Shoreline

2019 - 2023

Many artists look to the sea as a source of inspiration, particularly in Scotland. Some identify themselves with a particular stretch of coast, others are drawn to objects washed up on the shore.

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Shoreline

As an island nation surrounded by water, the sea has a special place in British life and in our imaginations. It is a place of work and leisure as well as a natural frontier from which we look out to a wider world.

Since the 17^th century, artists have looked towards the sea as a source of inspiration. The Romantic movement of the early 19^th century focussed on remote and picturesque areas, leading many artists away from metropolitan centres such as London or Paris. It was not just dramatic seascapes that attracted them, but also the apparently simple lives of the coastal inhabitants. Some artists were drawn to wild, solitary and wide open places, others to the natural and man-made objects washed up on the shores.

Many of the artists in this display identified themselves with a particular stretch of the shoreline or a particular viewpoint from the edge of the sea. In painting it, they shaped anew the way we see it.

Ian Hamilton Finlay

Finlay was a poet and conceptual artist. As a leading member of the international Concrete Poetry movement he produced poetry of words arranged in a specific order for their visual as well as their verbal effect.

These works are examples of two of Finlay’s favourite subjects for his poetry – the boat and the sea. While the ideas behind the artworks are Finlay’s, he collaborated with typographers, printmakers, visual artists and designers. His works were published by Wild Hawthorne Press which he established in 1961.

Finlay’s visual poetics often contain wit and wry humour. For instance, the words we use for describing Greek architectural orders – Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite – are likened to the various shapes on the war ship in the print For the Temples of the Greeks.

Finlay’s interest in the interplay of verbal and visual language can yield unexpected word combinations and suggest hidden meanings.

This selection of prints is part of an archive donated by Scotland’s first art therapist, Joyce Laing OBE. Finlay was a personal friend of Laing and sent her an example of each new poem print as it was made.