Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Foreword ix
4. Main Abbreviations and Text Conventions xi
5. Note on the Dates and Titles of Images xii
6. Preface xv
7. Preview xxi
8. 1 Introduction
9. Introduction: ‘Something Generative . . . was Happening’ 1
10. Modernity, Modernism and the Countryman Fiction 4
11. Patronage, Cultural Politics, Mentors, Intuition and Chance 10
12. Haddington and Edinburgh Reconsidered 14
13. ‘Leading Artists and Sculptors of the Modern School’: Gillies in Context 18
14. Methods, Sources and Organisation 23
15. 2 Origins and Childhood
16. Introduction: Perspectives on Family and Change 27
17. Town, City, Asylum: The Family Diaspora, Mid-1800s to 1910 29
18. The Educational Ladder 39
19. Primary-school Friendships, 1903–10 41
20. Secondary-school Dux, 1910–16 44
21. Conclusion 48
22. 3 Childhood Sensibility
23. Preview 50
24. Eclectic Memories 52
25. Learning to Picture: Childhood Mentors, 1910–16 54
26. Seventy-one Pictures: The Visual Evidence 58
27. The Emergent Sensibility 65
28. 4 The Afterlife of War
29. Introduction: The Silence of the Survivor 72
30. Haldane and Haddington, 1905–16: Test-bed for a Modern Army 73
31. To the Trenches and Back, 1917–19 79
32. Infantry Private and Artist: Preview of a Future Self 81
33. Fiction and Experience: The Existential Legacy 86
34. Back to College, 1919–23 91
35. Time Bent Back: The Legacy Extended 95
36. 5 The Family Economy
37. Preview 100
38. Supported by Sisters: The Family Pact, 1920–9 101
39. Edinburgh Years: Retrenchment, Insecurity and Loss, 1930–9 104
40. The Flight to Temple Village in 1939 109
41. Promotion, Security and Selling-up in Edinburgh, 1946–8 115
42. 6 Kailyard and Kin
43. Modernism or Sentimentality? J. M. Barrie, Hugh MacDiarmid and Kirriemuir 118
44. A ‘Spot where Pilgrimages are Made’: The Family-origins Story 121
45. Divergent Family Values: Recasting Past and Future 125
46. Lived Modernity: Scepticism, Mutuality, Science and Gender 133
47. ‘Grown Silent’: When Experience Controverts Narrative 138
48. 7 Bohemian Edinburgh
49. Introduction: Public Images, Private Lives 142
50. The Society of Eight and Dead Men’s Shoes 146
51. Munch, Decadence, Scandal and Herbert Read 148
52. Cultured Circles: Gilded, Catholic, Nationalist, Gay 152
53. Frustrated Love in Oslo, Edinburgh and the French Riviera 162
54. An Audience Schooled in Modernist Sophistications 165
55. 8 Emma, Janet and Margery
56. Introduction: Aspects of Thyroid Disease 172
57. Emma Smith Gillies: Potter, Feminist, Casualty 175
58. Living and Dying with Misdiagnoses 183
59. ‘Sweet on Gillies’: The Artist and Margery Porter 187
60. 9 Portraits
61. Introduction: ‘To Whisper Rather than to State’ 193
62. The 1920s: Keeping his Hand In 195
63. The 1930s: Sacred and Profane, Playful and Confessional 201
64. Artist and Mirror: Facing Present, Future and Past 214
65. 10 Landscapes and Still Lifes, 1925–39
66. Overview: ‘A Charter of Liberty’ 229
67. Cubism in Paris, Edinburgh and London 235
68. Shaken by Munch: The Disintegrated Landscape 247
69. The Emergent Idiom: Perception, Abstraction and Klee 258
70. The ‘Tree in the Field’: Perception, Introspection and Imaging 286
71. Beyond Mere Appearance: Still Life and Existential Crisis 294
72. 11 Later Still Lifes
73. Introduction and Overview: Abstraction and the ‘Curious Gap’ 305
74. Hundreds of Still Lifes: Trends, 1925–73 307
75. Wartime: ‘Just What the Times Demand’ 312
76. The 1955 RSA Diploma Painting 318
77. Life and Death in Abstraction, 1947–60 321
78. Inner and Outer Worlds, 1960–72 343
79. 12 Later Landscapes in Oil
80. Introduction: Temple Continuities, 1940–9 355
81. Dispersed Forms of Imagination: The Borders, 1949–60 366
82. Visual Summations, 1960–72 384
83. 13 Politics, Patronage and Later Landscapes on Paper
84. Introduction: ‘A Curious Exaltation’ 395
85. The Works on Paper, 1940–72 397
86. The Edinburgh Festival, Nationalism and the Countryman Fiction 404
87. The Countryman and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art 417
88. Conclusions 420
89. Timeline 426
90. All Abbreviations 441
91. Notes 447
92. Details of Illustrations 693
93. List of Works 720
94. Select Bibliography 790
95. Indicative Primary Sources 791
96. References 792
97. Image Credits 826
98. Permissions 827
99. Acknowledgements 829
100. Index of Gillies’ Artworks 832
101. General Index 846