James Clerk Maxwell, 1831 – 1879. Physicist
About this artwork
This is a study for the statue of the physicist, James Clerk Maxwell, commissioned by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and erected in George Street in 2008. Maxwell, with his dog Toby at his feet, holds a spinning colour top. This device enabled him to analyse the phenomenon of colour perception and in 1861 he produced the first colour photographic image using red, green and blue filters. In the side reliefs the figures of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are depicted as classical philosophers. Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism influenced Einstein, who remarked that his predecessor’s theories were “the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton”.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Alexander Stoddart (born 1959) Scottish
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title:James Clerk Maxwell, 1831 – 1879. Physicist
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date created:2009
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materials:Bronze
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measurements:91.00 x 40.00 x 59.10 cm
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object type:
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credit line:Gifted by Norma and Walter Nimmo 2010
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accession number:PG 3658
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gallery:
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depicted:
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subject:
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artwork photographed by:Antonia Reeve
Alexander Stoddart
Alexander Stoddart
Born in Edinburgh, Stoddart studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1976-80. There he challenged modernist, multi-media approaches and began instead to produce austere, neo-classical busts and statues. Briefly associated with Ian Hamilton Finlay in the mid 1980s, it was later in the decade that...