The earlier career of Alexander Runciman and the influences

512 Pages·2014·47.33 MB·English

THE EARLIER CAREER OF ALEXANDER RUNCIMAN AND THE INFLUENCES
THAT SHAPED HIS STYLE.
JOHN DUNCAN MACMILLAN
Ph.D
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
1973
i
CONTENTS.
Summary ii
Chap.I; The Edinburgh Painter-decorators.
Chap.II; James Norie and the work of the Norie firm. 17
Chap.III; William Delacour. 25
ChapoiV; Richard Cooper,father and son. 39
Chap.V; Runciman'~ circle in Edinburgh. 46
Chap.VI; Runciman in Edinburgh to 1767. 65
Chap.VII; John Runciman. 90
Chap.VIII; The Runcimans in Rome, 1767-'69. 110
Chap.IX: Alexander Runciman's Roman work 1767-'69. 121
Chap.X: John Runciman in Italy. 128
Chap.XI: Gavin Hamilton and James Barry. 140
Chap.XII; Alexander Runciman,History Painter. 159
Chap.XIII; The remaining drawings for the first
Penicuik project. 185
Chap.XIV; Other Roman drawings. 195
Chap.XV9 Runciman and Fuseli. 204
Chap.XVI; Runciman's return to Scotland. 215
Chap.XVII; The Hall of Ossian. 227
Chap.XVIII; The Staircases and the Cowgate Chapel. 251
Appendix A; Runciman's letters. 272
Appendix B; Walter Ross's Letter book. 286
Appendix C; Runciman's Account with Walter Ross. 292
Appendix D; Gavin Hamilton's paintings from the Iliad. 295
Manuscript Sources. 337
Bibliography. 343
List of Plates. 352
ii
SUMMARY ..
Alexander Runciman was in his mid-thirties before he adopted the
monumental style of history painting on which his reputation has always
been held to rest. What may be called the formative part of his career
was therefore unusually extended. This thesis is a study of his
development during this time, its background, and the sources from which
derived his ideas on painting. This part of his life culminated in
the monumental 'paintings that h:e did for Sir James Clerk of Penicuik
in 1772 and the related work in the Cowgate Chapel, Edinburgh ..
These were the most important of all his works and were unique in
eighteenth century painting. In them he combined the grand style that
he had learned during the four years that he spent in Rome,with
the native Scottish tradition of decorative painting in which he had
been trained.
The thesis therefore falls into three parts. The first (Chaps.1-7)
deals with his life and background in Edinburgh; the second(Chaps.B-15)
with his four years in Rome; and the third(Chaps.16-18) with the works
that he carried out on his return to Edinburgh. In the first part
attention is given in Chapters 1 to 3 to the men of the older generation
from whom he may have learnt not only his style, but also his ambitions
as a painter. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the circles in which he
moved among his own contemporaries, and the last two chapters in this
part with his own and his younger brother,. John's work in Edinburgh
before they left for Rome in 1767.
In the second part the first three chapters(S-10) cover the brothers'
stay in Rome up to John's death late in 1768, or early in 1769.
Following this event Alexander became determined to succeed, not merely
as a landscape and decorative painter, but in monumental history painting.
Chapter 11 is a discussion of the work of Gavin and of James
Hami~ton
Bar!Y, the two painters who influenced him most at this time. This
discussion is extended in Appendix D which deals more fully with the
work of Gavin Hamilton. Chapters 12-14 are an account of Runciman's
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first works in the new manner, with attention to his
particul~r
proposals for the decoration of Penicuik House. Chapter 15 deals
with his relationship to Fuseli at the end of his Roman stay.
H~nry
The last three chapters give an account of the circumstances in
which he finally carried out his work at Penicuik, and of the pictures
themselves. As they were destroyed by fire in 1899 Chapter 18 and
part of Chapter 19 are devoted to a reconstructiom of their
appear~nce.
The thesis concludes with a discussion of his work in the Cowgate Chapel.
The part of this which survives is all that is left of his monumental
work.
CHAPTER ONE
The Edinburgh Painter-Decorators
Alexander Runciman was by training a tradesman. He served
his apprenticeship as a painter and decorator, and worked at his
trade until, at the age of thirty, he left his business to travel
to Rome. He returned four and a half years later a committed
historical painter, and carried out, at Penicuik House and in the
Cowgate Chapel, Edinburgh, a series of monumental historical
I
decorations in a highly individual style, a variation of the new
Grand Manner which had been initiated in Rome by Gavin Hamilton.
