An assured artist shows truth of the landscape

It’s difficult to fault the work of the painter James Morrison, aesthetically or technically. Even in some of his earlier work, dating to the mid-Sixties, there is an assuredness and a conviction that demonstrates an artist in full command of his considerable gifts and with a clear idea of what he wants to say and do.

Morrison, who was born in 1932, taught for many years at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee and influenced generations of younger artists. He is clearly regarded with affection and respect by one of them. Philip Braham, himself a painter of note whose work is indebted to Morrison, has contributed a moving essay to the exhibition catalogue. About one of Morrison’s more atypical works, Gentle River (2000), he writes: “It reveals something of the man who painted it and for whom painting flowed like the very river depicted here, gently but emphatically.”

Morrison nearly always works en plein air, which puts him in direct physical contact with what he paints — weather, light and sense of place all play a part in the construction of his works. This is as true for works painted in the Arctic as for those in Angus. Morrison shares this approach with many artists, not least the impressionists, but also with others such as Joan Eardley, with whom his work has some affinity. It would be remiss not to mention the work of James McIntosh Patrick in this context, given his love of the same part of the country, as well as his meticulousness and technical skills, all of which he shares with Morrison.

Many of Morrison’s landscapes are “edited” by the removal of, say, pylons or telephone poles, but the essential truth of the landscape, rooted in deep and contemplative observation, is always to the fore. Species of trees are recognisable, as are buildings and, of course, locations.

Morrison is also a Romantic, given the moods in which he finds the skies and clouds that dominate many of his works, but he is just as capable of focussing on a hedgerow, or clumps of trees, or the ploughed earth right in front of him. This is Morrison’s 25th show with the Scottish Gallery, and it is easy to see why his work finds such an appreciative audience.

The Scottish Gallery, to February 1