What was the Glasgow School?
Glasgow School Unlike Italy, where regional schools such as Florence,Naples or Venice are very different, yet each has an inner coherence, therehave been only three regional schools in Britain: Norwich, Newlyn and Glasgow, all of them short-lived. The Norwich School was dominated by twomajor artists, Crome and Cotman, and therefore has a stylistic unity, but the Newlyn School and the 'Glasgow Boys' (they were all young) had far less incommon. Both were influenced by the naturalistic plein-air landscapes of the Barbizon School - some of them had been trained in Paris - by similarworks of the Hague School, as well as by Bastien-Lepage. The GlasgowBoys were well acquainted with these pictures because several Glasgow dealerstook a lead in exhibiting them. In England there is a parallel with the NEAC: Whistler was an influence on both. From about 1880 the Glasgow Boys exhibited together and had a great success with a group exhibition in Londonand Munich in 1890, but by c.1895 the disparate tendencies of the group became evident: Lavery (1856-1941), for example, moved to London and became asociety portrait painter. The other main members (there were about twenty inall) were Sir D. Y. Cameron (d.1945), best known for his etchings of Scottishscenery, Joseph Crawhall Jr. (d.1913), who specialized in animal studies. SirJames Guthrie (1859-1930), James Hamilton (d.1932) and Sir George Pirie (d.1946), who painted scenes from Scottish history. Few of them have becomefamous, but in their heyday - Glasgow produced the most avant-garde painters in Scotland, far exceeding any working in Edinburgh, whichremained always more conventional. It was standard practice among the Glasgow painters to work in the studio in the winter, but to paint their landscapesen plein air in the summer. Some visited Paris, and though it is possible todiscern some influence from the d. Impressionists, their own style was sufficientlywell established that similarities are more in outlook than in practice. Glasgowhad a good art school, and in 1907-9 the sensational new library wing by C. R.Mackintosh increased the confidence of the Glasgow artists, while the animusof Edinburgh caused it to shut its doors against them. For this reason, manymigrated to London - Lavery, Petrie, Orchardson (a perceptive genre painterof society manners) and McWhirter - and found a more receptive audiencesouth of the border. Unfortunately, World War I blighted the careers of someof the original group, and some did not survive it, so that it had no continuingrole.
Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin Reference Books)
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