I imagine the first question anyone will ask is what is a column called "Scottish Flotsam". I guess we will have to begin with what is "flotsam". Among the definitions of the word are "things washed ashore" or "miscellaneous trifles". Well, we believe you can find some great treasure on the ocean shore. But -- you will never know what you will find or its value. So we decided that is what this column is - flotsam. We wanted a place to put things that didn't fit anywhere else and might be of interest. Each item could be a column itself and might be some day but for now it will be the flotsam, which washes our way.

Sir Henry Raeburn (1753 - 1823)

The best Scottish portrait painter of his age, Raeburn was born 4 March 1756, in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, the son of a mill owner. Other than two short visits, one to Italy and one to London, he never left Scotland. He was educated at George Heriot's Hospital, and at the age of 16 was apprenticed to the jeweller James Gilliland. He began to paint miniatures, and soon attracted the attention of Edinburgh's then leading portraitist, David Martin.

With some guidance from Martin, Raeburn began to develop his style, one of austerity at first, with a sparse approach to backgrounds which yet seemed to focus attention on the sitters and imbue them with more atmosphere than might at first be realised. He married a widow in 1778, which gave him some financial stability.

He made a visit to Italy in 1784, and also met with Sir Joshua Reynolds in London. Both of these contacts inevitably affected his work, and his style opened up somewhat. He was a good conversationalist, and soon became a popular member of the Scottish Enlightenment.

His position was assured on the death of Martin in 1798, and Raeburn was then recognised as the leading portraitist, setting up a studio in York Place. The rich and aristocratic gravitated there as if pulled by magnets, and we are fortunate indeed that many of Scotland's well-known names have images for us to see, painted by an artist who was fundamentally empirical, rather than intellectual. Raeburn was easily the equal of Hogarth and Gainsborough.

He was knighted in 1822, and died on 8 July 1823, in Edinburgh.

It is time to stop combing the library but we can not quit without some quotes from Quotable Scots another great History bookshelf resident. Let's see what quotes we can find.

PLACES

And there was Stonehaven itself, the home of the poverty toffs, folk said, where you might live in sin as much as you pleased but were damned to hell if you hadn't a white sark.

Lewis Grassic Gibbon (James Leslie Mitchell, 1901-1935), Sunset Song

Stromness strikes the visitor as a cosmopolitan, sophisticated little port town with no provincialism about it.

Libby Purves (1994), Finn Folk and a Whisky-Coloured Cat

...on the road to Thurso there is a low suavity of line, a smoothness of texture, a far light-filled perspective that holds the mind to wonder and a pleasant silence.

Neil Gunn (1891-1973), Highland Park

Wick is ... the meanest of men's towns, set on what surely the baldest of God's Bays.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1849),

Am mìos buidh

The yellowest month - July.

You can find more articles in the archive under Scottish Flotsam.