Patrick Gibson (artist)

Last updated May 01, 2019

Patrick Gibson (1782?–1829) was a Scottish landscape-painter and writer on art.

Life

He was a native of Edinburgh. The date of his birth is usually given as December 1782, but on the other hand the parochial register of Dollar, Clackmannanshire states that he died in 1829, aged 54. He received a classical education in the High School, Edinburgh, and in a private academy, and studied art under Alexander Nasmyth and in the Trustees' Academy, then taught by John Graham.

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian, it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore.

Dollar is a small town in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. It is one of the Hillfoots Villages, situated between the Ochil Hills range to the north and the River Devon to the south. Dollar is on the A91 road, which runs from Stirling to St Andrews. The town is around 3 miles east of Tillicoultry. The parish of Muckhart extends right up to the eastern edge of Dollar, despite Muckhart's much smaller size. This encompassed Dollar Mine and Pitgober.

Alexander Nasmyth was a Scottish portrait and landscape painter, a pupil of Allan Ramsay.

From 1805 Gibson resided in Lambeth, exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1805, 1806, and 1807, and at the British Institution in 1811. In 1808 he was in Edinburgh, where he joined the Society of Associated Artists, to whose exhibitions he contributed till 1816, and he was represented in the modern exhibitions of the Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland in 1821 and 1822. In the earlier exhibition catalogues his name occasionally appears as "Peter" Gibson.

Lambeth is a district in Central London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area experienced some slight growth in the medieval period as part of the manor of Lambeth Palace. By the Victorian era the area had seen significant development as London expanded, with dense industrial, commercial and residential buildings located adjacent to one another. The changes brought by World War II altered much of the fabric of Lambeth. Subsequent development in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has seen an increase in the number of high-rise buildings. The area is home to the International Maritime Organization.

The British Institution was a private 19th-century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists; it was also known as the Pall Mall Picture Galleries or the British Gallery. Unlike the Royal Academy it admitted only connoisseurs, dominated by the nobility, rather than practicing artists to its membership, which along with its conservative taste led to tensions with the British artists it was intended to encourage and support. In its gallery in Pall Mall the Institution held the world's first regular temporary exhibitions of Old Master paintings, which alternated with sale exhibitions of the work of living artists; both quickly established themselves as popular parts of the London social and artistic calendar. From 1807 prizes were given to artists and surplus funds were used to buy paintings for the nation.

In 1826 Gibson became a foundation member of the Scottish Academy, to whose exhibitions he contributed (1827–9) landscape and architectural subjects, both Scottish and foreign. In 1824 he had been appointed professor of painting in Dollar Academy, and he died there on 23 August 1829.

Dollar Academy, founded in 1818 by benefaction of trader John McNabb, is an independent co-educational day and boarding school in Scotland. The open campus occupies a 70-acre (280,000 m²) site in the centre of the town of Dollar in Central Scotland. The school is at the foot of the Ochil Hills and is surrounded by Clackmannanshire countryside.

Works

In his works in oil, Gibson founded his style on Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. His water-colours were executed with washes of subdued pigments. He was also an etcher, and published in 1818 a series of six Etchings of Select Views in Edinburgh.

Claude Lorrain was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in Italy, and is one of the earliest important artists, apart from his contemporaries in Dutch Golden Age painting, to concentrate on landscape painting. His landscapes are usually turned into the more prestigious genre of history paintings by the addition of a few small figures, typically representing a scene from the Bible or classical mythology.

Nicolas Poussin was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a small group of Italian and French collectors. He returned to Paris for a brief period to serve as First Painter to the King under Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, but soon returned to Rome and resumed his more traditional themes. In his later years he gave growing prominence to the landscapes in his pictures. His work is characterized by clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. Until the 20th century he remained a major inspiration for such classically-oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne.

Gibson contributed a comprehensive article on "Design" to the Encyclopædia Edinensis ; and articles on "Drawing", "Engraving", and "Miniature-painting" to the Edinburgh Encyclopædia . His View of the Progress and Present State of the Arts of Design in Britain, in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1816, noticed minor Scottish painters. He was author under the pseudonym of "Roger Roundrobin, Esq.", of a Letter to the Managers and Directors of the Royal Institution, Edinburgh in 1826. A treatise on Perspective written shortly before his death, was printed but not published.

