The Recording Scotland collection is a set of watercolours, oils and prints collected during World War II to permanently capture the landscapes and buildings as well as the “feeling” of the nation.  Each piece of artwork was chosen because it captured an essential view of Scotland; with emphasis on the places most likely threatened by war and industrialization.  This is part six of a series of blogs about different aspects of the Recording Scotland collection.

Lockdown has led to all of us spending a lot of time contemplating the inside of our homes.  Whether it is debating over new paint colours or curtains, or maybe rearranging furniture, we have spent months looking at our interior world.  Little details, like dust or chipping paint, loom large when you are forced to look at them day in and day out.  Sometimes you get up and dust, sometimes you keep watching Netflix.  We have also longed to see new interiors, another home or building that is not quite so mundane.  We dream of visiting shops, restaurants, churches, and museums, simply for something new and engaging.

However, staying inside has also kept us safe and allowed us the opportunity to reconnect with our families and to appreciate what we do have. Staying inside has been a singular and communal effort to protect everyone from Covid-19.  British citizens did the same thing during the World Wars.  From staying together, and turning out lights, they worked to protect each other by the simple act of seeking shelter.  While not as common as the lovely landscapes that make up most of the Recording Scotland collection, a few pieces focus on the interior of a location, and how people live in relationship to that interior.  The quick glimpses can give us insights into the parts of life that were already changing, and those that stood on the precipice of destruction.

The main images of interiors are from cathedrals and churches.  The paintings show the sweep of high arches and vast empty buildings.  The churches are shadowed.  Colours are muted, and their stained-glass windows are dimmed, if shown at all.  These are reflections on the impact of the war on these places of worship.  Cathedrals were situated in cities, standing tall and imposing, and making clear targets for enemy bombs.  They are shown empty as soldiers perished in distant fields, and families mourned at home.  They can also reflect glimmers of hope.

Carmichael’s lithograph of St. Paul’s Cathedral Church in Dundee has those hallmarks of vast space and curved arches, but it also features a woman and child walking down the aisle.  They are some of the largest human figures featured in the collection paintings.  They are in the foreground, close to the artist.  There is hope conveyed by their presence.  They appear unhurried as they walk along.  This early piece was drawn around 1913 and captures a view of Scotland before the impact of two wars.  Its inclusion in the collection speaks more about the committee that chose it, that they wanted to preserve this view of a Dundee church with its vast hopefulness and light.

The watercolour of Iona Cathedral is also another study of a church interior.  This work is soft with muted tones.  The light streams into the building and you see just a hint of colour in the corner of a cloth cover.  No people give movement to the interior.  The empty chairs sit in silent vigil, waiting for people to arrive to listen and reflect.  As J. B. Salmond put it, “perhaps in the revolutions of the world, Iona may be some time again the instructress of the Western regions.”  The image of Iona reveals a location waiting to be populated, like so many church buildings today.

The third interior featured this week is very different from the first two images.  “A Byre in Benderloch” by George Pirie is no cathedral.  It is a simple barn, full of straw and fluffy chickens.  It is haphazard and crooked in construction.  It lacks sharp details but seems to reflect a refuge for the farm animals.  There is light streaming into the dim space, illuminating the birds within.  The barn would not be a target for enemy aircraft, but this byre could eventually make way for a new barn or fall into disuse as people moved away from their farms.  This was a humble and admiring view of a farm, and the safety it provides through shelter and sustenance.

Three interiors only make up a small part of the collection, but their views give us pause as we reflect on both the majestic and the mundane. We do not know if the byre in Benderloch still exists, but luckily both St. Paul’s Cathedral and Iona Cathedral have survived the decades, and now their greatest threats are the ravages of weather and time.  Hopefully this week you take another look at your own interior views, maybe take a picture or draw something that can remind you about right now, and then sit back and try to see what it reflects about you.

