Скачать или смотреть THE PAINTINGS OF JOHN DUNCAN: A Scottish Symbolist

THE PAINTINGS OF JOHN DUNCAN: A Scottish Symbolist
JOHN KEMPLAY Book Number: 72300 Product format: Hardback

John Duncan's early works in oil are exquisite studies in a pre-Raphaelite mode, for instance his tapestry-inspired "Joan of Arc", his grey-tinted "Taking of Excalibur", the decorative "Peacocks and Fountains" or the beautiful young women who crowd into a roundel shape in "Hymn to the Rose". Two formative years in the Chicago School of Art were followed by the setting up of a studio in Edinburgh in 1903, and on his return Duncan moved away from the influence of the Celtic School of writers and artists into a Symbolist style, influenced by Burne Jones and by a visit to Paris. His first major Symbolist work was "The Riders of the Sidhe" (the faery folk thought to inhabit the Neolithic site of New Grange), executed in tempera which was to be his main medium for the rest of his career. "Tristan and Isolde" of 1912 has much in common with the Italian masters whom he had recently studied in Florence. This new style has an elegant charm, although Duncan's work in tempera has a more formal character than his oil studies. Although impatient with his own work in portraiture, with hindsight it emerges as among his best, particularly the 1920 oil study of his daughter Vivian. A 1929 tempera of Mary Queen of Scots reveals the same ability to capture a memorable expression. An interesting study of a lesser-known artist. 128pp, numerous reproductions, most in colour.
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