The Spirit of Line: D.Y. Cameron at 150

Nice exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir David Young Cameron who is best known as a print maker and was part of the etchings revival of the late 19th century.

I loved his very detailed pictures of architecture such as one of the Five Sisters’ Window in York Minster which gave a wonderful sense of the shape and effect of the window. Similarly I liked one of Winchester Cathedral with great arches of light formed by the dark architectures around them. The commentary said he was a deeply religious man who believed that beauty and decoration were essential to worship.

I was interested to see how he’d be influenced by Rembrandt, having visited the Rembrandt House recently, and that he had given 56 Rembrandt prints to the gallery which he had collected. He sat on the Board of Trustees of the gallery and there was a lovely print of the building itself by him in a cabinet in the middle of the room. In fact he had been behind the establishment of a prints room at the gallery and it was the print room that had curated this exhibition.

A nice show giving a sense of not only Cameron’s work but also his life and the business of print making in this period.

Closes on 21 February 2016.

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