Art, John Duncan

Today I have decided to revisit and slightly expand upon my very first contribution to Art Sunday. Unbelievably that was just 5 months ago, it was on May 3rd this year and it was almost my first entry to this site………..can’t believe its only 5 months ago seems like I have been here for ever. John Duncan is such an important Scottish Artist I wanted to show more, bigger and better images of his paintings, and for those who didn’t read it first time round, I’ve copied and added to the write up too. Hope you enjoy this, he is still one of my favourite Scottish Celtic Revivalists.

 

John Duncan (1866-1945)

John Duncan (1866-1945) was born and educated in Dundee. His father was a cattleman, but unlike his father he showed  a total disinterest in the family business and a growing propensity for visual art. By the age of 11 he was already a working student at the Dundee School of Art.  He was called a madman by some contemporaries but a spiritual mystic by others. He admitted to, even boasted of hearing "faerie music" whilst he painted. After a couple of years working as an illustrator in London, he traveled abroad and studied art in Belgium and Germany he then returned to his Celtic roots in Scotland. His work is strongly rooted in the Pre-Raphaelite movement, but there are noticeable graphical quality which sets it apart from his contemporaries, unlike them his work sits well with the Art Nouveau movement. Eventually he settled in Edinburgh and became one of THE artists in the “Celtic Revival”.  Patrick Geddes commissioned him to work in the Ramsey Gardens project, Edinburgh, an experimental and very forward thinking housing project.   Duncan created Celtic paintings such as ‘The Riders of the Sidhe’ (1912, McManus Galleries, Dundee) during this period which is the painting I originally featured back in May.  He sought to reinvent and re-present Celtic imagery through borrowing subjects from myths, legends and decorative devices from early Celtic art.  His subject matter is steeped in Celtic Revival but he is generally referred to as a "symbolist" by art critics. His exotic choice of subject matter overflowed into his personal life and he fell in love with a woman whom he believed to have discovered the Holy Grail in a well in Glastonbury and who later divorced him. He never remarried and died in 1945.

FURTHER READING
John Kemplay, The Paintings of John Duncan. A Scottish Symbolist (Pomegranate 1994)

The Fairies

John Duncan's The Riders of the Sidhe from 1911 depicts the Sidhe, or the Celtic Fairies, a divine race who inhabit the Otherworld of the dead; perceived only in visionary states of mind and usually at liminal places such as stone circles, sacred groves, wells and 'fairy hills' or 'fairy glens'.
In the introduction to her drama The Immortal Hour; Fiona Macleod emphasises that the Sidhe, or 'Hidden People… were great and potent, not small and insignificant beings'; as Duncan's portrayal of them reinforces. Macleod's re-telling of the ancient poem The March of the Faërie Host which she includes in her anthology of celtic poetry Lyra Celtica almost reads as a description of Duncan's painting:

'…Sons of kings and queens are one and all.
On all their heads are
Beautiful golden-yellow manes:

With smooth, comely bodies,
With bright blue-starred eyes,
With pure crystal teeth,
With thin red lips…'

The Sidhe are 'setting out on the eve of Beltane… bearing symbols as follows: the tree of life and of knowledge, the cup of the heart of abundance and healing, the sword of the will on the active side, and the crystal of the will on its passive side;' symbols which Lindsay Errington perceives as 'betraying in their type of symbolism the still lingering influence of Patrick Geddes.'
Experiences of the Sidhe are usually accompanied by sonorous phenomena; Duncan claimed to have heard 'fairy music' whilst painting; and seems naturally inclined towards trance-like states; as John Kemplay writes in his book on Duncan:
'he saw with the "inner eye" of his imagination forms more beautiful than any he had ever seen with the "outer eye". But these were not forms alone; they were "living people with quick eyes and strange solemn gestures who move as if in some ritual."

