Alexander Nasmyth (9 September 1758–10 April 1840) was a Scottish portrait and landscape painter, often called the "father of Scottish landscape painting".
Biography
Born in Edinburgh, he studied at the Royal High School and the Trustees’ Academy under Alexander Runciman, and, having been apprenticed as an heraldic painter to a coachbuilder, he, at the age of sixteen, attracted the attention of Allan Ramsay, who took the youth with him to London, and employed him upon the subordinate portions of his works. Nasmyth returned to Edinburgh in 1778, and was soon largely patronized as a portrait painter. He also assisted Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, as draughtsman, in his mechanical researches and experiments; and, this gentleman having generously offered the painter a loan to enable him to pursue his studies abroad, he left in 1782 for Italy, where he remained two years.
Robert Burns, 1787.
On his return he painted the portrait of Robert Burns, now in the Scottish National Gallery, well known through William Walker’s engraving. Political feeling at that time ran high in Edinburgh, and Nasmyth’s pronounced Liberal opinions, which he was too outspoken and sincere to disguise, gave offence to many of his aristocratic patrons, and led to the diminution of his practice as a portraitist. In his later years, accordingly, he devoted himself mainly to landscape work, and did not disdain on occasion to set his hand to scene-painting for the theatres. He has been styled, not unjustly, the "father of Scottish landscape art".[citation needed] His subjects are carefully finished and coloured, but are wanting in boldness and freedom.
Nasmyth was also largely employed by noblemen throughout the country in the improving and beautifying of their estates, in which his fine taste rendered him especially skilful. He gained some reputation as an architect, having designed the graceful circular temple covering St Bernard's Well by the Water of Leith (1789), as well as bridges at Almondell, West Lothian, and Tongland, Kirkcudbrightshire.[1]
Nasmyth also taught painting outside his own family and "instilled a whole generation with the importance of drawing as a tool of empirical investigation"; 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.[2] Another of Alexander's successful pupils was Andrew Wilson, painter, teacher, art dealer and connoisseur, who had his first art training under Nasmyth.
He died in Edinburgh and is buried in St Cuthbert's Churchyard at the west end of Princes Street.
Family
His youngest son, James Nasmyth, was the well-known inventor of the steam hammer. Alexander's six daughters all attained a certain local reputation as artists, but it was in his eldest son, Patrick Nasmyth, that the artistic skill of his family was most powerfully developed. Having studied under his father, Patrick went to London at the age of twenty, and soon attracted attention as a clever landscapist. He was a diligent student of the works of Claude and Richard Wilson, and of Ruysdael and Hobbema, upon whom his own practice was mainly founded. His most characteristic paintings are of English domestic scenery, full of quiet tone and colour, and detailed and minute expression of foliage, and with considerable brilliancy of sky effect. They were executed with his left hand, his right having in early life been injured by an accident.
Notes
1. ^ "St Bernard's Well, Listed Building Report". Historic Scotland. http://hsewsf.sedsh.gov.uk/hslive/hsstart?P_HBNUM=27905. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
2. ^ Ian Warrell, in Robert Hewison et al., Ruskin, Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites, Tate Gallery Publishing, 2000, p. 13.
References
* Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Nasmyth, Alexander". Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press. which in turn notes:
o For an account of the Nasmyth family see James Nasmyth’s Autobiography (1883) online version
* For an account of Andrew Wilson see "The Scottish Claude" by John Ramm, Antique Dealer & Collectors Guide, July 1997, Vol 50, No. 12
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