Dismantling ‘countryman’ painter

The received wisdom around Sir William Gillies as retiring and semi-reclusive, quietly absorbed in the business of creating genteel landscapes is forcefully challenged, both by this exhibition and a new book by Andrew McPherson, which dismantles the common perception of Gillies as a "countryman" painter, proposing instead that his work was deeply influenced by existential concerns and modernist ideas.

The touring show presents in total more than 100 artworks including prints, sketches, watercolours and oil paintings by the prolific Gillies (1898—1973). Both the exhibition and book criticise the narrow view that pigeonholes him as a landscape artist, overlooking his diverse body of work. 

Instead they emphasise his engagement with modernist trends and the impact of historical events like the First World War on his art.

Several key events in his life are highlighted — each, in turn and collectively, having a profound impact on Gillies and his art. These include his wartime experiences in France where he was wounded and gassed. Later he witnessed his older sister leaving home following sexual abuse. In 1930 Gillies’s closest friend, the painter Wiliam Crozier, died aged 37. 

Gillies is claimed as a British painter, which he was, but he was also a Scot. There is a bizarre claim in the book where, refuting the “countryman” label, he asserts: “It was always, however, unfit for purpose both in its claims and in its omissions. It relies on a historical stereotypes of countryside, town, city and on an unexamined assumption that only nationalists paint landscape.”

The idea that only “nationalists” are interested in landscape is absurd. It’s possible to be both British and Scottish, and a cultural nationalist and a political unionist. Gillies was a countryman but he was also a sophisticated artist with European sensibilities, who loved the Scottish landscape.

William Gillies: Modernism and Nation is at RSA, Edinburgh until January 28, 2024.