The Encyclopædia Edinensis was a six-volume general encyclopedia published in Edinburgh in 1827, and intended for a popular audience. It was edited by James Millar, who died just before it was complete.

The Edinburgh Encyclopædia was an encyclopaedia in 18 volumes, printed and published by William Blackwood and edited by David Brewster between 1808 and 1830. In competition with the Edinburgh-published Encyclopædia Britannica, the Edinburgh Encyclopædia is generally considered to be strongest on scientific topics, where many of the articles were written by the editor.

Gibson also contributed to the daily press; and David Laing (Etchings of Wilkie and Geddes) attributed to Gibson a notice of Andrew Geddes's exhibition in the Edinburgh Evening Courant , 15 December 1821.

David Laing LLD was a Scottish antiquary.

Andrew Geddes was a Scottish portrait painter and etcher.

Family

In June 1818 Gibson married Isabella, daughter of William Scott, a teacher of elocution; and his wife is stated to have been a musician and the composer of the tune Comfort.

Related Research Articles

John Crome was an English landscape artist of the Romantic era, one of the principal artists and founding members of the Norwich School of painters. He lived in Norwich for all his life and most of his works are Norfolk landscapes.

Joseph Stannard was an English marine and landscape painter and etcher. He was a talented and prominent member of the Norwich School of painters.

David Roberts RA was a Scottish painter. He is especially known for a prolific series of detailed lithograph prints of Egypt and the Near East that he produced from sketches he made during long tours of the region (1838–1840). These and his large oil paintings of similar subjects made him a prominent Orientalist painter. He was elected as a Royal Academician in 1841.

William Henry Playfair Scottish architect

William Henry PlayfairFRSE was one of the greatest Scottish architects of the 19th century, designer of the Eastern, or Third, New Town and many of Edinburgh's neoclassical landmarks.

Sir George Frederick Harvey, Scottish painter.

Sir William Allan was a distinguished Scottish historical painter known for his scenes of Russian life. He became president of the Royal Scottish Academy and was made a Royal Academician.

Horatio McCulloch, sometimes written MacCulloch or M'Culloch, was a Scottish landscape painter.

John Preston Neale (1780–1847) was an English architectural and landscape draughtsman. Much of his work was drawn, although he produced the occasional watercolour or oil painting. His drawings were used on a regular basis by engravers. A major work, the Views of the seats, Mansions, Castles, etc. of Noblemen and Gentlemen in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland was published in 6 volumes between 1819-23.

Andrew Wilson (1780–1848) was a Scottish landscape-painter.

Scottish art in the nineteenth century is the body of visual art made in Scotland, by Scots, or about scottish subjects. This period saw the increasing professionalisation and organisation of art in Scotland. Major institutions founded in this period included the Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland, the Royal Scottish Academy of Art, the National Gallery of Scotland, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the Glasgow Institute. Art education in Edinburgh focused on the Trustees Drawing Academy of Edinburgh. Glasgow School of Art was founded in 1845 and Grays School of Art in Aberdeen in 1885.

George Aikman ARSA (1830–1905) was a Scottish painter and engraver.

Arthur Perigal was an English historical, portrait and landscape painter.

Andrew Mitchell Thomson (1779–1831) was a minister of the Church of Scotland, known as an evangelical activist and political reformer.

Hugh William Williams FRSE (1773–1829), known as "Grecian Williams", was a Scottish landscape-painter.

Scottish genre art is the depiction of everyday life in Scotland, or by Scottish artists, emulating the genre art of Netherlands painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Common themes included markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes.

Johan Fredrik Martin was a Swedish painter and engraver of the eighteenth century. He worked in a variety of media, especially stipple, contour etching and aquatint.

William Nicholson was a British painter of portraits and other subjects. He was among the founding members of the Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in 1826, and was its first secretary.

Patrick Syme (1774–1845) was a Scottish flower-painter.

References

"Gibson, Patrick" . Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

Attribution

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : "Gibson, Patrick" . Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.