Alexander Hamilton – The Glenfinlas Cyanotypes
Studio 11, 17 William Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7NGThe Glenfinlas Cyanotypes
Alexander Hamilton, an Edinburgh-based artist, here returns to his favourite medium of camera-less photography, using a technique called cyanotype, one of the oldest photographic processes. Each cyanotype plant image is unique and the technique, with its rich tones of many shades of blue, creates contemplative studies, capturing each plant’s individual character and essence. All the plants have been collected from the rocks and banks of the Glenfinlas Burn.
“The place is of great importance in the history of British landscape painting for it was here that the first major example of Ruskinian Pre-Raphealitism was created.”
- Alistair Grieve
Ruskin Artists, 2000
In the summer of 1853 John Ruskin stayed in Brig O’Turk on Glenfinlas Burn with his wife Effie and his friend and disciple John Everett Millais. Ruskin had his portrait painted by Millais standing on a rock in the middle of the burn. During his stay in Brig O’Turk, Ruskin was also preparing his lectures on art and architecture, which were delivered a few months later in Edinburgh. The landscape of Glenfinlas Burn, with its complex movements of water, variety of rocks, and multitude of plants, lichens and trees, made a deep and longlasting impression on Ruskin and on Hamilton, who in this exhibition conveys his own interest in plants and in Ruskin’s thinking about art and its relationship to nature.
Also showing
Cyanotypes of Flowers
Hill Street Theatre
19 Hill Street, Edinburgh, EH2 3JP. Map ref 2b.
An exhibition of Alexander Hamilton’s cyanotypes of roses, irises, poppies and other flowers, remarkable for the exquisite delicacy with which they record their fragile subject.
1 Aug - 28 Aug
11am - 11pm
Admission Free
4 Aug - 16 Aug
Mon - Sat 1pm - 4pm
Admission Free
The exhibition continues at Lawrie Thomson, 3 Alva Street, Edinburgh EH2 4PH.
1 Aug - 30 Aug
Mon - Sat 10am - 5pm
Admission Free