1846
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Scots Guards at Edinburgh Castle is a 1846 by David Octavius Hill, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This painting shows a group of Scots Guards at Edinburgh Castle. The artist, David Octavius Hill, used a new technique to create this portrait. He worked with a photographer to get accurate likenesses of each face. You can learn more about this technique, called sfumato, and how it was used by other artists like Hill's contemporaries, but to see more works like this, look up the museum: The Cleveland Museum of Art.
Painted group portraits required each individual to sit for the artist, whereas the camera captured a detailed likeness of each face at once. Photography became an incredibly useful tool for artists tasked with producing group portraits. It was Hill’s desire to paint a contemporary historical event requiring the accurate depiction of more than 450 ministers that led him to contact Adamson, who had just become Edinburgh’s first professional photographer making paper prints. This portrait shows members of the 92nd (Gordon Highlanders) Regiment of Foot.
Read the full account in the museum source.
David Octavius Hill (20 May 1802 – 17 May 1870) was a Scottish painter, photographer and arts activist.
See the richer artist page
