This early 20th-century oil painting by English artist Herbert F. Royle (1870-1958) depicts the still waters of the Kyle of Lochalsh, where a handful of sailing boats move beneath an immense Highland sky.
Kyle of Lochalsh lies on Scotland's north-western coast, looking across the narrow stretch of water towards the Isle of Skye. Long before the modern bridge connected the mainland to the island, it was a natural point of passage: a small Highland settlement where boats, ferries and coastal traffic moved between communities separated by sea and mountain.
For Royle, it was also precisely the sort of place that suited him. A keen walker and climber, he made numerous expeditions into the Western Highlands, travelling through landscapes considerably wilder than those surrounding his home in Wharfedale. Accounts even describe him exchanging paintings with Highland crofters in return for accommodation. Scotland was not simply an occasional source of picturesque subjects; it became an important part of his life as an artist. At his own request, his ashes were eventually scattered in the Highlands.
Yet there's little sense here of an artist attempting to impress us with Highland grandeur. Royle could easily have made the mountains the subject. Instead, he almost removes them. Their pale outlines hover along the horizon, scarcely distinguishable from the sky, while the little boats provide the strongest vertical accents in an otherwise horizontal composition. One dark sail catches the eye near the centre, accompanied by smaller vessels that seem almost weightless against the expanse surrounding them. Their reflections descend softly into the water before breaking apart.
Above them is the real event. Clouds gather and disperse across a sky painted in creamy whites, muted golds, blue-greys and touches of mauve. Royle's brushwork is wonderfully free here. Rather than carefully defining individual clouds, he builds the atmosphere from overlapping strokes and shifting tones, allowing passages of paint to merge into one another. Below, the same colours reappear across the surface of the loch, so that sky and water seem to share a single light.
There's something revealing about Royle's experience of the place in this restraint. He appears less interested in recording what Kyle of Lochalsh looks like than in remembering what it felt like to stand there. The scale of the sky, the distant mountains disappearing into haze, tiny sails moving slowly across calm water and that peculiar luminosity of the western coast have become the subject.
Signed in the lower right and held in a handsome period gilt frame with scrolling foliate ornament, swept corners and a beaded inner edge.
Learn more about Herbert F. Royle in our directory.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Overall size: 29” x 25” / 74cm x 63cm
Year of creation: c. 1930
Provenance: Private collection, UK.
Condition: Cleaned. Revarnished. Areas of fine and settled craquelure, as you would expect. The paint layer is stable. Frame in good condition with minor age-related wear.
Artist’s auction maximum: £15,000 achieved in 2010 for ‘Figures Picking Bluebells above Wharfedale with Bolton Abbey in the Distance’.
Our reference: BRV2332
