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ARTHUR MELVILLE PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Kenneth McConkey,Charlotte Topsfield | 136 pages | 10 Dec 2015 | National Galleries of Scotland | 9781906270872 | English | Edinburgh, United Kingdom Arthur Melville – | Tate Read the latest visit information, including hours. Although he also worked in oils, Arthur Melville is acclaimed primarily for his distinctive and unorthodox watercolours, which combine precise control with looseness and felicitous chance effects. His colour was often dropped on the paper in rich, full spots or blobs rather than applied with any definite brush-marks. The colour floats into little pools, with the white of the ground softening each touch. He was the most exact of craftsmen; his work is not haphazard and accidental, as might be rashly thought. Those blots in his drawings, which seem meaningless, disorderly and chaotic, are actually organised with the utmost care to lead the way to the foreseen result. Often he would put a glass over his picture and try the effect of spots of different colour on the glass before applying them to the surface of his paper. When he was in his early twenties his penchant for travel and adventure led him to embark on a journey to the Middle East, which was to be the defining event of his career. In Melville travelled to Cairo where he remained for nearly a year before following the British imperial route to Aden and Karachi Kurrachee. Melville, though comparatively little known during his lifetime, was one of the most powerful influences in the contemporary art of his day, especially in his broad decorative treatment with water-colour, which influenced the Glasgow Boys. Though his vivid impressions of color and movement are apparently recorded with feverish haste, they are the result of careful deliberation and selection. He was at his best in his watercolors of Eastern life and colour and his Venetian scenes, but he also painted several striking portraits in oils and a powerful composition of The Return from the Crucifixion which remained unfinished at his death in Many of his pictures remain with private collectors. A comprehensive memorial exhibition of Melville's works was held at the Royal Institute Galleries in London in From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article includes a list of general references , but it remains largely unverified because it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. August Learn how and when to remove this template message. It should be brought up to date to reflect subsequent history or scholarship including the references, if any. When you have completed the review, replace this notice with a simple note on this article's talk page. Arthur Melville: a nineteenth-century artist ahead of his time | Art UK In Melville made the first of at least two trips to Venice, a city that captured the imagination of many British painters of his generation. The tours in Spain and Italy nevertheless continued, interspersed with visits to clients and friends in Scotland. His visit to North Africa seemed to recall to him with the drama and ritual of Arab life, and this continued to play a major role in his choice of exotic subject matter. It was a popular literary theme; the tale appears in Elizabethan ballads and was a subject favoured by Victorian artists. Popular subjects were more likely to sell, and Melville was in need of money after making some bad investments. In Melville became engaged to Ethel Croall and they spent much of the summer together on the Isle of Mull. Around this time the artist was also introduced to Walford Graham Robertson, a young admirer, with strong connections in the theatre and the art world. Almost overnight the Pre-Raphaelite-influenced Robertson changed his style to replicate that of Melville and being moderately wealthy was able to offer him sanctuary at Sandhills House in Surrey. This view into a quarry is likely to have been inspired by one of many chalk pits that dotted the Surrey landscape, within easy reach of his new home. This painting is startling in its originality; pools of blue-grey shade snake across the terrain masking the chalk cliffs and their crevices. The narrow gauge railway cutting is partly obscured by dust, and the trucks loaded with blocks of stone are some of the clearest parts of this painting that mostly shows a shadow scattered with spots of detail. He began a suite of four large canvases depicting scenes of the Nativity. While trips to Spain with Ethel continued, his regular submissions to exhibitions in London, Edinburgh and Liverpool petered out and all other work took second place as he struggled to bring these canvases to fruition. Sadly this great sequence was never to be completed, as a result of his sudden death from typhoid in August This painting was the most advanced of the four and only one other, Christmas Morning Aberdeen Art Gallery has survived. Quite why Melville chose to devote