Talk:Gavin Hamilton (artist)

Title
Wouldn't Gavin Hamilton (antiquarian) or Gavin Hamilton (artist) better fit the wikipedia style conventions. Can we move this article elsewhere?-- E va   d  b  09:36, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Gavin Hamilton (1723-1798) would be the most grown-up and professional-appearing title. --Wetman (talk) 10:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

ISBN

 * A Grande História da Arte (Vol 16) ISBN 84-9819-475-X
 * ??? --João Carvalho (talk) 23:12, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

WAS HAMILTON (EASILY) SCOTLAND'S GREATEST EVER ARTIST?
I came across a remarkably striking portrait of a beautiful young Scottish noble called Sir John Henderson of Fordell (1778). I was amazed to discover that this painting was the work of a notable Scottish artist whose name I knew and whose work I recalled seeing at the National Gallery in Edinburgh which greately impressed me -- these works on display were huge history paintings of Classical Greece and Rome and it was this genre which came to dominate his output and earn him his distinguished reputation abroad where his work was duly praised and highly rated. I was not aware at the time of viewing his work in Edinburgh that he was also a portrait painter, hence my surprise and even dismay at discovering he was the genius responsible for creating this beautiful image which I regard as the finest portrait ever produced by a Scottish artist.

Today of course we are told that Alan Ramsay and Sir Henry Raeburn were Scotland's greatest 17th Century portrait painters by those who are supposed to be authorities on what constitutes noteworthy art. Whilst Hamilton is not unknown in Scottish art (the fact that several of his huge history paintings are prominently displayed in the gallery signifies that he is recognised as one of our most notable artists) he is not, however, recognised as a portraitist of exceptional merit.

One might be inclined to forgive the English for failing to acknowledge the full extent of this man's singular artistic talents as they naturally would be disinclined to further the reputation of man they would have deemed a foreigner, and a Scotsman to boot, lest he should achieve a status that put him on a higher artistic plain than that of any of their own artists. But no such excuse can be offered to explain why the Scots themselves failed to recogise that they had a portrait artist who could equal, or indeed surpass, the mastery of any other artist in their country and possibly in the UK as a whole. Is it possible that he was resented for domiciling himself in Italy, where he would end up dying, rather than making a name for himself at home and thus contributing to the country's cultural output?

Whatever the reasons for this brilliant man's shameful neglect by the British cultural establishment over the past 200 years I shall let you decide by studying the above portrait as to whether or not he ought to be acknowledged as one of the few great masters of portraiture these islands have ever produced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Donut186 (talk • contribs) 20:45, 11 July 2019 (UTC)