IONA NORTH END- THEMES FROM PEPLOE AND CADELL

I  have been to Iona recently and as an artist  with a strong interest in Cadell and Peploe paintings of Iona one of the first places I made for  was the North End and the White Strand.I did not take Coupe with me to the scene but preferred to walk around and hopefully produce some reasonably composed photos of this iconic area.So here are some illustrations which show one of the  favourite areas where they painted.These identifications could scarcely have been made without Mr Coupe's excellent book. My review is here. One or two of the works I illustrate are not mentioned by him. There is no implied criticism. The number of Iona works Cadell and Pepoe produced is high and to illustrate them all would  require  a huge book. All the paintings ( and therefore photographs) have viewpoints literally within yards of each other amongst  the variety of curiously formed rocks- often quite tall when seen from beach level.

S Peploe: Cathedral Rock, Iona. (sold Lyon& Turnbull,
For comparison see photo below. Not in Coupe.

Cadell's view of Cathedral Rock.Staffa on the horizon. Note the pyramidal split stones which appear about half way up this painting. Also seen in the Peploe above.Coupe does not seem to mention them.You could call them the "Split Pyramid".Not in Coupe.

Cadell's view of the same area. Not in Coupe.(Hunterian circa 1923)

Cadell's painting  (Hunterian circa 1923) featuring a similar viewpoint to Peploe's below.See Coupe page 124.Also below and penultimate photo .

 S Peploe:Little Pinnacle on Right and  part of Pulpit Rock on left of painting.

For this painting in the Hunterian we can imagine Cadell working somewhere to the top left of the beach shown below where you can see Cathedral Rock and a flat "Table Rock" as I shall call it.See below. Coupe p 144.

White Strand Iona: Cathedral Rock on left, Pulpit Rock crouching like a lion on right. with Eilean Annrhaid  upper right.The "Little Pinnacle" is on the extreme right of the photo."Table Rock" -my name for it -is just to the right of Cathedral Rock.

Rocks at the North End: Cows Rock in middle distance and Ross of Mull on horizon.
This photo corresponds very closely with Peploe's painting of the same subject which is plate 137 in Coupe.In this case the sand has come back-it was not apparent in his photo of 2009.

Now that I have my own copy of the book Iona Portrayed by Jessica Christian and Charles Stiller  I can see that some of my work was already done. The authors have a nice double page spread of paintings of Pulpit Rock. This very pleasant book records the multitude of other artists who painted Iona.
Last Revised 17/08/15.

My main post about Philip Coupe's excellent book is here.