Unlike so many others, he remained thereafter to live and work
in Scotland, and thus became the first important modern Scottish
painter.
He was born in Edinburgh on the 15th August 1736, and was
baptised in the Canongate Church. His parents, James Runciman
1
and Mary Smith, had been married in the previous year. On
the 4th April 1750 he was apprenticed to Robert Norie, and on
that occasion his father was described as "freeman wright in
2
Portsburgh, now resident in the Canongate". The suggestion
made by Cunningham that his father was an architect is therefore
groundless~ and we have no evidence whereby we can explain his
choice of the painter's trade. In 1766 a certain William Smith
appears in the Penicuik accounts receiving 5 guineas on behalf
1. Daniel Wilson, Memorials of Edinburgh in Olden Times,
Edinburgh, 1891, 2 vols. II, 174, n. i. Wilson's
information came from the Runciman family Bible.
2. Register of Edinburgh Apprentices, 1701-1755, Scottish
Record Society, Vol.61, Edinburgh, 1929, 75, and David
Laing, Transcript of the minutes of the Incorporation
of St. Mary's Chapel EUL.
3. Alan Cunningham, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and
Architects, 6 vols. London 1829-33. V, 145.
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. 4
of Runclman. He could conceivably be a maternal uncle, but
there is no evidence that he was in fact a painter, or that
he had anything to do with the Norie firm in which Runciman
was an apprentice and in which he subsequently worked.
What kind of education Runciman received apart from his
apprenticeship we do not know. The records of the Royal High
School are incomplete or non-existent for this early date.
There are no repords at all for any other schools that may have
existed. The little note in verse that he wrote in November,
1760, to Bremen, which is the first thing that we have by his
hand of any kind, shows that he had quite a ready command of
5
language. His other letters bear this out. Though they
are not always orthodox in spelling or grammar, they are
freely, fluently, and sometimes quite vividly written. On
at least one occasion, if it is his own, he manages an apology,
writing to Robert Alexander, that is both elegant and
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effective. His hand, if it is not beautiful, is usually
firm, unaffected and legible. How much Latin or Greek he had,
if he had any at all, it is impossible to say. For a painter
of the kind that he became the classics were obviously of
central importance. He refers to Homer, Virgil, Catullus and
Ovid with the ease of familiarity, and he takes subjects from
l.
both Eurip¢des and Sophocles, but he presumably relied on
translation in all of this, like most of his contemporaries.
Nevertheless his work after the death of his brother in 1768
or /9 shows a wide and imaginative appreciation of the kind of
literature that was only then beginning to become fashionable
4. Penicuik Accounts, 1755-82, Register House, Edinburgh.
5. Appendix A, J. Bremen note to A.R., and A.Ro's reply,
Nov. 18th 1760. EUL Laing Collection.
6. Appendix A, A.R. to Robert Alexander, July 1769. EUL,
Laing Collection.
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among the more advanced artists and poets. He was amongst the
first of his contemporaries to turn his mind to the imaginative
interpretation, not only of Shakespeare and Ossian, but also
of Spenser and Milton.
In his of the poetic possibilities of
un~erstanding
painting he was not entirely dependent on the influence of the
painters that he met in Rome. Although his experience in
Italy had a profound effect on his career, he had already
I
spent his formative years, and more, in Edinburgh. The milieu
to which he belonged there, as an apprentice and tradesman,
was not entirely mundane. On the contrary it was remarkably
lively both in his own, and in the older generation. Through
his apprenticeship he was associated with James Norie, the
father of Robert, and a circle of men who had been champions
thirty years before of the status of the artist in Scotland.
Because of James Norie and his friends the antiquated guild
system in which Runciman was trained to his trade did not prove
inimical to his artistic aspirations. It encouraged them
and fostered them.
In both England and Scotland by the mid-eighteenth century
a number of artists had made respectable reputations as portrait
painters. For example Sir John Medina, a portrait painter, was
the last man to be knighted in the independent kingdom of
Scotland. In the generation before Runciman, Alan Ramsay had
gone forth from a very similar background to his own in
Edinburgh. The case of portrait painting was however very
different from that of other more elevated kinds of art, as
Reynolds was painfully aware. The determination to gain proper
recognition in England for art in this wider sense and for the
artists who practiced it was one of the very few things that he
and Hogarth had in common, and was a major factor in English art
of the period. The foundation of the Royal Academy was one of
its most significant manifestations.
