Alexander Nasmyth
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox artist
Alexander Nasmyth (9 September 1758Template:Snd10 April 1840) was a Scottish portrait and landscape painter, a pupil of Allan Ramsay. He also undertook several architectural commissions.
BiographyEdit
Nasmyth was born in Edinburgh on 9 September 1758.<ref name="EB1911">Template:Cite EB1911 Endnote: For an account of the Nasmyth family see James Nasmyth's Autobiography (1883)</ref> He studied at the Royal High School and the Trustees' Academy and was apprenticed to a coachbuilder. Aged sixteen, he was taken to London by portrait painter Allan Ramsay where he worked on subordinate parts of Ramsay's works.<ref name="EB1911" /> Nasmyth returned to Edinburgh in 1778, where he worked as a portrait painter. Offered a loan by Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, Nasmyth left in 1782 for Italy, where he remained two years furthering his studies.<ref name="EB1911" /><ref name = "Skinner1966">Skinner, Basil (1966), Scots in Italy in the 18th Century, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, p. 25</ref> In Italy he devoted most of his attention to landscape painting, and is recorded as having copied a work by Claude Lorrain.<ref>Macmillan 1986, p.142. Macmillan suggests that his interest in Classical landscape painting may have been due to the example of the Scottish artist Jacob More, then resident in Rome.</ref>
Nasmyth returned to Scotland where for the next few years he continued his career as a portraitist. He painted some works in the style of Ramsay, but most were conversation pieces with outdoor settings.<ref name="EB1911" /><ref name=mac142>Macmillan 1986, p.142</ref> His portrait of Robert Burns, who became a close friend,<ref name=mac142/> is now in the Scottish National Gallery. Eventually, Nasmyth's strong Liberal opinions offended many of his aristocratic patrons in a politically charged Edinburgh, leading to a falling off in commissions for portraits,<ref name="EB1911" /> and in 1792 he completely abandoned the genre, turning instead to landscape painting. He also began painting scenery for theatres, an activity he continued for the next thirty years, and in 1796 painted a panorama.<ref name=mac144>Macmillan 1986, p.144</ref>
His landscapes are all of actual places, and architecture is usually an important element.<ref>Macmillan 1986, p.141</ref> Some works were painted to illustrate the effects that new buildings would have on an area, such as Inverary from the Sea, painted for the Duke of Argyll to show the setting a proposed lighthouse.<ref name=mac145>Macmillan 1986, p.145</ref>
Nasmyth had a great interest in engineering, and proposed several ideas that were later widely used, although he never patented any of them.<ref name=mac145/> In October 1788, when Patrick Miller sailed the world's first successful steamship, designed by William Symington, on Dalswinton Loch, Nasmyth was one of the crew.<ref name=mac142/>
He was employed by members of the Scottish nobility in the improvement and beautification of their estates. He designed the circular temple covering St Bernard's Well by the Water of Leith (1789), and bridges at Almondell, West Lothian, and Tongland, Kirkcudbrightshire.<ref>Template:Historic Environment Scotland</ref> In 1815 he was one of those invited to submit proposals for the expansion of Edinburgh New Town.<ref>Macmillan 1986, p.142.</ref>
Nasmyth set up a drawing school<ref name=mac144/> and "instilled a whole generation with the importance of drawing as a tool of empirical investigation";<ref name=turner/> his pupils included David Wilkie, David Roberts, Clarkson Stanfield and John Thomson of Duddingston;<ref name=mac145/> and it was probably from him that John James Ruskin (father of John Ruskin) learned to paint as a schoolboy in Edinburgh in the later 1790s.<ref name=turner>Template:Cite book</ref> Another successful pupil was the painter, teacher, art dealer and connoisseur Andrew Wilson, who had his first art training under Nasmyth. Nasmyth was not only the tutor to the polymath Mary Somerville but he also introduced her to the leading intellectuals in Edinburgh.<ref name="Chapman2014">Template:Cite book</ref>
Nasmyth died at home, 47 York Place<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> (roughly opposite the house of Sir Henry Raeburn), in Edinburgh. He was buried in St Cuthbert's Churchyard at the west end of Princes Street. The grave lies in the southern section towards the south-west.
FamilyEdit
He married Barbara Foulis, the daughter of Sir James Foulis, 5th Baronet of Colinton, on 3 January 1786.<ref>Grant's Old and New Edinburgh vol.III</ref><ref name="James Nasmyth">Template:Cite book</ref>
Nasmyth's eldest six daughters all became notable artists. His daughters were Jane, Barbara, Margaret, Elizabeth, Anne and Charlotte.<ref>Template:Cite ODNB</ref> His eldest son, Patrick Nasmyth, studied under his father, then went to London and attracted attention as a landscapist.<ref name="EB1911" /> Another son, James Nasmyth, invented the steam hammer.<ref name="EB1911" /> He had three other children, Alexander, George and Mary.<ref name="James Nasmyth" />
Architectural commissionsEdit
Nasmyth obtained several commissions as architect (in terms of a masterplan and artistic concept): notably Rosneath House and Dunglass Castle.<ref>Scotland's Lost Houses by Ian Gow</ref> In 1810, he designed the Nasmyth Bridge as part of the Almondell Estate, now in the Almondell and Calderwood Country Park.
GalleryEdit
- View of Tantallon Castle and the Bass Rock by Alexander Nasmyth, NGS.JPG
View of Tantallon Castle and the Bass Rock
- Alexander Nasmyth - A View of Edinburgh from the West - Google Art Project.jpg
A View of Edinburgh from the West (1822–6)
- Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840) - The Port of Leith - CAC1978-227 - City Art Centre.jpg
The Port of Leith, 1824
- High Street and the Lawn Market, Edinburgh.png
- Alexander Nasmyth - Princes Street with the Commencement of the Building of the Royal Institution - Google Art Project.jpg
Princes Street, 1825
- Nasmyth Alexander Highland Loch.jpg
A Highland Loch landscape
- Alexander Nasmyth - Stage Design for Heart of Midlothian; Deans' Cottage - Google Art Project.jpg
Stage design for Heart of Midlothian; Deans' Cottage
- PG 1063Burns Naysmithcrop.jpg
Robert Burns (1787)
- Alexander Nasmyth - Robert Burns, 1759 - 1796. Poet - Google Art Project.jpg
Robert Burns, 1759Template:Snd1796. Poet
NotesEdit
SourcesEdit
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- For an account of Andrew Wilson see "The Scottish Claude" by John Ramm, Antique Dealer & Collectors Guide, July 1997, Vol 50, No. 12
Further readingEdit
- Skinner, Basil (1966), Scots in Italy in the 18th Century, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
- Macmillan, Duncan (1984), Scottish Painting: The Later Enlightenment, in Parker, Geoff (ed.), Cencrastus No. 19, Winter 1984, pp. 25 – 27, Template:Issn
- J. C. B. Cooksey, Alexander Nasmyth H.R.S.A. 1758-1840: a Man of the Scottish Renaissance (Southampton, 1991) Template:ASIN