Horatio McCulloch

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White Horse Close, Edinburgh, 1845, National Gallery of Scotland.
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White Horse Close, Edinburgh, 1845, National Gallery of Scotland.

Horatio McCulloch, sometimes written M'Culloch, (born 1806 in Glasgow, Scotland; died 1867) was a Scottish landscape painter.

Contents

[edit] Life

In 1825 he moved to Edinburgh, where he began painting in the tradition of Alexander Nasmyth. He returned to Glasgow in 1827 but moved to Edinburgh yet again in 1838, this time staying for good. The same year, he became a member of the Royal Scottish Academy.

He studied for a year under John Knox, a Glasgow landscapist of some repute, was then engaged at Cumnock, painting the ornamental lids of snuffboxes, and afterwards employed in Edinburgh by Lizars, the engraver, to color the illustrations in Selby's British Birds and similar works. Meanwhile he was working unweariedly from nature, greatly influenced in his early practice by the watercolours of H. V. Williams. Returning to Glasgow in some four or five years, he was employed on several large pictures for the decoration of a public hail in St. George's Place, and he did a little as a theatrical scene-painter. About this time he was greatly impressed with a picture by Thomson of Duddingston. Gradually MacCulloch asserted his individuality, and formed his own style on a close study of nature; his works form an interesting link between the old world of Scottish landscape and the new. In 1829 MacCulloch first figured in the Royal Scottish Academy's exhibition, and year by year, till his death on the 24th of June 1867, he was a regular exhibitor.

McCulloch was inspired by the writings of Sir Walter Scott and the expressive landscape works of John Thompson, friend of Scott's and minister at Duddingston Kirk, Edinburgh, whom he had met in the 1820s. McCulloch died in 1867. He is buried at Warriston Cemetery in Edinburgh.

Glencoe, Argyllshire, 1864, National Gallery of Scotland.
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Glencoe, Argyllshire, 1864, National Gallery of Scotland.

[edit] Works

His early works include paintings of Cadzow Forest near Hamilton and grand views of the Clyde. He undertook regular summer sketching tours of the West Highlands, completing the sketches as paintings as back in his studio. These paintings celebrate the romantic scenery of the Scottish Highlands and evoke a magnificent sense of scale, emphasising the dramatic grandeur.

Several works by MacCulloch were engraved by William Miller and William Forrest, and volume of photographs from his landscapes, with an excellent biographical notice of the artist by Alexander Fraser, R.S.A., was published in Edinburgh in 1872.

His best known works are of the Highlands, painted in the Victorian style. The most famous include:

  • Glencoe, Argyllshire (1864)
  • Loch Katrine (1866)

[edit] References


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