himself to this unfamiliar territory remains a mystery. He did not explain himself any further, but it is tantalizing to speculate on what he might have meant. Arthur Melville was the most radical and exciting Scottish artist of his generation and one of the finest British watercolour painters of the 19th century. His bold, dramatic compositions, and ability to evoke colour and light with the brilliance of stained glass, mark him out as a painter of outstanding talent and originality. Arthur Melville, A Cabbage Garden The Eastern Journey. Arthur Melville, An Arab Interior Arthur Melville, Baghdad Arthur Melville, Waiting for the Sultan Dated Scotland and Modernity. He was born in Guthrie, Angus in and brought up in East Lothian. He took up painting while working as a grocer's apprentice, and then attended the Royal Scottish Academy Schools before studying in Paris and Greece. The colour-sense which is so notable a feature of his work developed during his travels in Persia , Egypt and Turkey between and , [1] where he sometimes travelled alone on long inland journeys. To convey strong Middle Eastern light, he developed a technique of using watercolour on a base of wet paper with gouache applied to it. Melville, though comparatively little known during his lifetime, was one of the most powerful influences in the contemporary art of his day, especially in his broad decorative treatment with water-colour, which influenced the Glasgow Boys. Though his vivid impressions of color and movement are apparently recorded with feverish haste, they are the result of careful deliberation and selection. He was at his best in his watercolors of Eastern life and colour and his Venetian scenes, but he also painted several striking portraits in oils and a powerful composition of The Return from the Crucifixion which remained unfinished at his death in It is not a very large picture, but Melville did also paint on a bigger scale — The White Piano , for instance, is a striking, life-size portrait of a young woman, perhaps Mary Jane Margerison, seated at a piano. The White Piano Indeed, Melville's modernity is often startling. For instance, The Chalk Cutting , acquired for the National Galleries Scotland in , is essentially an abstract painting. The Chalk Cutting. It is not surprising that as well as the Glasgow Boys, Melville was a primary inspiration for the Scottish Colourists too, especially the three Edinburgh painters J. Fergusson, S. Peploe and F. We want to know what you think about Art UK. Your feedback will inform how we grow Art UK in the future. Created with Sketch. Support us Discover About Venues. Main menu Close. Sign in Register. Email address. Remember me uncheck on a public computer. First name. Sign up to the Art UK newsletter. Arthur Melville — possibly Royal Watercolour Society. Audrey and her Goats — 9 Arthur Melville — Tate. Seventeen splendid Scottish artists. John Duncan Fergusson: the artistic evolution of a Scottish colourist. Inspired by the east: thoughts about Orientalism. Colour and light: the art and influence of the Scottish Colourists. Seeing the light: the Fauves and the allure of Collioure. Colour for supper: Burns Night with the Scottish Colourists. Eric Ravilious, tennis and Englishness. Mabel Nicholson: overlooked talent and mother of a British art dynasty. Georges Clark's 'Back of Keppoch'. Joan Eardley: painting inner-city Glasgow and the rugged landscapes of Catterline. William Gear: landscapes and abstraction. Henry Raeburn: portraitist of the Scottish Enlightenment. Mary Cameron: a neglected Scottish 'hispagnoliste'. Robert Sivell: portraits and allegories of a Scottish artist. Alistair Park: rediscovering a little- known Scottish artist. Things we lost in the fire: the tragedy at The Glasgow School of Art. Dorothy Johnstone and her contemporaries. Aubrey Beardsley: enfant terrible of the s. Audrey and her Goats —9 Arthur Melville — An Arab Interior Arthur Melville — A Hind's Daughter James Guthrie — A Cabbage Garden Arthur Melville — The White Piano Arthur Melville — Arthur Melville - Wikipedia Read the latest visit information, including hours. Although he also worked in oils, Arthur Melville is acclaimed primarily for his distinctive and unorthodox watercolours, which combine precise control with looseness and felicitous chance effects. His colour was often dropped on the paper in rich, full spots or blobs rather than applied with any definite brush-marks. The colour floats into little pools, with the white of the ground softening each touch. He was the most exact of craftsmen; his work is not haphazard and accidental, as might be rashly thought. Those blots in his drawings, which seem meaningless, disorderly and chaotic, are actually organised with the utmost care to lead the way to the foreseen result. Often he would put a glass over his picture and try the effect of spots of different colour on the glass before applying them to the surface of his paper.

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