![]() ![]() Few works of art present this confrontation with mortality in so grim and candid a form. The drawings and etchings made in the 1980s when Bellany confronted his own death from alcoholism, possess the quality of Rembrandt's marvellous self-portraits. In 1965, Bellany saw the Max Beckmann exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London and was greatly influenced by him. The paintings produced as a student at the Edinburgh College of Art testify to his commitment to the structure and craft of painting and give the works a monumentality that is rare in contemporary art. Bellany's remarkable paintings, often on an epic scale, are underpinned by his superb draughtsmanship. Sexual activity, other than for procreation within marriage, was also condemned, making the life of a typical student in the 1960s fraught with conflict.Īlthough the characters in many of Bellany's monumental paintings may inhabit a time warp, the sensual and immediate use of thick paint, vivid colour and frontal-tilting of the picture plane make these images both immediate and utterly contemporary. His upbringing and adolescence were dominated by the condemnation of alcohol (the Closed Brethren 1 preached that wine in the time of Christ was not fermented), for according to the Gospel of Paul, drunkenness is an affront to God'. ![]() Informed too, by a Calvinistic worldview: of hellfire and damnation, of anxiety towards activities of the flesh, sceptical and fearful of the consequences of perceived sin, Bellany's paintings are inextricably bound to a pre-20th century worldview. It was also the most immediate imagery he could use to depict his own life. The use of boats, giant skates and dismembered fish is intended to conjure images of death and survival. Faced with the primal issues of survival in the elements, and acutely aware of the dangers of life at sea, Bellany was attuned to issues of mortality from a young age. ![]() The drama of his own life is given artistic credence by his masterly use of references to artists from the past, as well as to the life of Scottish fishing communities like that of Port Seton, near Edinburgh, where he grew up. Bellany belongs to the tradition of Hieronymus Bosch (1460-1516), Pieter Brueghel (1520-69), and Max Beckmann (1884-1950) and more recently to Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) and the Australian painter, Arthur Boyd (1920-99). ![]()
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