Art Sunday; John Duncan

Today I have decided to revisit and slightly expand upon my very first contribution to Art Sunday. Unbelievably that was just 5 months ago, it was on May 3rd this year and it was almost my first entry to this site………..can’t believe its only 5 months ago seems like I have been here for ever. John Duncan is such an important Scottish Artist I wanted to show more, bigger and better images of his paintings, and for those who didn’t read it first time round, I’ve copied and added to the write up too. Hope you enjoy this, he is still one of my favourite Scottish Celtic Revivalists.

 

John Duncan (1866-1945)

John Duncan (1866-1945) was born and educated in Dundee. His father was a cattleman, but unlike his father he showed  a total disinterest in the family business and a growing propensity for visual art. By the age of 11 he was already a working student at the Dundee School of Art.  He was called a madman by some contemporaries but a spiritual mystic by others. He admitted to, even boasted of hearing "faerie music" whilst he painted. After a couple of years working as an illustrator in London, he traveled abroad and studied art in Belgium and Germany he then returned to his Celtic roots in Scotland. His work is strongly rooted in the Pre-Raphaelite movement, but there are noticeable graphical quality which sets it apart from his contemporaries, unlike them his work sits well with the Art Nouveau movement. Eventually he settled in Edinburgh and became one of THE artists in the “Celtic Revival”.  Patrick Geddes commissioned him to work in the Ramsey Gardens project, Edinburgh, an experimental and very forward thinking housing project.   Duncan created Celtic paintings such as ‘The Riders of the Sidhe’ (1912, McManus Galleries, Dundee) during this period which is the painting I originally featured back in May.  He sought to reinvent and re-present Celtic imagery through borrowing subjects from myths, legends and decorative devices from early Celtic art.  His subject matter is steeped in Celtic Revival but he is generally referred to as a "symbolist" by art critics. His exotic choice of subject matter overflowed into his personal life and he fell in love with a woman whom he believed to have discovered the Holy Grail in a well in Glastonbury and who later divorced him. He never remarried and died in 1945.

FURTHER READING

John Kemplay, The Paintings of John Duncan. A Scottish Symbolist (Pomegranate 1994)

 

The Fairies

John Duncan's The Riders of the Sidhe from 1911 depicts the Sidhe, or the Celtic Fairies, a divine race who inhabit the Otherworld of the dead; perceived only in visionary states of mind and usually at liminal places such as stone circles, sacred groves, wells and 'fairy hills' or 'fairy glens'.
In the introduction to her drama The Immortal Hour; Fiona Macleod emphasises that the Sidhe, or 'Hidden People… were great and potent, not small and insignificant beings'; as Duncan's portrayal of them reinforces. Macleod's re-telling of the ancient poem The March of the Faërie Host which she includes in her anthology of celtic poetry Lyra Celtica almost reads as a description of Duncan's painting:

 

'…Sons of kings and queens are one and all.
On all their heads are
Beautiful golden-yellow manes:

With smooth, comely bodies,
With bright blue-starred eyes,
With pure crystal teeth,
With thin red lips…'

The Sidhe are 'setting out on the eve of Beltane… bearing symbols as follows: the tree of life and of knowledge, the cup of the heart of abundance and healing, the sword of the will on the active side, and the crystal of the will on its passive side;' symbols which Lindsay Errington perceives as 'betraying in their type of symbolism the still lingering influence of Patrick Geddes.'
Experiences of the Sidhe are usually accompanied by sonorous phenomena; Duncan claimed to have heard 'fairy music' whilst painting; and seems naturally inclined towards trance-like states; as John Kemplay writes in his book on Duncan:
'he saw with the "inner eye" of his imagination forms more beautiful than any he had ever seen with the "outer eye". But these were not forms alone; they were "living people with quick eyes and strange solemn gestures who move as if in some ritual."

