2014 saw several of the works exhibited naked so to speak and not under glass.
The painting below was  sold by Bonhams in2014. They have sold many Cadells in their time.

Iona(The white sands looking East)
by F.C.B Cadell.

There are instructions in Cadell's hand on the back of many paintings, including this one, which say,

"Absorbent ground. NEVER varnish".

Back of the painting with Cadell's inscriptions including the address of the purchaser and specification for the usual white frame with gold fillet

So why would he say this?

It must be that Cadell preferred a chalky, matte appearance in these works. The look of the paint surface matters to him. He does not want the buttery, glossy effect of an oil rich painting medium. He wants the painting to have a more matte and less reflective surface.And he certainly does not want varnish puddling in the crevices of his impasto, or perhaps altering the colour of any of the ground which might show through. Reflections from varnish are another possibility.There is also the possibility that Cadell liked the drag which an absorbent ground gives to ground: the paint stays in place and does not want to be pushed about!

And a final reason could be one of practicality. An absorbent ground will suck the oil out of paint which will then harden a little more quickly.There is no need to squeeze out your paint onto newspaper before working on an absorbent ground-as some have suggested, that would remove too much of the oil and render the paint very fragile after drying.In modern times we particularly associate it with Lautrec's peinture a l'essence technique on cardboard.  OIl removed before painting and painting onto an absorbent ground would also make the paint almost unworkable in any normal way. Cadell and Peploe were professionals who would have known this and acted accordingly.

   The Iona paintings are quite small and probably travelled back in Cadell's luggage-or maybe in that of acquaintances who were, so the stories go, inclined  and encouraged to purchase newly finished work straight from the artist's abode on the island.

Christian and Stiller* give credit for the introduction of gesso grounds among the landscape painters to John Duncan who worked in tempera. This is a very reasonable explanation and tempera paintings are usually made on a gesso ground.

One final speculation. Gesso is a cheap and very permanent form of ground for painting. It is basically glue size and some form of white pigment. Such a paint was well known to our country ancestors. Whiting and glue size were in the past very cheap and easily available in town and village.They would be used by farmers who wanted to paint the interior of a barn or dairy.They do not make the whitest of grounds but it is pretty good and a stronger pigment can be added. Could such a surface have been improvised on location, out in the country? It wouldn't be a gesso sottile but it would work.Gesso has never been  a common ground for oil painters but it has been used and on the right support it is very stable. The so called acrylic gesso is not the same thing.it has its uses but I would raather not use it myself.

We may never know anything more on this topic-but what would the alternative have been? Lead white as  a ground would have been pretty usual in those days.
It too dries quickly.

(see also my later analysis of two paintings in the Fleming-Wyfold Foundation here.)

*Iona Portrayed: The Island through Artists' Eyes 1760-1960.by Jessica Christian and Charles Stiller, New Iona Press,2000.page 56.
Updated June 2019.

MURRAY McCHEYNE- SCULPTOR-COMMISSIONS AND CASUALTIES

Although he had significant public commissions in his lifetime  Murray McCheyne was not one to push himself forward.The best known of these works, which still remain are the sea-horses on the Civic Centre in Newcastle. 

The  large.abstract sculpture on the side of Wellbar House, Newcastle was removed after severe storm damage in the 1980's.

 His family group for Shieldfield was totally destroyed  by vandals.The Laing Art Gallery has a maquette. The press accounts of the commission bring back memories of an earlier age of Civic Idealism.

Somewhere in the North-East he made one of the first play sculptures.

There was also a small relief sculpture on the primary school at Belford. That slightly biomorphic work is no longer in place.

I have no further information on the Stations of the Cross he made in plaster for the Catholic church at Lowick.

Some commisssions which should still survive include the altar  furniture he made for local churches in the north Newcastle area.

If you visit Newbiggin and the church is open you can certainly see McCheyne's small but monumental woodcarving of Christ the King.This dates from the 1950s.

IONA THROUGH THE EYES OF CADELL AND PEPLOE-A STUDY BY PHILIP MacLEOD COUPE

Those who are interested in the work of the Scottish Colourists will know that Iona was much painted by Peploe and Cadell.Thanks to them it must be one of the most intensively painted spots in Scotland.These two fine artists were active chiefly in the inter-war years.Cadell  was first to visit -before the Great War in which he served. And Peploe sometimes visited in the winter which Cadell may not have done.What a lovely way to spend your holidays!

This large format, fully illustrated paperback book will give real pleasure  to any reader who cares about these artists and their work.