The Recording Scotland collection is a set of paintings and sketches collected during World War II to permanently capture the “feeling” of the nation. Each piece of artwork was chosen because it was an essential view of Scotland; with emphasis on the places most likely threatened by war and industrialisation. This is part two of a series of blogs about different aspects of the Recording Scotland collection.

In the late 1940s, James Bell Salmond (1891-1958), a St Andrews alumnus and World War I veteran, was asked by Principal Sir James Irvine to write text to go along with a series of watercolour paintings from the Recording Scotland collection publication.

Salmond had been an active student at St Andrews and graduated with a degree in Political Economy in 1913. He began his professional life as a journalist and editor. Not long after, he enlisted in the First World War and saw action on the Western Front and was wounded. At the time he was known for writing poems about his wartime experiences in the Scots dialect and editing the hospital newsletter from his bed. He returned to Dundee to continue editing newspapers and magazines, ultimately establishing himself as a prominent citizen.

When the Second World War broke out, Salmond served with the Homeguard in Dundee and became the Keeper of Muniments (the university’s institutional archive) and the warden of St Salvator’s Hall in St Andrews. Salmond spent time over four decades writing histories of the military and golf, two novels, and his works of poetry. As he liked to put it, he was a “journalist reporting/ A thing or two in rhyme.”

It was not a surprise when Sir James Irvine asked Salmond to write the text that would join several of the Recording Scotland paintings. As Salmond explained he endeavoured to “re-people the pictures.” The stories or vignettes in the book came from the location histories or his own personal encounters across Scotland.

In the early years of the Recording Britain plans, categories for artwork were hoped to capture fine tracts of landscapes, towns and villages, parish churches, and country homes and their parks. We see similar impulses in the Recording Scotland collection, with a distinctly Scottish flair.

The images chosen for the collection do reflect a myth of Scotland during this time period. By not focusing on the modern accents in the images it creates a timelessness, and further promotes an idealised image of society. This nostalgia avoids the distasteful advancement of time and could be used to inspire soldiers and citizens alike to continue the fight to protect the homeland.

Castles can reflect the more majestic history of the nation – defence, wealth and familial ties while churches can reflect the more religious aspects, and the crofts the agricultural industries sustaining the population. Each image can reinforce the traditional values that help influence citizens and improve morale. However, the paintings did not always reflect the grandest locations, but rather the local and obscure places that better characterise life in Scotland.

One of the great ironies in the collection is the very absence of war. The images that were selected avoid documenting in fine detail the presence of the war. Rarely do you see soldiers or military structures. Some of this can also be attributed to difficulties faced by civilians traveling near military areas to receive permission. Many artists lamented bureaucratic red tape as wartime restrictions gave them limited access to areas controlled by the military and navy.  This caused some confusion at times and frustration in keeping them from places they wished to paint.

Some of the paintings, by the time they were published, proved that time had indeed overtaken them. “Cat Row, Dunbar” by May M. Brown is one such piece. A picturesque street in the seaside village of Dunbar, known for all the cats that called it home. In 1937 the street, as we see it painted, was demolished as part of the Town Council’s clearance programme and replaced with modern houses.

Salmond in his account laments the loss of the fisher quarters, old cellars, an old pier, the Rock House, and all the cats. He reflects on the once prosperous herring fishing and suggests that the Scottish answer for why the fishing might have failed was because “despite the warnings of the Kirk, Dunbar men would go fishing on the Sabbath.”

Whether it was a cat or a cathedral, the Recording Scotland captured not only the images of the era but many of the thoughts and concerns of the artists and authors that surrounded the collection.

Today happens to be International Cat Day, so in honour of the long gone cats of Cat Row, go ahead and take another picture of your favourite moggy.

In the winter of 1939, it felt like the world was ending. The beginning of the Second World War had made a huge impact on the lives and homelands of millions.  As part of the war effort, brilliant minds like Kenneth Clarke attempted to identify what images of people, places, and things should be captured in case the worst were to occur. That is where the “Scheme for Recording the Changing Face of Britain” was developed.