 

THE LEGEND OF THE SIDHE

This is the legend of the Sidhe, the Celtic Fairie folk from way back in the mists of time. The Celtic names are a little difficult but the stories are wonderful

The people known as "The Sidhe" or people of the mounds, or "The Lordly Ones" or "The Good People" were descended from the "Tuatha de Danann" who settled in Ireland millennia ago and in being defeated by the Milesians they retreated to a different dimension of space and time than our own, believed to be living under mounds and fairy raths and cairns,  and also the land of "Tír na nÓg" a mythical island to the west of Ireland.  Placenames in Ireland with the pre-nouns Lis, Rath, and Shee are associated with these people for example Lismore, Lisdoonvarna, Sheemore, Rathfarnham etc.

Down through the ages the Sidhe have been in contact with mortals giving protection, healing and even teaching some of their skills to mortals - Smithcraft or the working of metals being one such skill.  Cuillen (Culann) is one such sidhe smith who has been told of in the legends of Cúchulainn and the later legends of Fionn mac Cumhail.

The Gaelic word sí or síog refers to these otherworldly beings now called fairies.  The Irish fairy is not like the diminutive fairies of other European countries, the Sidhe are described as tall and handsome in all accounts, also they are dressed very richly and accounts of their halls are of richly decorated places with sumptuous foods and drinks.

The Sidhe are generally benign until angered by some foolish action of a mortal.  Many trees and mounds are considered under their protection and if a mortal destroys or damages these then a curse is put upon himself and his family.  In some parts of the countryside people would not build their houses over certain "fairy paths" because of the type of disturbances which would ensue.

Whenever a host of the Sidhe appears there is a strange sound like the humming of thousands of bees also a whirlwind or shee-gaoithe is caused.

 

 

the Ledgend of  Danu,

mother, queen, life giver,
your sweetness is the salt kiss
where ocean meets land.
You are the wellspring of fertility,
Queen of all Sidhe,
shining jewel of Ireland.
I am enveloped in your mist,
your loving embrace,
a child come happily home
Katrin Auch

Danu is the oldest Celtic Goddess, known also as Don and Anu. Her influence spread far across the British Isles and Europe, where the Danube river was named for her. Few stories about Danu have survived, and yet the reverence in which she was held still remains. It is told that those who worshipped her, the Tuatha de Danaan (the children of Danu), retreated into the hollow hills of Ireland when Christianity overcame the old ways. There, they became immortal, the Sidhe or faery folk, and Danu's legend lives on as the Goddess of faery ways. Danu is the power that is in the land, never to be overcome by mortals. And Her power is in the imagination of those who see magic in the twilight mist between the worlds.

http://forgetmenot525.multiply.com/photos/album/187/art_Sunday_John_Duncan_Illustrations

art Sunday, John Duncan Illustrations

This is the painting i featured in my very first Art Sunday May 5th this year

The paintings of John Duncan, Scottish artist, Celtic revivalist.

read the blog here
http://forgetmenot525.multiply.com/journal/item/175/Art_Sunday_John_Duncan

ART SUNDAY; 'The Riders of the Sidhe' by John Duncan, 1911

‘The Riders of the Sidhe’ by John Duncan 1911

my contribution to 'Art Sunday'

 

This must be one of my all time favourite paintings, it is unimaginably beautiful. The first time I saw it ….I stood and I stood and I stood, totally transfixed. You can never tire of looking at this painting. There is so much to see and every time you revisit you see more. It just took my breath away. It usually hangs in the McManus Galleries, Dundee. They are under extensive refurbishment at the moment so I guess it’s in storage somewhere. Unless someone knows different of course. It is claimed that this painting depicts the Sidhe coming down from Law Hill, a long dead volcano which stands on the Northern edge of Dundee.

 

John Duncan (1866-1945)

John Duncan (1866-1945) was born and educated in Dundee. After a few years working as an illustrator in London, he studied art in Belgium and Germany before returning to Scotland. Eventually he settled in Edinburgh and became one of the key artists in the “Celtic Revival” movement, creating such memorable paintings as The Riders of the Sidhe (1912, McManus Galleries, Dundee). He sought to reinvent and re-present Celtic imagery through borrowing subjects from myths, legends and decorative devices from early Celtic art.

