This lively and original painting is the work of Alexander Runciman, one of the most remarkable personalities of late eighteenth-century Scottish art. Although apprenticed to Robert Norie, a painter of decorative landscapes, Runciman was temperamentally unsuited to a career as a mere ornamental painter. Indeed, his personality and artistic practice are marked by a proto-Romantic concern with feeling and emotion that fitted uneasily with the ‘enlightened’ and ‘rational’ values dominant in his own lifetime.

After beginning work as a scene painter at the Edinburgh Theatre, his passion for literature and especially Shakespearean drama soon became evident. He joined the theatrical Cape Club, where his nickname, Sir Brimstone, reflected his fiery temper. His broadening horizons led him to Italy with his younger brother John, whom he had also taught to paint. There, his talented sibling was drawn into a dispute with a rival artist that led him to destroy much of his work and leave Rome for Naples, where he died shortly after. Alexander seems to have rationalised this tragic turn of events by deciding to specialise in history painting, the most prestigious and ambitious art form of the time.

 In this self-portrait, Runciman has depicted himself with his old friend John Brown, who had been in Rome at the same time. Shown here some ten years after their return from Italy, both artists had established reputations. Runciman had gained fame from a large mural cycle for Penicuik House near Edinburgh showing scenes from the mythic tales of Ossian. He later became master of Edinburgh’s art school, the Trustees’ Academy. Brown had successfully specialised in both life-size and miniature portrait drawings, all of great quality. This painting celebrates their joint renown and was a gift for their eccentric patron, David Erskine, Earl of Buchan; it was destined for his ‘Temple of Caledonian Fame’, a collection of portraits of notable Scots.

In such circumstances, one might have expected Runciman to produce a highly formal self-representation, but he has instead chosen a far more idiosyncratic approach. He has used broad, loose brushstrokes to portray himself with the utmost informality. His attire consists of a dressing gown and red velvet cap, and he is clearly in the midst of his work: brushes and palette are grasped in one hand, and a porte-crayon in the other. Brown sits beside him, holding a copy of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, his index finger raised as if finding fault with his companion’s work. Runciman reacts to the criticism with irritation and, in his own words, a ‘damnable face’. It is then that we realise the artist has placed the viewer in the position of the canvas. The resulting reversal of the viewer’s accustomed psychological supremacy makes this one of the most unusual and intriguing self-portraits in the history of Scottish art.

This text was first published in Facing the World: Self Portraits from Rembrandt to Ai Weiwei (2016).