William McTaggart (1835–1910), 'The Scottish Impressionist', devoted much of his career to painting wild Scottish seas and coastal communities, with the west coast of Scotland a constant source of inspiration.

'Born within sight and sound of the Atlantic, where it flashes and thunders on the sands of Machrihanish, the call of the sea was strong in McTaggart's blood. He loved it in all its moods, and he painted it as only a great painter, who was also a lover of its might and magic and an initiate into its haunting secrets could.'

This was the opening statement of a chapter in William McTaggart's 1917 biography dedicated to his depictions of the sea. As his son-in-law and biographer, the art historian and critic James Caw, recognised, the call of the sea was ingrained in the artist from birth.

The McTaggart family were living at Aros, on the Kintyre Peninsula, when William was born. A short time later, they moved to another smallholding called 'The Flush' before settling in the busy fishing port of Campbeltown. Though he moved away from the area as a teenager to pursue his artistic career, first to Glasgow and then to Edinburgh, he returned annually to paint subjects along the west coast of Scotland.

McTaggart's early paintings tended to feature the sea as a backdrop to a figurative scene rather than forming the main subject of the work. For example, in The Past and the Present, a group of children is depicted in the grounds of Kilchousland church, located on a cliff edge to the north-east of Campbeltown.

The Kilbrannan Sound and Isle of Arran are glimpsed in the distance to the left of the composition. Here, the eternal quality of the sea contrasts with the ephemerality of the human experience – even monuments like the church eventually succumb to the ravages of time. The composition's structure and strong sentiment were partly inspired by Pre-Raphaelite art.

The popularity of this style among young Scottish artists infuriated Robert Scott Lauder, McTaggart's teacher at the Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh. Lauder, who was classically trained, encouraged his students' individual creativity while stressing the importance of colour and design. He objected to the exacting description of nature that was a feature of some Pre-Raphaelite art.

Interestingly, McTaggart appears to have heeded his teacher’s advice and avoided such excessive detail in his land and seascape paintings. Instead, he sought to create a greater balance between those depicted and their environment.

By the 1870s, McTaggart and his wife, Mary Brolochan Holmes, had a growing family. To support them, McTaggart started to produce larger exhibition works that were sent to institutions in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London. He also took on several official duties at the Royal Scottish Academy including as a Visitor, or guest teacher, at the Life School.

His strong sense of individuality, dynamic brushwork and talent for capturing atmospheric effects were recognised in many contemporary reviews. Indeed, it was remarked in the notes that accompanied the 1878 Royal Scottish Academy Exhibition that the 'strong sunlight, almost white in its vividness' in Fisher's Landing was 'a daring interpretation of an exceptionally difficult idea.'

As McTaggart's reputation became more established, the family could afford to move to increasingly larger accommodation in the west end of Edinburgh. Despite attaining such professional success, McTaggart was not content to simply reproduce versions of his most highly regarded works.

Annual trips in the summer months to the west coast of Scotland, provided fresh inspiration and stimulated the artist’s continued technical and stylistic experimentation. Though he visited places like Tarbert, Arran and later Iona, the familiarity of McTaggart's native Kintyre served as a visual anchor for works in which he increasingly embraced a much freer handling of paint.

His innate knowledge of the shores, inlets, headlands and harbours on the peninsula meant that his paintings were always firmly rooted in place even when they were not painted directly on the spot. For example, when the accuracy of the vessels in Through Wind and Rain were questioned, he was able to emphatically respond, 'It is a West Coast Boat.'

He continued to include such references to the local area even as his compositions became more focused on what Caw had described as the 'moods' of the sea. Indeed, in a review of the same painting, a critic recognised that 'The artist has with great strength conveyed the impression of a bleak day at sea.'

McTaggart made frequent sketches to capture the sea under a range of conditions from sparkling sunlight and light breezes to leaden skies and churning waves. These could then be used as the basis for much larger paintings that were worked up in the studio. This process allowed McTaggart to depict the effect of dramatic storms on coastal communities with what Caw called 'impulsive yet calculated handling.'

Caw argued that this 'evokes in a quite a wonderful way the visual impression of the moment, and, at the same time, stirs in the spectator the sensation of being out-of-doors in the midst of the turmoil.' It was this immediacy that led some to regard McTaggart as an Impressionist.

However, when comparing the original sketch of The Storm painted at Carradale in 1883, with the large-scale The Storm completed seven years later, it is possible to see that the colour, brushwork and aspects of the composition have been adapted to heighten the intensity of the scene.

The figures of the villager launching their desperate bid to rescue a boat caught in the swell are barely perceptible amid the swirling brushstrokes. This complete absorption of people within their environment became a hallmark of McTaggart's later works.

Again, this reflected how McTaggart and local communities on the west coast were closely connected to the land. In a series of paintings on the theme of emigration, McTaggart's approach lent a greater sense of poignancy to the subject.

The ghostly figures of those soon to embark on a new life in America, Canada and Australia bid a fond farewell to those left behind. McTaggart had personal experience of emigration and was keenly aware of how it was impacting families in the area and decimating historic centres of Gaelic language and culture.

In the late 1890s and early 1900s, McTaggart's paintings became ever more expressive. As Lindsay Errington recognised, 'forty years of exploring the capacities of touch, paint-consistency, and canvas texture had… given the artist complete control of a unique calligraphy of movement, light and atmosphere.'

These late seascapes, still mainly of subjects on the west coast, show that the artist's interaction with his environment and the picture surface had become completely attuned. McTaggart's deep love for Kintyre still resonates through his paintings today.

For example, it was acknowledged that the artist's reputation as a native son, together with the local subject matter in A Westerly Gale, Machrahanish, 'combine to make this painting one of the best-loved, and probably the most significant, of the fine art works held by Campbeltown Museum.'

Freya Spoor, art historian and curator

This content was supported by Creative Scotland