James Giles (painter)

James William Giles
File:James Giles, by James Giles.jpg Self portrait
Born	4 January 1801 Aberdeen
Died	6 October 1870 Aberdeen
Nationality	Scottish
Known for	Landscape painting
Elected	Royal Scottish Academy
Patron(s)	Queen Victoria

James William Giles (4 January 1801 – 6 October 1870) was a famous Scottish landscape painter. Several of his landscapes were commissioned and purchased by Queen Victoria and members of the Scottish aristocracy. He was a member of the Royal Scottish Academy.

Life

Giles was born in Aberdeen on 4 January 1801, the son of a designer at the local calico printing factory at Woodside, Aberdeen, an artist of some repute; his early death threw his son at an early age upon his own resources. At thirteen he maintained himself, his mother and sister by painting, and before he was 20 was teaching taught private classes in Aberdeen. Shortly afterwards he made a tour through Scotland and visited the continent, and on his return home he was introduced to the Earl of Aberdeen, with whom he became very intimate.

His earliest successes were in portrait-painting, but his visit to Italy gave him a taste for classic landscape, which he never entirely lost, for the mist seldom hangs about his mountains, even when the scene is laid near "dark Lochnagar". He was a keen angler, and fond of painting the result of a successful day's fishing. These pictures were his best works. He first exhibited at the "Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland", but in 1829 he became an academician of the Royal Scottish Academy, and contributed numerous works to its exhibitions from that time until near the close of his career. He also exhibited frequently at the British Institution in London, and occasionally at the Royal Academy and the Society of British Artists. His last work was a painting of himself, his wife, and youngest son, which he left unfinished.

In the middle of his life he lived in Edinburgh. In the 1830s he is recorded as living at 153 High Street in the centre of the Royal Mile.

He died at his residence in Bon Accord Street, Aberdeen, after a lingering illness, on 6 October 1870. He was twice married, and by his first wife had a son, who gave great promise as an artist, but died of consumption at the early age of twenty-one.

During his lifetime, Giles was among the first to be mentioned as one of the most vital of the Aberdeen artists - his patrons included the landed aristocracy of Aberdeenshire and Queen Victoria - but he has been little remembered in subsequent surveys in Scottish art. This is due in part to the fact that he spent most of his working life in Aberdeen – unlike his contemporaries who left the north-east to find fame in London.

Work

Giles was a versatile artist. He specialised in portrait and landscape painting, but in addition was a successful landscape architect, designing a number of public gardens and monuments in Aberdeen, in addition to landscaping estates in Aberdeenshire.

Giles’s spiritual home was Italy, where he spent three years from 1823 to 1826. There he followed the well-trodden pathways of the 18th century Grand Tour to the many points of historic interest. The bright Italian light fascinated Giles, and all his sketches are enlivened with an impression of this Mediterranean atmosphere. The sights that he saw and recorded in Italy were to remain with him for the rest of his life. His watercolour sketches often provided materials for the oils he painted and exhibited on his return to Scotland.

Museums and galleries

• National Portrait Gallery (6 portraits)
• National Gallery of Scotland (The Weird Wife)

Further reading

• Ferguson, O. (2001). Aspects of Landscape - A Bicentenary Celebration of James Giles RSA, Aberdeen Art Gallery.

External links

• Paintings by Giles (Royal Collection)
• Study of a 'Panther' (James Harvey British Art)
• Windsor Forest (Bourne Fine Art Gallery)
• Aqua Claudia near Tivoli (Oil on Panel - Christie's)