Philip Macleod Coupe has produced  a guide to their paintings-and in a way a guide also to much of  Iona itself. Not the whole of Iona because of the artists' preferences. He has found the sites and mapped them, confirming convincingly that Peploe favoured the North End and that  Cadell  wandered over much of the island.The south western corner does not apparently figure in their work.

The book has  several outlines  showing the  silhouettes of islands  in the paintings which will be a great help to those who want to orientate themselves vis-a-vis the several islands seen from Iona. There are also black and white photos by Mr Coupe himself of the views as they were recently and some old photographs of the island as it was.In one or two cases paintings are juxtaposed which show Cadell and Peploe painting from almost the same viewpoint. I wonder if they ever painted together in the same way as Cézanne and Pissarro or Cézanne and Renoir. Cadell showed much more interest in the crofts and the life of the island and the steamers which served it in those days. Guy Peploe's introduction reproduces  a droll letter from Cadell to his grandfather.

The most beautiful part of the island is the north end: white sands and beautiful rocks, looking across to Mull....."( *Peploe, p63.)

It was Peploe who confined himself pretty much to pure landscape while Cadell was much more willing to paint the crofts and buildings themselves. In addition Cadell seems to have been the one to make watercolours- a wise tactic as their relatively lower price might have attracted some  custom from visitors who were less prosperous. Or maybe he had run out of board to paint on, or wanted a change.

Cadell often adds a figure or perhaps a yacht coming through the Sound of
Iona at just the right point of focus/balance in the composition.

Peploe commented on the light of Iona and incidentally hints at some of the difficulties a landscape painter faces:

"We had miserable weather in Iona this year-worst in living memory-gales and rain the whole time. I got very little done. But that kind of weather suits Iona: the rocks and distant shores seen through falling rain, veil behind veil, take on an elusive quality, and when the light shines through one has visions or rare beauty. I think I might prefer it these days to your blue skies and clear distances." (*Peploe p73 .)

It is a matter of great regret that Mr Coupe did not live to see the publication of this labour of love. A painter himself he must have needed his painterly eye to find some of the sites. Some become visible at differing states of the tide and some-as the author demonstrates- have changed since the paintings were made: sand has disappeared from some beaches leaving more stone exposed. Or the machair has extended in some places.

This is one of his Iona landscapes which shows him positioning himself in the footsteps of the colourists-a view towards Gribun and Loch na Keal.

Philip MacLeod Coupe

His family have seen the book through the press. A labour of love for them too, one may be sure. The author's  delight in  the work of these artists shines out. He seems to have been a man of many talents-originally trained as an architect he became a luthier before he became an artist/historian.

The book is not a catalogue or census  of everything the two artists produced on Iona .To attempt such a project would have made the result too unwieldy. There is no evidence that the author set out to produce such a thing. Indeed there may still be Cadells out there unrecognised given his way of disposing of them. Remember the anecdotes that he sold paintings directly from  whatever croft he was renting? According to story a purchaser was shown out the front door but a non-purchaser was shown out the back way by Cadell's manservant. Circumstances such as these explain how artists and collectors lose track of work.

For example, there  are no illustrations of the two fine works by Cadell sold  at  Christies this  26 June 2015. Both originally were in the Service collection. One of them, No194,(£47.000) is very pleasing but the exact site is unspecified. One of the houses has  the same fenestration as Iona Cottage-though that cannot be the subject as it is not near the shore.

Cadell:Sligneach.The white croft has been replaced with a modern two storey building.
In fact the work is annotated, "Sligneach", which is to the south of the pier .

 No 195, ( £62.500) is another landscape in the same sale which is a more typical white sands picture.

 I mention these because I think Mr Coupe's book is infectious. Once you have seen a good group of these Iona paintings you will surely be left wanting more. Further examples can be found in my post here.

Paintings of Iona: Cadell and Peploe,
Philip MacLeod Coupe.With a foreword by Guy Peploe.
Published by:The heirs of Philip MacLeod Coupe. 2014
ISBN 978-0-9928597-0-1

* S  Peploe, 1871-1935: Guy Peploe, Mainstream, Edinburgh and London, 2000.

For a discussion of the technique two landscapes by Cadell in the Fleming-Wyfold collection see my post here

Revised 7/08/15.

DUNSTANBURGH SKETCHES

Some drawings in one of last year's sketch books  from visits to Dunstanburgh. Two of them are quick sketches to get the idea of the cloudscape behind the castle.