The Scottish Painters’ Exile in Italy in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, a prolonged stay in Rome was essential in the career of a painter. In this city, which was then the main artistic centre of Western Europe, they studied the works of the Renaissance masters and they tried to find patrons among the aristocrats on the Grand Tour. For Scottish painters a stay in Rome was of prime importance as this was the means to complete the basic artistic training acquired in their native country. Indeed, in Scotland there was no fine art academy providing thorough training before 1798; most painters left Scotland to study in Italy for several years. In Rome, they enrolled in the studio of a fashionable painter and they attended the classes of the Accademia di San Luca and of the Académie de France.The aim of this article is to come back to the question of Scottish painters’ training in Italy and to underline the contribution of Italian art to eighteenth-century Scottish painting. First of all we will present the places traditionally visited by Scottish painters in Italy: they did not only visit Rome, they also went to Venice, Bologna, Florence and Naples. Then we will talk about the life of the artistic community in Rome and about the painters’ activities in the Académie de France and the Accademia di San Luca. Thanks to a study of several drawings and paintings made by Scottish painters when they returned to Britain, we will notice that Scottish artists were deeply influenced by Italian art.

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