Description
Oil on board
Dimensions
26cm x 35cm (10.25in x 13.75in)
Footnote
Note:
Hugh MacDiarmid, the famous poet and driving force behind the 'Scottish Renaissance' movement of the early 20th century named William McCance "the most advanced Scottish artist of his day." Despite the calls of figures like MacDiarmid and J. D. Fergusson (perhaps the only Scottish artist to have been both present at, and instrumental in, the birth of Modernism in Paris), there were only a handful of Scottish artists who embraced the same politically progressive and modern artistic outlook. William Johnstone and William McCance were the most significant amongst them.
The Cambuslang-born and Glasgow School of Art trained McCance was vocal in his support of 'Scottish Renaissance' ideologies, emoting in one of their magazines 'The Modern Scot': "When the Scot can purge himself of the illusion that Art is reserved for the sentimentalist and realise that he, the Scot, has a natural gift for construction, combined with a racial aptitude for metaphysical thought and deep emotional nature, then out of this combination can arise an art which will be pregnant with Idea, and have a seed of greatness".
McCance possessed all of the foundation stones of artistic greatness: passion, intellect and a receptive, critical mind. Yet, despite being a proud Scot and his professed allegiance to the Scottish artistic cause at this time, the melting pot in which his modernist style developed was in fact the West London art scene. Making a living there as a teacher and an art critic for the Spectator, McCance moved in the same circles as artists like Eric Kennington, William Robertson (who rented a flat from McCance in Earl's Court) and Leon Underwood. He would have known and been well aware of the work of the Vorticists, including the group's leader Percy Wyndham Lewis. Like them, he adopted elements of Cubism, including the use of pure colour as a formal device, and Futurism, including the somewhat sinister references to the 'mechanisation' of the human-form.
The landscapes shown here are early examples of McCance's boundary-pushing work; Movement in a Landscape dates to 1923, produced a year after the first recorded example of his artworks in this manner. His landscapes have been described as "aggressive" and here there is certainly something somewhat violent to the juxtaposition of vivid colours, as well as a sharp, edgy angularity to the shapes which make up his compositional structure.
As a Modernist, McCance is undoubtedly an important name in the story of Scottish, and for that matter, British art. Why this sharply intelligent, highly progressive artist's name is not of greater renown is answerable by the fact that his interests were perhaps too wide-ranging: criticism, typography, sculpture, economics and design all numbered amongst his skills and occupations. Polymathic in ability, McCance was subsequently unfocused on his artistic output, and was also reticent about exhibiting his work. The National Galleries of Scotland have rightly been making efforts to rectify this in recent decades, keen to raise awareness of the unique and important position of McCance in early 20th century art and art theory.