PAINTING THE PAST Scotish artist Hugh Buchanan in his studio

Painting; Jane Austen T

HE ARCHIVES of some of the greatest names in literary history

have provided the source material for a series of striking contemporary paintings for a new exhibition at the National Library of Scotland.

Renowned Scotish artist Hugh Buchanan whose work is in the royal collections, spent a year within the library’s John Murray Archive to produce 19 paintings featuring the works of nine authors, including Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Sir Arthur Conon Doyle, Sir Water Scot and James Hogg. The paintings are being shown alongside original material from the world-famous archive.

For the past decade Hugh Buchanan has concentrated on paintings of libraries and archives and is best known for capturing the effects of light on objects. His new exhibition reveals the fascinating beauty and depth of the archive in tatered maps, worn passports, elegant or indecipherable handwriting, leather bindings, gilded letering, postal marks and wax seals.

92 August 2015