Places painters paint

Three or four gallery artists live in Fife and over the last few years names like East Neuk, Pittenweem and Crail have kept cropping up in the titles of paintings. This was not a part of Scotland we had ever visited. Like most Southerners we had been to the Highlands, Skye, Arran, the West Coast and other mountainous parts, but Fife somehow is more off the well-trodden track. Golfers probably know it best. So this year instead of coming straight back home from the Festival we headed north out of Edinburgh across the Road Bridge and turned right into (for us) uncharted territory. Armed with a list of must-see places which Archie MacIntosh had supplied us with, we meandered along the coast calling in at all the small fishing ports.A delightful series of small sheltered harbours surrounded by weathered cottages - many now smartened up and whitewashed. But we marvelled at how all these places had stayed so relatively unspoiled. We made a detour inland to see the weird castle and unforgettable garden at Kellie. We ate our "fish supper" outside on the harbour wall at Anstruther watching the fishing boats set sail. Archie had been right. These must be the best fish and chips in the world. We put our noses into St Andrews but beat a hasty retreat in the face of its pretension - preferring to escape to the remoteness and quiet of the wonderful Peat Inn where we dined twice on fresh local seafood perfectly prepared.
Fife is still a magical part of the country. Get there before its too late.

None of the gallery artists from Fife paint "picture postcards" - far from it. But having seen the area it is now much easier for us to recognise some elements which are clearly influential in the way an artist like Archie MaxIntosh relates to the locality. Painters become familiar with and absorb these elements over time and re-interpret and arrange them in compositions which tell us more about how the artist "feels" about a place rather than how they literally see it at a single moment in time. The long clearcut lines between grassy fields, the grey sea and the heavily-clouded sky; the stark whiteness of simple harbourside houses; the changing moods of the sea; the colourfulnes of fishing boats; the contrast of calm inside the harbour wall with the pounding sea outside and the eeriness of isolated ruins scattered along the shore line. These are motifs which recur in the work of all the "Fife" artists shown below.