FURTHER READING
John Kemplay, The Paintings of John Duncan. A Scottish Symbolist (Pomegranate 1994)

The Fairies

John Duncan's The Riders of the Sidhe from 1911 depicts the Sidhe, or the Celtic Fairies, a divine race who inhabit the Otherworld of the dead; perceived only in visionary states of mind and usually at liminal places such as stone circles, sacred groves, wells and 'fairy hills' or 'fairy glens'.
In the introduction to her drama The Immortal Hour; Fiona Macleod emphasises that the Sidhe, or 'Hidden People… were great and potent, not small and insignificant beings'; as Duncan's portrayal of them reinforces. Macleod's re-telling of the ancient poem The March of the Faërie Host which she includes in her anthology of celtic poetry Lyra Celtica almost reads as a description of Duncan's painting:

'…Sons of kings and queens are one and all.
On all their heads are
Beautiful golden-yellow manes:

With smooth, comely bodies,
With bright blue-starred eyes,
With pure crystal teeth,
With thin red lips…'

The Sidhe are 'setting out on the eve of Beltane… bearing symbols as follows: the tree of life and of knowledge, the cup of the heart of abundance and healing, the sword of the will on the active side, and the crystal of the will on its passive side;' symbols which Lindsay Errington perceives as 'betraying in their type of symbolism the still lingering influence of Patrick Geddes.'
Experiences of the Sidhe are usually accompanied by sonorous phenomena; Duncan claimed to have heard 'fairy music' whilst painting; and seems naturally inclined towards trance-like states; as John Kemplay writes in his book on Duncan:
'he saw with the "inner eye" of his imagination forms more beautiful than any he had ever seen with the "outer eye". But these were not forms alone; they were "living people with quick eyes and strange solemn gestures who move as if in some ritual."

 

THE LEGEND OF THE SIDHE

This is the legend of the Sidhe, the Celtic Fairie folk from way back in the mists of time. The Celtic names are a little difficult but the stories are wonderful

The people known as "The Sidhe" or people of the mounds, or "The Lordly Ones" or "The Good People" were descended from the "Tuatha de Danann" who settled in Ireland millennia ago and in being defeated by the Milesians they retreated to a different dimension of space and time than our own, believed to be living under mounds and fairy raths and cairns,  and also the land of "Tír na nÓg" a mythical island to the west of Ireland.  Placenames in Ireland with the pre-nouns Lis, Rath, and Shee are associated with these people for example Lismore, Lisdoonvarna, Sheemore, Rathfarnham etc.

Down through the ages the Sidhe have been in contact with mortals giving protection, healing and even teaching some of their skills to mortals - Smithcraft or the working of metals being one such skill.  Cuillen (Culann) is one such sidhe smith who has been told of in the legends of Cúchulainn and the later legends of Fionn mac Cumhail.

The Gaelic word sí or síog refers to these otherworldly beings now called fairies.  The Irish fairy is not like the diminutive fairies of other European countries, the Sidhe are described as tall and handsome in all accounts, also they are dressed very richly and accounts of their halls are of richly decorated places with sumptuous foods and drinks.

The Sidhe are generally benign until angered by some foolish action of a mortal.  Many trees and mounds are considered under their protection and if a mortal destroys or damages these then a curse is put upon himself and his family.  In some parts of the countryside people would not build their houses over certain "fairy paths" because of the type of disturbances which would ensue.

Whenever a host of the Sidhe appears there is a strange sound like the humming of thousands of bees also a whirlwind or shee-gaoithe is caused.

 

triston and Isold, oil on canvas, click on picture to enlarge it

http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Sidhe

http://www.unicorngarden.com/gallery/gall05.htm

                                               

St Bride,  oil on canvas, click on picture to enlarge it