One kilt, several looks. A canny Scot's take.

[creagdhubh]

On the contrary, I see similar strange proportions in several of the portraits. The most obvious are John Grant


...who's head seems rather too small to me, and


...Ewan MacPherson, who's head is too small, and who's left arm seems to be suffering from the same disjointed nature as John Campbell.

I'm aware that MacLeay tweaked body proportions to make many of his subjects seem more 'heroic' or 'majestic' than they might have been in real life, but I think he got those aforesaid figures slightly wrong.

I don't mean to take away from what are otherwise superb works of art. I'm not best qualified to be an art critic, being barely able to draw stick figures myself.

I respectfully disagree. As a trained portrait painter with credentials (B.F.A., M.Ed. in Art Education) in oil-painting, drawing, anatomy drawing, sculpture and art history, I believe that MacLeay's compositions of his Highland sitters, and the manner in which he painted them, are, indeed correct. As an fine art undergraduate student, I continually learned throughout a multitude of figure painting/drawing classes that when standing erect, an individual (sitter/model) is typically on average "8 heads high." That is you take the length of the sitter's head (from the very top of the head to the bottom of their chin) and beginning at the top, extend down to their feet, utilising the head length as a rough guide as you travel down.

Kenneth MacLeay, RSA and his wonderful portfolio of work, is such a fine example of a classicly trained (Royal Scottish Academy) Victorian Era miniature/watercolour portrait painter. The detail and colour relationships he achieves is superb and deserves to be looked at over and over...as I tend to do with my own copy of Delia Millar's, The Highlanders of Scotland.

[Calgacus]

I respectfully disagree. As a trained portrait painter with credentials (B.F.A., M.Ed. in Art Education) in oil-painting, drawing, anatomy drawing, sculpture and art history, I believe that MacLeay's compositions of his Highland sitters, and the manner in which he painted them, are, indeed correct. As an fine art undergraduate student, I continually learned throughout a multitude of figure painting/drawing classes that when standing erect, an individual (sitter/model) is typically on average "8 heads high." That is you take the length of the sitter's head (from the very top of the head to the bottom of their chin) and beginning at the top, extend down to their feet, utilising the head length as a rough guide as you travel down.

Kenneth MacLeay, RSA and his wonderful portfolio of work, is such a fine example of a classicly trained (Royal Scottish Academy) Victorian Era miniature/watercolour portrait painter. The detail and colour relationships he achieves is superb and deserves to be looked at over and over...as I tend to do with my own copy of Delia Millar's, The Highlanders of Scotland.

Hi Kyle, I can only bow to your superior knowledge! I'm not being cheeky, it's clear you know infinitely more about art than I do, and I think we can meet at least half way.

I spent a wee bit of time yesterday looking at the proportions of the figures and came to the conclusion that they are, in the main, quite correct as you say. Certainly well within the range of natural human variation! I do however maintain that there are questions over the following figures-

John Campbell's left arm looks slightly out of place. Not a lot, just a bit. It could be just how his jacket is sitting and how he is having to hold his arm over his plaid. I accept that this painting could be entirely accurate to life, it just looks slightly odd.

John Grant's head looks a little too small. Hey, maybe he just had a wee heid!

Ewan MacPherson looks 'tombstoned'. There's something odd about either the proportions or the perspective. It almost looks as if he's leaning back. I checked his proportions against mine (what better subject!) and the match is good in most respects. Waist, shoulders, elbows all match beautifully. His knees are lower than mine, so he maybe had longer thighs and shorter calves. Now maybe he just had thicker calves than me (not difficult) and a smaller head.

Now, the one thing I can't get past. Ewan's head does not appear to be central on his shoulders. That's the only thing that really throws me.

Most of the paintings really are fantastic, I absolutely love them. My least favourite is Willie Ross, there's something just missing about it, a lack of realism I think. Some shine above the others, such as Duncan Drummond & Andrew Murray, Duncan MacGregor, the Mackenzies, Donald Macbeath & Willie Duff, and several more, but the one which really stands out above all the others for me is Angus MacDonell.

If somebody said to me you have to throw away all your books except for one, I think it's the one I'd keep.