Erskine Nicol RSA ARA (1825-1904)
Past Work
Oil on canvas, 100 x 133cm (39¼ x 52¼'')
Signed

Exhibited: The Royal Academy, 1873.

Erskine Nicols prolific career spanned the 19th century...

Erskine Nicol RSA ARA (1825-1904)
Past Work
Oil on canvas, 100 x 133cm (39¼ x 52¼'')
Signed

Exhibited: The Royal Academy, 1873.

Erskine Nicols prolific career spanned the 19th century and encompassed an era in which Europe was awakening to post-revolutionary freedom and a rising power of the middle classes. Such political change altered the way in which artists conducted their work. No longer were they solely reliant on commissions from a wealthy few, but, instead, artists were able to produce work for exhibition to a wider market, who would in turn buy pieces as took their fancy. Accordingly, we consequently see a rise in paintings depicting working class subjects and the everyday man, images that would be sympathetic to the bourgeoisie buyer.

An acclaimed artist, Nicol often exhibited in Britain and Ireland, however his art also brought him further afield to Paris, where he undoubtedly came into contact with the works of Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet. Past Work represents itself as a beautiful fusion of the artistic styles of these two men. In the painting, we are introduced to an old fisherman who appears resigned in his retirement. Slumped against a wall, his once strong body no longer supports him as it should, whilst the lines of his weather-beaten face lay bare the physical struggles that he has endured. In this, we are reminded of the grittiness of workers as portrayed by Courbet in his art a social statement as to the daily turmoil of their occupation. Hand in hand with this, we see the romanticism favoured by Millet, where the physical labourer is idealised and softened through the use of warm tones and a subdued glowing light. This sentimentality echoes that held by Nicol for each of his subjects, regardless of their nationality or social status.

Unlike much of Nicols oeuvre, Past Work is devoid of humour. Instead, Nicol has imbued this piece with a raw emotion that ensnares its viewer with empathy. Surrounded by a world to which he once belonged, the old fisherman seems lost in his inability. In contrast to the workers behind him, his gnarled hands can no longer deftly move through fishing nets and his weak legs would buckle under the strain of a heavy load. In a perfect picture of the continuance of life, we are presented with a timeline, the central man a stark reminder of the effect of living.

Helena Carlyle, February 2019

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