A fresh look at a legend of Scottish portraits

In 1766, the painter Allan Ramsay (1713-1784) painted twin portraits of David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. They were companion pieces, done to depict the close personal and intellectual ties between the sitters, two philosophical giants of the Enlightenment — that flowering of knowledge, understanding and enquiry across a range of disciplines in the latter half of the 18th century.

Ramsay, who trained in Rome and London, and settled in the latter city, was a native of Edinburgh but like many of his compatriots found fame and patronage in the south. He was also a theorist, publishing essays and treatises, among them A Dialogue on Taste, where he espoused the necessity of depicting what may be observed over what was aesthetically pleasing.

Here, the contemporary painter, Alison Watt, has focused on two other “companion” portraits by Ramsay. Anne Bayne (c.1740) and Margaret Lindsay (painted some seventeen years later) depict the artist’s first and second wife respectively. Although the second portrait is more complex, less formal and more intensely focused, it has some similar qualities to the first. In both, Ramsay’s depiction of light is primary, as is attention to the sitter’s clothing.

Watt has responded to aspects of these portraits, and a number of others in the SNPG collection, by isolating various elements such as roses (Lindsay, Centifolia, Evelick, Rosa), a ribbon (Anne), a lace handkerchief (Walpole), a lace collar (Balcarres) and a quill (Fortrose, A Lady).

These paintings are a visual dialogue between Watt, Ramsay, his sitters and, indeed, the viewer. Looking at the faces and dress of Anne Bayne and Margaret Lindsay it is impossible not to ponder the relationship between them and Ramsay; and it is equally difficult not to enquire about Watt’s own processes and feelings in response to them.

These are still lifes — a genre that Watt regards as having been unfairly relegated to the lowest tier of painting — and as the title of this show states, these are “portrait[s] without likeness”.

How would Watt have responded to the paintings of Hume and Rousseau? Perhaps no differently at all, but the international fame and intellect of these men, and fewer represented accoutrements and props, suggest a different possible outcome.

Nevertheless, one gets the feeling that Ramsay represented his sitters with equal respect and attention. At least one of his other works referenced here by Watt (Anne, Countess of Balcarres, (1750)) shows the sitter with book — not a religious text, perhaps, but a literary or philosophical one, demonstrating Ramsay’s view that women were the intellectual equals of men.

This is a complex, beautifully conceived and presented show that makes us look afresh at work that many might have regarded as familiar.

Alison Watt: A Portrait Without Likeness, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, until Jan 2022