We went to see an exhibition of the paintings of the Scottish ‘colourist’ John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961) today at the Hunterian Gallery which is part of Glasgow University.
I was not that taken with Fergusson’s paintings. I don’t think he found his style and he seemed lost in trying to find it. I suspect he was not serious enough about his art and simply did not ‘look’ enough.
Of course, I could be completely wrong: It is just how his work struck me.
I was amused to find that the two works that stood out for me in the exhibition turned out not to be by him at all. One was by another colourist – Samuel Peploe and it was just a simple scene of a few trees in the Scottish countryside.
What sets one scene off from a similar scene? What makes one painting good and another meaningless? The more I look at paintings the more I think it is some exactness of perspective that makes or breaks a painting.
The other works that I liked were a small series of four or five small painted drawings by Fergusson’s lover – Margaret Morris. They were people in costumes for a ballet or something similar and the draughtsmanship was excellent.
Ambience
Now to the point of this article. When Fergusson was in France in about 1890, he wrote to someone back home and referred to that situation where everything is so good that one just wants to and has to work.
He mentioned the word that the French use for this – ‘ambience’.
From which I conclude that at the end of the 1800s, the word had not yet been incorporated in the English language.