Portrait painting in Scotland information

Portrait painting in Scotland includes all forms of painted portraiture in Scotland, from its beginnings in the early sixteenth century until the present day. The origins of the tradition of portrait painting in Scotland are in the Renaissance, particularly through contacts with the Netherlands. The first portrait of a named person that survives is that of Archbishop William Elphinstone, probably painted by a Scottish artist using Flemish techniques around 1505. Around the same period Scottish monarchs turned to the recording of royal likenesses in panel portraits, painted in oils on wood. The tradition of royal portrait painting in Scotland was probably disrupted by the minorities and regencies it underwent for much of the sixteenth century. It began to flourish after the Reformation, with paintings of royal figures and nobles by Netherlands artists Hans Eworth, Arnold Bronckorst and Adrian Vanson. A specific type of Scottish picture from this era was the "vendetta portrait", designed to keep alive the memory of an atrocity. The Union of Crowns in 1603 removed a major source of artistic patronage in Scotland as James VI and his court moved to London. The result has been seen as a shift "from crown to castle", as the nobility and local lairds became the major sources of patronage.

The first significant Scottish portrait artist was George Jameson, who became one of the most successful painters of the reign of Charles I. He trained the Baroque artist John Michael Wright. In this period the full-length portrait in Highland dress became a common form of painting. William Aikman emerged as the leading Scottish portrait-painter of the next generation. He, like most Scottish painters of note before the late eighteenth century, migrated to London. John Alexander and William Mossman painted many of the figures of early-Enlightenment Edinburgh. Allan Ramsay established himself as a leading portrait painter to the Scottish nobility and he undertook portraits of many of the major figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. He later focused on royal portraits, anticipating the Grand Manner of Joshua Reynolds, but many of his early portraits, particularly of women, are less formal and more intimate. The leading portrait painter of the second half of the century was Henry Raeburn, the first significant artist to pursue his entire career in Scotland, his subjects went beyond the nobility to the middle classes. His pupils included the brothers William (Alexander), Archibald and Andrew Robertson. The former two brothers founded the Columbian Academy of Painting in New York, and Andrew was the leading Scottish miniaturist of his day.

The generation of painters that followed Raeburn included David Watson, John Watson Gordon and David Wilkie, who became one of the most influential British artists of the century. From the mid-nineteenth century, portrait painting, particularity the miniature, declined as an art, photography also began to influence painting. Major figures who worked in portraiture and came to prominence in the second half of the century included Francis Grant, Robert Scott Lauder, William Quiller Orchardson and John Pettie. In the twentieth century the move away from figurative painting to impressionism and abstraction, speeded the decline of portrait painting. Artists who continued to pursue portraiture included Francis Cadell, Cecile Walton, Dorothy Johnstone and James Cowie. The second half of the twentieth century saw a general movement back towards figurative representation. Alexander Moffat was among the leading Scottish intellectuals from the 1960s. The artists associated with Moffat known as the "new Glasgow Boys" included Steven Campbell, Peter Howson, Ken Currie and Adrian Wisniewski. A parallel movement in Edinburgh, focused around the 369 Gallery in the city, included Caroline McNairn, Robert MacLaurin and Gwen Hardie.