Artwork Analysis: "Far Far Away" by Lachlan Goudie - Esther

Once upon a time several years ago we first encountered Lachlan Goudie on TV. We like a great art presenter in our household. Someone with knowledge, enthusiasm & good communication skills, someone that can teach us something new, or at least give us a new perspective. Someone like Lachlan. He’s an artist first & foremost but also an art expert & writer. He has appeared as writer & presenter of several wonderful TV programmes, notably The Story of Scottish Art, Mackintosh: Glasgow’s Neglected Genius, Painting the Holy Land, Stanley Spencer: The Colours of the Clyde, Inside Museums & even Life Drawing Live! which was exactly what it sounds like. But on TV.

It’s my firm belief that you can never have enough Lachlan – his ebullience is infectious & his words & ideas easy to listen to. He’s convincing, he knows his stuff & he covers things no-one else seems to bother with. For me it was catastrophic when publication of his brilliant book The Story of Scottish Art was delayed due to the pandemic but of course it was well worth the wait. Covering 5,000 years of art in Scotland, it’s engaging & lavishly illustrated, analysing the effects of artists & their times on each other & the rest of the world. It even smells good.

As you can probably see, the work of Lachlan Goudie could take up a blog or two of its own, but today we shall show restraint & focus on one of his own paintings. In my pandemic experience, 2020 has been the year of Lachlan, not only for his TV & online work but for an exhibition of new works created during lockdown for The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh entitled Once Upon a Time (as current restrictions stand, I’m sadly unable to visit Edinburgh or the show from Aberdeen). The gallery currently houses several delightful pieces painted en plein air in his highly distinctive style as well as some beautiful compositions featuring his daughter. But having viewed them in an online tour, it is clear to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Scottish Colourists, that Lachlan is a New Wave Scottish Colourist.


Here I want to look at what must be my favourite painting from the collection (although the scraperboard works are stunning as you can see in the links below), Far Far Away. Painted on board in oil, it refines the original Colourists’ quality of line & renders the graphic character of the outlines more elegant & delicate. Yet there is boldness, in the form of the colour palette itself. When we look at the composition, it largely follows our old friend, the Rule of Three. In the top third, lies the background which is all whites & greys; on its own it’s not an uncommon snow scene & we feel the icy blast of the wind coming off those gently rolling hills. 

The middle third is almost entirely Scottish Colourist still life 101. His choice of bowl, lightly crumpled fabric, potted plant & jug: these are classic subjects. I’m missing the obvious, but we’ll return to her shortly. 

Within the bottom third lie the expertly rendered drapes, the folds & creases meticulously painted in that perfectly unified colour palette that in turn (& not forgetting those diagonals) keep our eye focused on the centrepiece of the arrangement.


This brings us back to that middle third of the painting with the marvellous counterpoint that is Mildred, Lachlan’s family cat. The fabulous Mildred has made appearances in some of Lachlan’s recent online work, amusing & distracting viewers & presenter respectively. & so it was with this painting. Evidently the composition was already set up but Mildred had other ideas. She flattened down the mild billow in the fabric & made herself comfortable, artistically slightly off-centre for a fateful painting session. 

It’s possible Mildred knows something of the Colourists, but she’s not particularly interested either way. Nevertheless colour is where Mildred is so successful in this work. In an otherwise cohesive colour scheme, Mildred stands out, the slice of red collar contrasting perfectly with the deep rich greens of the Snake Plant (I think?) to the right. The leaves seem to twist into the background trees, so that although we see it is there, the colour helps lead our eye back to Mildred. It’s all about her, after all.

I’d love this painting for many reasons, not just the inclusion of a charming cat. It’s satisfyingly monochromatic for the most part, properly painterly & with real discipline & talent behind it. As well as all that, it references so much of Scottish art that I’ve grown up loving: the Peploes, the Fergussons, the Cadells, the illustrative properties of the line work & figurative nature of each component – it can’t miss.

But there are other reasons. If you look at the image & think about what you’re seeing, it’s a little peculiar, isn’t it? A bit strange? Yes, those far away trees could well hold horrors & frights unseen. Sure, looking at it gives you an oddly cold sensation, I mean if it wasn’t for the cat’s willingness to hang about, you’d believe it was freezing…

Of course there’s all that. But, as Lachlan himself says, there’s the sense of a barrier or wall having been broken down. The inside appears outside & vice versa. In the rush to admire the flawless technique & perfect colour scheme, it would be easy to disregard this fact. We’re dealing with a mild surrealism. After all, there is no window frame where you might expect one to appear, no piece of wallpaper for our eye to catch hold of or give the impression of a room.

The exhibition concept is one of fairy tale magic & the beauty that exists everywhere, no matter that we were locked in our homes & unable to travel except in our imaginations. For months, we’ve been trained to fear the real world, to fear others & their foul germs in a bid to slow the spread of the pandemic. In Far Far Away, perhaps we are seeing the possibility of an outside world getting uncomfortably close. The wolf huffing & puffing & blowing your house down, or even being let in the door, pretending to be your old granny & scoffing you for dinner.


This is where Mildred serves as counterpoint as its most important. She is the “happy ever after” dissipating the sinister undertow of the image. How could anything be truly wrong when you’ve got a lovely warm cat right there? 

Meanwhile, she’s possibly as interested in Covid as she is in the Colourists.


Lachlan & Mildred: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=84&v=25db58K23IE&feature=emb_logo

Lachlan tours the exhibition, brushes in his back pocket at the ready: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i85vlB2M2k

Article about the exhibition: 

https://artmag.co.uk/lachlan-goudie-tells-the-story-at-scottish-gallery-edinburgh/


Comments