Recording Britain, as it became known, was an effort to employ artists to create works that captured essential places throughout England in watercolour, pencil, and oil. Photography was certainly available and efforts, under the National Buildings Record scheme, were hastening to collect images of architecture before German bombs rained down. However, the Recording Britain scheme sought to create a visual record of these important places through the gentle strokes of a watercolourist brush and to construct an account of what “Englishness” looked like in this tumultuous era. The paintings were meant to capture the feeling of a place rather than the reality of it.

The Recording Britain scheme gathered 1,549 pieces of art between 1939 and 1943 that were ultimately transferred into the care of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Scotland, as well as the rest of Britain also had its champions who ensured that both funds and attention were given in documenting the images of Scotland in their own collection. It might even surprise you to learn that support for documenting Scotland came from across the Atlantic; from an American philanthropist named Edward Stephen Harkness (1884-1940) who had a keen fondness for his ancestral homeland. The contributions that benefited St Andrews from Edward Harkness were gained through the devoted efforts of his friend and university Principal Sir James Irvine (1877 – 1952).

Principal Sir James Irvine was a keen promoter of St Andrews, especially in the United States. During one of his many trips, he befriended the American billionaire Edward Harkness, who had inherited his father’s fortune and turned to philanthropic work on behalf of schools, cultural institutions, and hospitals. As the sixth wealthiest man in the United States at one point, his money was donated to institutions like Yale University, Harvard University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the University of St Andrews through a charity called, The Pilgrim Trust. The Pilgrim Trust was created with the idea of promoting [Britain’s] future well-being, after Harkness had witnessed the efforts of the British people in World War I. Harkness was the chief benefactor for the building of St Salvator’s Hall and received an honorary Doctor of Law degree in 1926.

As friend of the benefactor and architect of the Scottish scheme Principal Irvine was appointed a trustee of the Pilgrim Trust and took a firm hand in the establishment of a committee to choose art and artists for the Recording Scotland collection. His committee was comprised of an architect, a painter, a businessman interested in art, and an art collector. Irvine himself had a background in chemistry. The committee invited a shortlist of artists to submit artworks for the scheme.  With little guidance in composition and size, except for a preference for pieces in colour, they received over 200 submissions and reviewed each one to find the images with the most merit.

Irvine wanted art that conveyed “character and atmosphere of a place as seen through the eyes of an artist.” Several paintings at an exhibition of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW) formed the foundation of the collection if artists were willing to part with them for modest prices. The Trust initially allocated £500 for the early purchases, later adding £1100 to support more purchases and give prizes for a schoolchildren’s art competition held by the RSW.  That averaged out to artworks selling for between £5 to £20. While this was still a scant amount of money, some artists were willing to sell, and even gave discounts so that their works might be included in the collection. Artwork was gathered from existing works of Scottish painters, as early as 1913, with a few pieces being created during this window of time. The collection is now made up of 145 paintings, mainly in watercolour but including a few oil paintings and pencil drawings.

During the war, the artworks were put on exhibition to improve morale. The Scottish pieces were also meant to specifically inspire young people by touring schools and hanging in residence halls on campus. Irvine had previously worked with the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), which had a project to encourage travelling exhibits that reached wider audiences.

After the war, the Recording Britain collection was shared with the wider world in five published volumes, with the fifth and final volume being dedicated to Scotland. Sir James Irvine was key in choosing pieces that went into publication, and the adjacent text was provided by James Bell. Salmond, a poet and protégé of Irvine’s. We will learn more about Salmond’s contributions next week.

Sir James died shortly after the publication of the Recording Scotland collection in 1952. In commemoration of his work, the entire collection was offered as a gift to the University of St Andrews.

The collection of paintings remains a potent reminder of the difficult times that were faced by the British people. Through the simple media of paper, paint, and pencil they explore the affinities and anxieties of an unknown future and give us not only a glimpse into the past but mirror to our present.