SCOTTISH ART [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—In the
last issue of The Spectator, described as a " Scottish Number," there is a reference to Sir William Llewellyn's announcement that the Royal Academy will devote its next Winter Exhibition to Scottish art, and your contributor " Janis " states that it " arouses expectations which cannot very obviously be satisfied."
What is stated by " Janus " as a fact may " very obviously " appear to others to be a matter of opinion.
To his questions as to whether there are available Scottish paintings of the quality for a Winter Exhibition, and what can Scottish painting put forward to rival the canvases which have till.now hung in Burlington House, " Janus " supplies his own answer—" Some good Allan Ramsays, some brilliant
Raeburns for those that like his particular form of flash, some worthy Wilkies, the Glasgow school, and some landscapes of the Highlands."
A more accurate description would have included a reference to the paintings of Sir James Guthrie, Sir D. Y. Cameron, Sir J. Lawton Wingate, Sir David Murray and William M'Taggart, to mention only a few eminent modern Scottish painters.
What does " Janus " mean by " flash " ; does he use the word in the sense of the term " flashy attraction," employed by Mr. Anthony Blunt in another connexion in his review of this year's Royal Academy Exhibition which appears in the same issue of The Spectator ?
If that review as a whole is a sound criticism of this year's Exhibition, the coming Winter Exhibition of Scottish art at the Royal Academy should prove a welcome and wholesome contrast.
It is to be hoped that the Winter Exhibition will include Sir James Guthrie's separate portraits of the Members of the War Cabinet, in addition to the composite picture.—I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
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