William Bell Scott | |
|---|---|
 William Bell Scott by Arthur Hughes | |
| Born | (1811-09-12)12 September 1811 |
| Died | 22 November 1890(1890-11-22) (aged 79) |
William Bell Scott (12 September 1811 – 22 November 1890) was a Scottish artist in oils andwatercolour and occasionallyprintmaking. He was also a poet and art teacher, and his posthumously published reminiscences give a chatty and often vivid picture of life in the circle of thePre-Raphaelites; he was especially close toDante Gabriel Rossetti. After growing up inEdinburgh, he moved to London, and from 1843 to 1864 was principal of the government School of Art inNewcastle upon Tyne, where he added industrial subjects to his repertoire of landscapes andhistory painting. He was one of the first British artists to extensively depict the processes of theIndustrial Revolution. He returned to London, working for the Science and Art Department until 1885.[1]
He painted a cycle of historical subjects mixed with scenes from modern industry forWallington Hall inNorthumberland (nowNational Trust), his best known works, and a purely historical cycle forPenkill Castle inAyrshire in Scotland.
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He did not paint many portraits, but his striking portrait of his friendAlgernon Charles Swinburne is the iconic image of the poet. Hisetchings were mostly designed to illustrate his books.
The son ofRobert Scott (1777–1841), the engraver, and brother ofDavid Scott, the painter, he was born inEdinburgh.[3] While a young man he studied art and assisted his father, and he published verses in the Scottish magazines.
In 1837, Scott went to London. There he became sufficiently well known as an artist to be appointed in 1844 master of the government school of design atNewcastle-on-Tyne. He held the post for twenty years, and did work in organizing art-teaching and examining under the Science and Art Department.[3] In Newcastle, Scott was visited by all the Rossetti family, andDante Gabriel Rossetti painted Maria Leathart's portrait at Scott's house 14 St Thomas' Crescent (plaque erected 2005).Algernon Charles Swinburne, who wrote two poems to Scott, spent much time with him in Newcastle after being sent down from Oxford.
After 1870 Scott was much in London, where he bought a house inChelsea, and he was an intimate friend ofDante Gabriel Rossetti[3] and in high repute as an artist and an author. He was, however, at daggers drawn withJohn Ruskin.[4]
He resigned his appointment under the Science and Art Department in 1885, and from then until his death he was mainly occupied in writing his reminiscences,Autobiographical Notes, which were published posthumously in 1892, with a memoir byProfessor Minto. It is for his connection with Rossetti's circle that Bell Scott will be chiefly remembered.[3]
In addition to oil paintings, Bell Scott did much decorative work, notably atWallington Hall. TherePauline, Lady Trevelyan commissioned him, after coming across his 1850Memoir of his brother David Scott.[5] He produced eight large pictures illustrating Northumbrian history, with life-size figures, supplemented by eighteen pictures onThe Ballad of Chevy Chase in thespandrels of the arches of the hall. For Penkill Castle he executed a similar series, illustratingJames I's poemThe Kingis Quair.[3]
Scott's poetry, which he published at intervals (notablyPoems, 1875, illustrated byetchings by himself andAlma-Tadema), recalledWilliam Blake andPercy Bysshe Shelley, and was considerably influenced by Rossetti. He also wrote artistic and literary criticism, and editedJohn Keats,Letitia Elizabeth Landon,Lord Byron,Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shelley,William Shakespeare andSir Walter Scott.[3]
In 1839 Scott married Letitia Margery Norquoy (1813–1898); the marriage was childless. In Newcastle he had as a pupilAlice Boyd, the sister of the then-laird ofPenkill Castle in Scotland. In 1860, Bell Scott visited Penkill Castle and began a liaison with Alice that would last until his death at Penkill in 1890. Although unhappily married, Bell Scott refused to cause a scandal by leaving his wife, and a workableménage à trois was established: Alice spent winters with William and Letitia in London, while they came to Penkill in the summers.[6]
