Runciman, Alexander
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- Runciman, Alexander
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(1736 - 85), painter; studied under Robert Norie at Edinburgh; London 1772; master of the Trustees' Acad., Edinburgh, 1772 - 85; exh. FS 1762, 1767, 1780: RA 1772 - 82.
1767 - 71 [dep. London 16 Apr. 1767], Leghorn (25 May), Rome (Jun. 1767 - 1768), Naples (winter 1768 - 9), Rome ( - Jul. 1769 - Oct.[?]1771) [Edinburgh by 27 Jan. 1772]
The brothers Alexander and John Runciman went to Italy in 1767, taking an opportunity offered by the contract to paint the saloon of Penicuik for Sir James Clerk. The banker Robert Alexander also contributed to their support while they were abroad. Alexander Runciman reached Rome in June 1767, intending to study landscape during a stay of two and a half years, and John joined him later, probably in September.1 They were lodged in the 'casa sul cantone della Piazza della SSma.Trinita de' Monti' during 1768 (they paid for accommodation up to 15 December)2 and both were listed in the Strada Gregoriana in 1769, at the same address as Anne Forbes and her mother,3 even though John had died in Naples during the winter of 1768 - 9.
John's few surviving Italian works include a remarkable Self-portrait which shows him reflecting on Michelangelo's figure of Day (SNPG); some of his drawings and an etching likewise show a precocious interest in Michelangelo. John's originality seems to have aroused some jealousy, and differences between him and James Nevay had given rise to 'a scene of Villany'.4 But by November 1768 he was 'advanced in a consumption', and Andrew Lumisden thought him 'past recovery'.5 He left Rome for Naples where he died, having destroyed much of his work ('his better things').6 On receiving the news of his brother's illness, Alexander had travelled to Naples with James Barry, only to find John already buried.7
John's death, and no doubt Barry's encouragement, prompted Alexander to be more open about his own ambitions as a history painter. Already in December 1767 he had written that 'I have been [on] a wrong plan of study for painting all my life'.8 'Serious history [painting] is not to be learn'd but with great patience & assiduity', he wrote in September 1769: 'I'm here burried amongst Old Statues &c & very shortly I'll leave them for a while to go upon Titian for six Months after that I'll to the Antique again the divels in it if that plan of Education follow'd with care dont produce somthing'.4 He embarked on a large painting of Ulysses and Nausicaa with nine figures, the principal ones being slightly larger than life (RA 1772; untraced). It was said to have been painted for admission to the Accademia di S.Luca in Rome and Runciman had sought Mengs's criticism (which was unfavourable).9 Runciman then changed his plans for the decoration at Penicuik, from fairly generalised landscapes with classical themes (as recorded in a drawing in the Penicuik papers), to a heroic series of the life of Achilles.(10) This was openly inspired by Gavin Hamilton's Homeric pictures and Villa Borghese decorations (first mentioned as early as 1770) and by the sight of a painted room in the Baths of Titus 'far underground', which Runciman examined by torch light; 'I could not make a drawing of it but the Thought was enough for me ... the story was the Council of ye Gods on the Fate of Troy'.(10)
After Barry's departure in April 1770, Runciman's circle included Henry Fuseli, John Brown and J.T. Sergel. His work from his last two years in Rome includes a series of drawings for his Achilles project of which the most important is the immensely elaborate Marriage of Peleus and Thetis (apparently referred to in a letter of 1771 to Sir James). This and the drawing of Achilles and Pallas (apparently mentioned in his letter of May 1770), may be the earliest dateable examples of the use of outline as a consciously primitive form (both SNG). He also produced such original works as his first drawing of Ossian Singing in a much freer and more spontaneous style (SNG). Such a drawing, or the painting of the Origin of Painting (1773; Penicuik), support Fuseli's generous assertion that Runciman was 'the best painter among us here in Rome'.(11)
1. Hayward List, 13, 32. 2. ASR, Fondo 30, Note Capitolini, Ufficio 7 (Tondus), v.399, f.127r. 3. AVR sa, S.Andrea delle Fratte. See S. Booth, JWCI, 32[1969]: 334 - 9. D. McMillan,
Burl.Mag., 112[1970]:23 - 30, and Painting in Scotland, exh. cat. [1986], 43 - 58. 4. Laing MSS, iv, 26 (A. Runciman, Sep. 1769). 5. Note by B. Skinner. 6. Laing MSS, iv, 26 (A.
Runciman, 20 Jul. 1769). 7. Barry, Works, 1:114. 8. Laing MSS iv 26 (5 Dec. 1767). 9. Note by S. Booth (Laing MSS, annot. by D. Laing on a letter from D. Stuart, 30 May 1831). 10. Clerk of Penicuik MSS, GD 4680 (12 May 1770). 11. Nollekens, 1:64.
D. M.