Transcript of Greatest Paintings: Age of Enlightenment - Raeburn's Skating Minister

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Hello, everyone. Tom Holland here, and I am joined by the great Laura Cumming, and we are looking at Painting in History. Four paintings that reflect a particular period in history. We'll be looking at the history of the painting itself, the life of the artist, and teasing out the mysteries that shadow all four paintings. Today's painting, it's The Skating Minister by Henry Rayburn, the most famous painting in Scottish history, a painting that tells us about the Enlightenment, about romanticism, and also, of course, about skating.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to our ongoing series for you, our beloved club members on great paintings, how they are situated in history, the story behind them, the story of the person who painted them, all of that thing.

We've been to to Bruges in the 15th century. We've been to Madrid in the 17th century. And now we are going to Edinburgh, in the late 18th century.

Laura, coming with me. Laura, you are Scottish. You are from Edinburgh, and I am a Scottish landowner. I'm basically Scottish as well.

You're That's what I see my boss.

Yeah. I can see Theo, who purports to be French, sitting in the producer's booth, and he's just made a rude gesture at that. We're in a very Scottish mood today. Actually, the painting you've chosen is the national painting for Scotland, isn't it? What is it? Who painted it? Tell us about it.

It's the Skating Minister, painted by Henry Rabun, or was it, in 1795. It is absolutely the painting of Scotland. It's the one painting that everybody who's listening now, I think, can probably associate with my nation.

Just for those very few who have no idea who the Skating Minister is, what it looks like, just describe it.

Pitch black, silhouetted figure of a minister, Church of Scotland, very black clothes, skating on Duddingston Loch. He's on one leg, the other leg behind him, like a ballet dancer. His arms are crossed. It's called the Traveling Pose, in fact, as skaters will know. He's crossing the loch, and behind him is this unbelievable, frost, romantic misty distance. The painting is, to me, not just a perfect logo of himself. If you grew up in Scotland, you knew this painting very well. It was everywhere. It would pass you on busses, which was an additional joke, because the great thing about this figure is that he is apparently motionless, and yet, of course, he's moving, he's gliding. So It's a great comic painting in my view.

Yes. There are two things that strike me about it immediately. The first is the note of comedy because he is looking intensely serious. He has the look of a man who is drawing up his sermon. And yet, as you say, the contrast between the figure he makes as a skater and his incredible dignity is inherently comic. But the other source of tension, which I imagine we're going to be teasing out over the course of this episode, is fact that even though he's a minister, he looks an emblem of the Scottish enlightenment. He's sober, he's serious, he's a scholar. That's all implicit in his appearance. But behind him, it's romanticism at its most romantic. I guess, again, the tension there is key to understanding the painting.

Absolutely right. If you took the figure away and just imagine this exquisite silvery gold, distant, distant fog and mist, and you can feel the temperature reverberating in the air there and so on, and the ice below. This was a part of Edinburgh, a loch in Edinburgh that froze over all the time. Because this is in Edinburgh.

It's not in the highlands, but it looks like something out of Ossian or something.

I know, it really does. This craggy shadowy shapes in the distance and so on. If you took him away, you could be looking at, well, I think you could be looking at a German. A Turner. Yes, a Turner. But I was thinking more German painting of that era. There he is, and you've got him so well. His face, he's definitely getting down to probity and piety. He's going to tell someone off and it's going to be a hellfire.

Thank you for listening. Subscribe to the Restless History Club at therestlesshistory. Com for the entire episode. Laura and I will be back next week for our final episode in this series when we will be looking at The Angelus by Jean François, Millet, mid-19th century painting, haunting, full of mystery. If you want to hear that, well, go and sign up.

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