Page size 13 x 18cms.

David Scott (1806 - 1849) - his illustrations to The Ancinet Mariner were completed at the age of 26 just before he began his art education on the Continent of Europe. He was expected to join his father's engraving business but he was struck by the High Art bacillus, contracting an even more dour mutation of Benjamin Robert Haydon - high ideals, a mad personality and low achievements, all with comic undertones.

 

Without the distraction of sheer elephantine scale, lugubrious Academy colours, his illustrative work (later a Pilgrim's Progress) was fresh original and highly personal. No slick draftsman he, but with a sure sense of the ominous and dreamlike atmosphere of Coleridge's poem. The poet is said to have much admired Scott's interpretation but happily did not live to see Paton's more respectable and journey-man interpretations. Compare how both artists interpreted the pose and gestures of the hands throughout, and how drawing creates an awkward intensity throughout the Scott set.

to David Scott Miscellaneous works

to Joseph Noel Paton's illustrations to the Ancient Mariner 1863