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Scotland had neither a Hogarth nor a Reynolds and had
to wait till the next century for its Royal Academy. There
are signs however that in the early eighteenth· century there
were painters who, though very humble, thought in a similar
way to their illustrious English contemporaries. An important
figure among these was James Norie who founded the firm in
which Alexander Runciman was trained. Norie has left us his
self-portrait seen as a dignified professional artist and
clearly had aspirations beyond the house painting and
whitewashing by which he made his living. (Plate 2.)
Alexander Runciman was not apprenticed to James Norie
but to his son Robert. James Norie was then still active
however and apparently continued to be so up till the year
before his death in 1757, though Robert's name appears more
7
usually on the receipts in these last years. Robert
apparently went on working in the tradition his father had
founded and it was this tradition in which Runciman was
trained. It seems appropriate therefore by way of
introduction to this thesis to say what little we know
about James Norie, and the part that he played in the
earliest manifestations of artistic self-consciousness in
Scotland.
James Norie was born at Knockando in Morayshire in
8
1684. He evidently moved to Edinburgh when young, and,
though we do not know with whom he served his apprenticeship,
7. General accounts of Penicuik House, 1751-55, Register
House; Dean of Guild Accounts, City of Edinburgh,
1752-56.
Scots Magazine, June 1757, Vol. XIX, 326; "Died at
Edinburgh in the 73rd year of his age, James Norie,
painter in that city".
8. (D. Werschmidt), James Norie, Painter, Etlinburgh,
1890' 1 •
-5-
he became a burgess and guild brother of the Incorporation of
9
st. Mary's Chapel on 22nd December 1708. He had his essay-
p~ce prescribed to him on 1st February 1709, a· 'history of
susanna and the elders on primed cloth in oil, the other side
10
to be painted in imitation of lapis-lazuli'. This he
completed satisfactorily and quickly for he was admitted a
11
freeman on the 19th February of that year. According to
t
James the painters who Norie thus joined had only been
Col~n
12
members of the Incorporated Trades since 1703.
On the 30th November 1717 the trades considered a
proposal from the painters and agreed that 'whosoever of the
painter's craft that shall hereafter be admitted to ane
essay shall be allowed the liberty of making a painting
thereof in the high hall or convening house, and not in the
laigh essay house. And whether they shall think fit to
accept of the privilege or not, nevertheless in lieu and
place of the twelve pounds formerly payable by such as
should get the privilege of the said hall they shall be
obliged to give and dedicate to this house the piece to be
painted by them for this essay, put within a handsome frame
13
done at their own charges and expenses' . The painters
thus secured for themselves a privilege which must have
conferred status, and which differentiated them from all
the other trades.
9. David Laing, Notes and Transcriptions from the Minutes
of the Incorporation of st. Mary's Chapel, EUL, Ms.La.
IV.26.
1 0. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. James Colston, The Incorporated Trades of Edinburgh,
Edinburgh, 1891, 65.
13. Laing, Transcriptions. EUL.
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The model for this privilege may well have been the
practice in the Roman and French Academies by which the
painter on becoming a member presented his diploma piece
to the academy. The Etlinburgh painters were then perhaps
thinking of their essays as diploma pieces, and the
Incorporated trades as an academy in potential at least.
James Norie1s essay was clearly quite an elaborate picture.
The painter Roderick Chalmers, who was afterwards
I
secretary of the short lived St. Luke's Academy, had, on
completion of his essay, the Royal Arms of Great Britain,
'obliged himself to gift the foresaid essay piece to the
14
Incorporation•. This was on the 21st May 1709, and in
August the Incorporation decided to have a frame made for
15
it and to hang it in the meeting house. Chalmers, who
died in 1746, styled himself Ross Herald. According to
Laing "he was known as a herald painter and was employed not
only in emblazoning heraldic manuscripts, but in taking
16
charge of funerals, providing banners and escutcheons1•
He contributed a chapter on Funeral Escutcheons to the
second volume of Nisbet's System of heraldry and is there
described as "Herald and Herald painter whose understanding
17
and practice in these matters are well known11 The
•
names of Chalmers and Norie are associated in several places,
notably in the minutes of the Incorporated Trades, in the
founding deed of St. Luke's Academy, and also in 1736 working
18
together for the City in St. Giles's.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. David Laing, Notes on Artists.
17. Alexander Nisbet, A System of Heraldry, etc., 2 vols.,
Edinburgh and London, 1722 and 1742. Second volume
edited with additions by R. Fleming. Cooper also
contributed two important plates.
18. Dean of Guild's Accounts, City of Edinburgh.