"Yet I Am Here" - Esther
There are many stereotypes about Scotland & Scottish people. Some of them are oddly justified, some are very silly. Some of them we tend to be pleased with & others irritated by. I imagine it is a minefield for the unsuspecting non-Scot, what with our infamous propensity to drink & unpredictable violence. Haha. But what I will say is, when I was growing up, there was always a portrait of Robert Burns (1759-96) hanging on the living room wall above the little bookcase. There he smiled in his golden frame, gazing poetically into the distance, probably thinking romantic thoughts. It was of course the most famous 1787 rendering of his likeness by his friend Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840). Just as many English pubs & all British Legion buildings have a portrait up of the Queen, so our house had the Scottish Bard.
Nasmyth (1787)
As a family we visited his birthplace, a long, low thatched building, did the tourist thing in our own country & found it interesting. There’s a statue of Robert in Aberdeen city centre (Henry Bain Smith 1857-1893) & I knew from an early age that people kept stealing the daisy he holds & the council had to keep replacing it. I grew up therefore having a positive attitude towards Robert Burns, always knowing exactly who he was & liking the look of him. Mind you, at that time apart from Auld Lang Syne & The Selkirk Grace I would have said I couldn’t have repeated any of his words to you. That is, until I realised how many of his phrases have wangled their way into everyday language. The best laid schemes…, To see ourselves as others see us…, Man’s inhumanity to man… For some reason I was always aware of the phrase Nursing her wrath to keep it warm… but it’s probably best to draw a veil over that one. When you’re older, you realise what an absolute gift it is to read, hear & understand Burns & how relevant & universal many of his thoughts, ideas & attitudes are.
I could easily be diverted at this point, but we’re here for the art & we’ll kick off with the aforementioned Nasmyth. A pupil of painter Allan Ramsay, Edinburgh’s Alexander Nasmyth made his name painting portraits then later, when he fell out of favour due to his liberal principles, landscapes & theatre scenery. His most famous painting was commissioned by William Creech to accompany the publication of Burns’s Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect & Nasmyth subsequently created several copies in different media. The original depicts Robert as a fashionable gentleman as well as a soft-centred idealist. As Nasmyth painted landscapes that actually existed, we can assume this one is from reality. There are distant buildings over the poet’s right shoulder, a hill with bushes & trees at the other side. The skies fairly lour above & behind him & it all befits the Ayrshire countryside.
Nasmyth, 1828
There is another well-known portrayal of Burns by Nasmyth in the form of a full figure painting, created long after Burns’s death & using the original head-shot as its basis. Here Burns is shown by the Auld Brig o’ Doon at Alloway which he famously immortalised in Tam o’ Shanter & in the area where he was brought up.
Skirving, 1796-8
Nasymth of course was not the only artist to have commemorated Robert in art but many copied his painting since it was most widely regarded as a true likeness. Perhaps the most successful of these is Archibald Skirving’s (1749-1819) beautiful & sensitive chalk drawing from 1796-8. The details are incredibly delicate & well observed. As with much information regarding Burns though, it is irritatingly unclear whether Skirving met him & therefore based his work partly on memory – sources are conflicted. Idealised & dreamy as this portrait may seem at first glance, his gaze nevertheless possesses a more laconic, possibly sarcastic quality that greatly appeals to me.
Faed, 1852
Some artists chose to represent Burns as a writer, as in Composing The Cotter’s Saturday Night (c.1786, artist unknown) & Thomas Faed’s (1825/6-1900) Robert Burns & Highland Mary (1852). Faed also painted Burns with “Highland” Mary Campbell in 1850; this was a woman Burns had been in love with & had subsequently written three songs about. As is often the way, her early death perhaps particularly inspired both poet & artist to romanticise their affair.
J Nasmyth, ?
James Nasmyth (1808-1890), (son of Alexander Nasmyth) not only painted the unusual figure within the landscape of Robert Burns at Rosslyn (painted from a sketch by the artist's father) but was also the inventor of the steam hammer. In fact, most of Alexander’s eleven children became artists in their own right.
Reid, 1795/6
It is Alexander Reid’s (1747-1823) miniature profile version of Robert however that the poet himself is said to have believed to be the most lifelike. At a minuscule 7.6 x 6.3 cm, it was created in 1795/6 in the last months of Burns’s life. It is documented that he wrote in a letter, “Apropos pictures, I am now sitting to Reid in this town for a miniature & I think he has hit the best likeness of me ever taken.”
Taylor, 1786
& despite being somewhat beefier than Nasmyth’s Burns, Reid’s is nonetheless preferable to Peter Taylor’s 1786 image. Taylor & Burns had met at a dinner party that year. Just predating Nasmyth’s painting, Taylor’s Robert looks too cheaply dandyish, too weary, sitting too awkwardly for a nation to fully get behind. Artistically it’s not as accomplished & it’s certainly not as well composed. & if there are some bad Nasmyth copies in existence the copies of Taylor’s are infinitely worse.
John Beugo, 1787
There are innumerable artists that have attempted the task of portraying one of Scotland’s most famous figures but so many are just based on the Nasmyth portrait. For many reasons, his is my Burns & the Burns of numerous others, the Burns we want to believe in. It’s a detailed & charming image, the sparkle in his eyes bringing him to life & inspiring countless artists since.
In sentimental old Scotland, Burns salutes the beginning & the end of January, through Auld Lang Syne at Hogmanay into the New Year & through his birthday on the 25th. I feel however we should also celebrate Alexander Nasmyth, for giving us a Robert Burns to be proud of: ordinary enough to be believable but handsome enough to want to put his face on money (£10 sterling, formerly £5 if you’re interested).
I wish you all the best for the coming year & finish with some hopeful words from Robert Burns himself:
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.
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