ENLIGHTENMENT

Enlightenment

Oil on canvas, 61cms.x 81cms.

Does your head glow in the dark? Probably not! But the great thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment were brilliant luminaries. They had no need for caddies carrying a lantern to lead them up the dark, stinking closes of Auld Reekie to their favourite taverns. They just thought great thoughts and illuminated the World.

Are you enlightened? I suppose most people think they are, which only proves that 'enlightenment' means different things to different people. To eastern religions it signifies a spiritual awakening and oneness with the world, but to westerners 'the Enlightenment' means a specific period in the 18th century. For various reasons many Europeans began to question the old certainties and look at how people actually, rather than ideally, thought and behaved. They also began to apply this to  the natural world and scientific investigation began to expand. It was an attitude of mind that encouraged individuals to think for themselves and question everything. In short, they invented the world in which we live today.

So, I was plagued by a vision of members of the Scottish Enlightenment going about their business with heads glowing like brilliant lanterns. This seemed immensely silly and I had to unload this burden somehow. What if I gave a glowing head to Henry Raeburn's popular but very silly portrait of the Reverend Walker skating?

The Rev. Robert Walker skating
By Sir Henry Raeburn
National Galleries of Scotland

 

There was a precedence for this. I remembered the painting

by Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte, 'The Pleasure Principal'. In this, an anonymous male figure sits at a table with his head obscured in a great blaze of light.

I bought a small reproduction of the 'Skater' from the Scottish National Galleries shop and started to copy it. Very soon I realised that I did not want to paint a sub Raeburn but a genuine Gray. I turned the figure round so it was heading towards the viewer and introduced Edinburgh, the Firth of Forth and Fife with the Lomond Hills in the background.

  

At first the figures head was hidden by a brilliant glow, but found this unsatisfactory and painted in the Rev. Walkers head. This I found boring, then thought, "Aha! I'll change it to a woman" I rounded out the sharper angles of the figure. Then, "why not a woman of colour?" If a woman of colour had been a skating minister of the Kirk of Scotland in the 1760's, that would have been enlightenment indeed.