Art In Action: New Year’s Resolutions In Art
By DARLA MCCAMMON,
Lakeland Art Association
You would be amazed and amused at the number of art works that reflect New Year’s resolutions. There are paintings of obese people, paintings of ashtrays with cigarettes dangling and promises to quit smoking. I found a painting about the demons of drinking and why it should be resolved to quit. Another painting appealed to the viewer to spend more time in the New Year with their children.
Perhaps one of the best-known paintings, and perhaps one you might recognize from Christmas card fame, was one urging us to exercise. The Skating Minister was done by Scotsman Henry Raeburn who was well known for his portraiture work. The work was done in 1790. The complete name of the oil painting was Rev. Robert Walker Skating on Duddington Loch, but was shortened to the three word title above for simplicity’s sake.
This was perhaps the most active and surprisingly different portrait ever done by Raeburn which may explain why there have been some questions about whether or not he was really the artist who created the work. The controversy began in 2005 when a curator from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery attributed the painting to a French artist named Henri-Pierre Danloux. This caused quite a stir but the painting was sent to an exhibit in New York later than year for Tartan Day and the newspapers reported how the Director of The Scottish Gallery overruled the curator and “accepted the painting as being done by Raeburn.”
The minister, Walker, portrayed vigorously skating by Raeburn, was a Scotland clergyman born in 1755 in Monkton, Ayrshire. As a child he had learned to skate on the Netherlands many frozen canals. He fathered five children with his wife Jean Fraser and one imagines they all became good skaters as well. Walker was a founding member of the Edinburgh Skating Club, known as the very first figure skating club formed anywhere in the world. The club members assembled to skate at either Duddingston Loch (as in the painting—photo provided) or at Lochend Loch located northeast of Duddingston between Edinburgh and Leith.
Popular culture has taken note of Walker. A group called “Clean Bandit” made a video for Youtube in which the skating minister is portrayed by a different skater and set to their music.
Raeburn has been discussed in our column before. He was one of the most significant and prolific portrait painters ever to live in Scotland. He served as Portrait Painter to King George IV.
Have you made your New Year’s resolutions? Mine usually revolve around doing more exercise and losing weight. They usually last for about seven days. Happy New Year.
Upcoming and Current Events:
- The Kim Rieff exhibit is now up and hanging at Warsaw City Hall. Rieff is an excellent artist and directs and teaches art at Grace College. Come see her vivid and beautiful work. You can visit this gallery from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily. Main Floor.
- Lakeland Art Gallery: Closed for the season. Watch for grand opening at new location. Stay tuned at Facebook or www.lakelandartassociation.org.
Contact your author/artist Darla McCammon at email: [email protected]. Or web site at www.darlamc.com or you can Facebook a connection. Happy Holidays.