Lot 8: John Knox , 1778-1845 the road home, loch katrine oil on canvas

oil on canvas

measurements note 54.5 by 74 cm.; 21 ½ by 29 in.

Although very little biographical material exists, John Knox was probably raised in the west of Scotland, later living in Paisley and in about 1809 moving to Glasgow. Contemporary accounts refer to his work as a portraitist although almost all his surviving works are landscapes, painted as in the present case with exquisite clarity of light and sharpness of form. David and Francina Irwin, in their book Scottish Painters - At Home and Abroad have made the interesting suggestion that Knox may have used a camera obscura to prepare the compositions of his landscapes, which are often widely panoramic in their scale. This could partly explain the quality of stillness present in his works and the very deliberate arrangement of overlapping landscape elements to form screens within the composition.

Knox exhibited at the Glasgow Institution for Promoting and Encouraging the Fine Arts in the West of Scotland, from 1821 and in 1828 he joined the newly-formed Glasgow Dilettanti Society, participating in their annual exhibitions from this inaugural year onwards. He also sent paintings to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy and British Institution in London. The great majority of his exhibited paintings were views in the mountains to the north and west of Glasgow, including many views taken on Loch Lomond and others showing the River Clyde and its estuary. On other occasions his painting expeditions took him to the English Lake District and to North Wales. Knox was also active as a teacher numbering Horatio McCulloch and William Leighton Leitch, who were each to become distinguished landscape painters, among the students who attended his Glasgow drawing classes. The largest holding of John Knox's works is that in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow which formed the basis of an exhibition of Knox's work there in 1974.