Details

Object type

painting

Title

The Deserter

Artist/Maker

William Kennedy artist

Culture/School

Glasgow Boys

Date

1886

Materials

oil on canvas

Dimensions

framed: 1258 x 1890 x 140 mm;unframed: 889 mm x 1524 mm

Description

Kennedy was one of the Glasgow Boys, a group of Scottish artists who revolutionised Scottish painting from 1880 until about 1895, rebelling against traditional Victorian sentimentality and painting everyday subjects in a fresh new way, often capturing their subject by painting out of doors.

He studied at Glasgow School of Art and in Paris at the Académie Julien under Bouguereau, Fleury and Bastien-Lepage. He also studied at Grez-sur-Loing. When he returned to Scotland from France in 1885, he acquired a studio in Cambuskenneth, Stirling, until 1898. He was partly drawn there by his sweetheart Lena Scott of Craigmill, who was to become his wife, but also by the large garrison stationed at Stirling Castle. Many of Kennedy’s paintings are now there. Kennedy was particularly interested in military subject matter and liked to paint the 3rd Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders training in the King’s Park, Stirling. He also painted soldiers back in camp, going about their everyday activities. His interest earned him the nickname ‘The Colonel’.

This painting, which possibly shows 8th, 11th or 15th Hussars, based on the colour of the soldiers’ plume, is much larger and ambitious than many of Kennedy’s military paintings. It depicts a soldier, a deserter, with his head down, being led back to the garrison in chains. Cabbage pickers on the left, stop what they are doing to watch. The woman who steps out into the road in front of him could be a family member stepping out in concern, or she could be a stranger shouting insults at the deserter. The flash of her red petticoat, in this otherwise fairly muted painting, suggests her passion. This emotive narrative was rather unusual for the Glasgow Boys, who tended to steer away from sentiment stories, focusing more on the ordinary rural poor, working in fields or standing by croft cottages. However, in keeping with Kennedy’s interest in Realist themes, the focus is on the working class hero, who we are made to feel sorry for as he slowly walks towards the viewer. Even the horse has its head down in sympathy. The muted colours of this painting are very appropriate as the deserter is likely to be facing execution. Harsh sentences were passed down for desertion to act as a warning or deterrent. The sun is setting in the background, symbolic of the end of life. In this painting Kennedy shows life to be hard, whether for the cabbage pickers working in the field or for the soldier, the harshness of whose existence caused him to desert.

This painting was exhibited at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts in 1889 (no. 239). It was purchased by Glasgow Museums in 1982, with the assistance of the National Fund for Acquisitions.

Credit Line/Donor

Purchased with the assistance of the National Fund for Acquisitions, 1982

ID Number

3374

Location

Kelvingrove Scottish Art