 

THE LEGEND OF THE SIDHE

This is the legend of the Sidhe, the Celtic Fairie folk from way back in the mists of time. The Celtic names are a little difficult but the stories are wonderful

The people known as "The Sidhe" or people of the mounds, or "The Lordly Ones" or "The Good People" were descended from the "Tuatha de Danann" who settled in Ireland millennia ago and in being defeated by the Milesians they retreated to a different dimension of space and time than our own, believed to be living under mounds and fairy raths and cairns,  and also the land of "Tír na nÓg" a mythical island to the west of Ireland.  Placenames in Ireland with the pre-nouns Lis, Rath, and Shee are associated with these people for example Lismore, Lisdoonvarna, Sheemore, Rathfarnham etc.

Down through the ages the Sidhe have been in contact with mortals giving protection, healing and even teaching some of their skills to mortals - Smithcraft or the working of metals being one such skill.  Cuillen (Culann) is one such sidhe smith who has been told of in the legends of Cúchulainn and the later legends of Fionn mac Cumhail.

The Gaelic word sí or síog refers to these otherworldly beings now called fairies.  The Irish fairy is not like the diminutive fairies of other European countries, the Sidhe are described as tall and handsome in all accounts, also they are dressed very richly and accounts of their halls are of richly decorated places with sumptuous foods and drinks.

The Sidhe are generally benign until angered by some foolish action of a mortal.  Many trees and mounds are considered under their protection and if a mortal destroys or damages these then a curse is put upon himself and his family.  In some parts of the countryside people would not build their houses over certain "fairy paths" because of the type of disturbances which would ensue.

Whenever a host of the Sidhe appears there is a strange sound like the humming of thousands of bees also a whirlwind or shee-gaoithe is caused.

 

 

the Ledgend of  Danu,
mother, queen, life giver,
your sweetness is the salt kiss
where ocean meets land.
You are the wellspring of fertility,
Queen of all Sidhe,
shining jewel of Ireland.
I am enveloped in your mist,
your loving embrace,
a child come happily home
Katrin Auch
Danu is the oldest Celtic Goddess, known also as Don and Anu. Her influence spread far across the British Isles and Europe, where the Danube river was named for her. Few stories about Danu have survived, and yet the reverence in which she was held still remains. It is told that those who worshipped her, the Tuatha de Danaan (the children of Danu), retreated into the hollow hills of Ireland when Christianity overcame the old ways. There, they became immortal, the Sidhe or faery folk, and Danu's legend lives on as the Goddess of faery ways. Danu is the power that is in the land, never to be overcome by mortals. And Her power is in the imagination of those who see magic in the twilight mist between the worlds.

delete reply acousticeagle wrote on Oct 6, '08 Very lovely paintings. I like the romance of the Pre Raphaelites, and the ethereal way they portray the face and the linear yet flowing form of the body.

delete reply starfishred wrote on Oct 6, '08 wonderful loretta he is really interesting thanks for giving us a little more on him

delete reply aimlessjoys wrote on Oct 5, '08 Very well done. I'm acquainted w/WB Yeats on the Sidhe, but this is a wonderful expansion of that. Very rich with color, form, info & magic!

delete reply lauritasita wrote on Oct 5, '08 Loretta, this is so georgeous ! You should take all the paintings and poetry and publish them in a book. It's truly beautiful. Thanks so much.

delete reply philsgal7759 wrote on Oct 5, '08 The colors patterns and story telling within his work is amazing thanks

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Oct 5, '08 color and magic :)

delete reply brendainmad wrote on Oct 5, '08 I have no doubt that Duncan did hear fairies and I'm sure the Sidhe gave him his talent. He sounds like a real character. Who cares if he was a little strange!

delete reply greenwytch wrote on Oct 5, '08 captivating and enchanting........i love each and every one of them!

delete reply veryfrank wrote on Oct 5, '08 I love this. I have always had an interest in the legends of the Sidhe and Duncan brings them to life, gives them image, one can cease to imagine 'the little people.' I especially like the portrait of Danu. I had heard the story of the naming of the Danube, but not hearing the names Don and Anu. All fascinating lore and just wonderful paintings. There is a musical group touring here, Celtic Thunder, and they do a mix of Scottish and Irish music. There are several songs based on Sidhe stories. I am hoping that they release a recording of the performance. Thank you for the posting.

delete reply edtrain5 wrote on Oct 5, '08 Well done. Most impressive. A weeks worth of college lectures compacted into one posting.