19th century Scottish Landsacpes | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Artist: Samuel Bough (1822–1878)

Title: Newhaven Harbour on the Firth of Forth

Date: Unknown date

Medium: pencil and watercolor, heightened with white

Dimensions: height: 25.4 cm (10 in); width: 35.6 cm (14 in)

Inscriptions: Signature bottom left: Sam Bough

What I love about this painting:

This is a faithful record of a sunny summer day at a busy harbor on Scotland’s Firth of Forth, painted before the port of Newhaven was industrialized. When this painting is viewed from a distance, there is a crispness to the scene, to the women and men purchasing fresh-caught fish, conveyed by the choice of colors, the use of pencils with the watercolors, and the impressionist’s technique.

I like this scene. It’s an active scene, bustling and full of mid-nineteenth-century life.

About the Artist, via Lyon and Turnbull:

Considered to be one of the most influential and prolific Scottish landscape painters of the 19th century, Sam Bough RSA was a self-taught artist who spent much of his career working in Scotland. Born in 1822 in Carlisle, Bough settled in Manchester where he worked as a scene painter in the Theatre Royal.

After moving to Glasgow he continued to paint in the evenings whilst working at the New Princes Theatre, eventually building enough success to move to painting full-time. Bough’s reputation as a topographical and landscape painter grew during the 1850s, and by the time he resettled in Edinburgh he had established himself as a successful landscape artist. Whilst living in the capital he created some of his most important paintings.

Bough was as successful a painter in both oils and watercolours, and was committed to depicting a wide variety of landscape views and effects, urban and rural, bright days and dark storms. However, there are specific locations and landscapes that Bough returns to regularly in his work; the hustle and bustle of harbours and coastal towns, with the distinctive Newhaven harbour a particular favourite, and the hunting forest of Cadzow, near Hamilton. Generally associated with views of Scotland, he did also create a series of Italian views. In general, his spontaneity, loose technique and interest in capturing fleeting atmospheric effects, particularly cloud formations and weather, establishes him as an important predecessor of the Scottish Impressionists, paving the way for the development towards a freer, plein air style. [1]