Burns Day

Another party today. Burns day. To partake you'll have haggis for supper, which will of course be piped in by men in kilts. Then you'll recite a few poems. You'll finish the evening singing Auld Lang Syne and perhaps a wee dram of whiskey.

Illustrative Work of Jessie M. King

Illustration: Jessie Marion King. Illustration to Poems of Shelley, 1907.

Jessie Marion King was a Scottish artist and illustrator who produced much of her more memorable work in the early years of the twentieth century. Although she is mainly known for her illustrative work during the early period of the twentieth century, she also produced textile work including batik in which she was quite extensively committed well into the 1920s, as well as embroidery. She had been both a student and teacher at Glasgow School of Art and was one of the artists and designers that helped to cement the unique style that Glasgow was to call its own, a combination of Arts and Crafts practicalities and Art Nouveau aesthetics.

The illustrative piece by King that is given as an example in this article was published in 1907. It was part of an edition of Shelley's poetry and bears the text at the bottom of her illustration: 

...until thine azure sister of the spring shall blow her clarion o'er the dreaming earth...

The poem is Ode to the West Wind and the illustration produced by King was just one of a set that were beautifully and creatively engineered by her in order to appear both ethereal and yet to have significant strength in order to reflect the art of poetry to both change and reflect imagination. King was particularly good at producing illustrative work that carefully balanced itself between confident artistic expression and delicate poetic imagination. She was said by many of her contemporary critics to have taken her work beyond the mere reflection of the books she illustrated. It was suggested that her own creative work added to the full complement of a book, implying that the publication may well have been the poorer without her contribution.

Interestingly, two of the early books that King illustrated were by William Morris who, like many of her generation, she saw as a combination of mentor, originator and guide. The Wood Beyond the World and Defence of Guinevere were books that were both steeped in the Arts and Crafts Movement as well as the earlier medieval revival that poured into and inevitably influenced the craft movement in both England and Scotland for much of the nineteenth century. However, there were other influences outside of the remit of Morris and his movement that were equally compelling and intriguing to King and her generation, though would perhaps have trouble the sensibilities of Morris.

A number of critics drew comparisons between the work of King and that of Aubrey Beardsley. She was by no means unique in this comparison and it is interesting that many of the artists and designers of the Glasgow movement were also linked with Beardsley, particularly Margaret and Frances MacDonald. While there is indeed a layer of Beardsley's influence across the work of a number of King's contemporaries, it can only ever be said to have been one of the influences, but not necessarily an overriding one.

King is an interesting artistic expression of the coming together, even overlapping, of two worlds. Both of these worlds rarely saw a commonality, but in many ways they were indelibly linked. Those two worlds were the English and Scottish Arts and Crafts movement and the European based Art Nouveau. The expression of the physical and observational parameters of nature encased in the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement, along with the more cerebral imaginations of nature beyond its physical limitations as often expressed in the wider parameters of the Art Nouveau movement, particularly in literature and music, seem to come together effortlessly in Kings illustrative work. In some ways she was a creative artist that had gone beyond the immediate and the home-grown, beyond the mental limitations of the Arts and Crafts movement, towards the expanded universe of Art Nouveau and its dependency on the fantastical, or at least beyond the everyday imaginations of most. It is this movement beyond the roots of the native and practical Arts and Crafts that spells the change in emphasis and mental space that creative artists had occupied within the England and Scotland for so much of the nineteenth century.

On a more practical level, it is interesting to note that King produced textile work in tandem with her illustrative. More interesting still is that fact that at least a proportion of that textile work was embroidery. Drawing with embroidery was a skill she held in common with a number of the new creatives during the early years of the twentieth century. This freedom of movement gave embroidery a wider artistic remit, allowing compositions to go beyond the traditions of the craft. That artists and designers took the initiative and produced work that could be both complex and simplistic, depending on attitude taken towards line, gave greater freedom of expression and helped extend the parameters of the craft into that of the fine art world. King herself produced line work in both illustration and embroidery; it is tempting therefore to wonder how much each discipline influenced the other. Either way, King produced an astounding confidence in her work and was rightly admired for both her individual creative direction, as well as her ability to reflect the sensibilities and sensitivity of the new century.

Further reading links:

Let Glasgow Flourish by Ann Macbeth

Illustration: Ann Macbeth. Let Glasgow Flourish embroidered banner, c1910.

Embroidered banners were a particular favourite of different social, political and religious groupings throughout Britain during the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries. Most, if not all were produced by women and a number have survived into our own contemporary era.

Ann Macbeth, one of the leaders of the Glasgow based revival of embroidery skills during the very last years of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was involved in a number of these embroidered banners. The example shown in this article was produced by her in about 1910. It contains the coat of arms of the city of Glasgow with its motto 'Let Glasgow Flourish.' The full motto is in fact 'Lord, let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the word' in commemoration of St. Mungo who is said to have preached these words from his newly founded monastery built by the fishing hamlet of Glasgow in the sixth century. The fishing hamlet specialised in salmon, hence the representation of the two fish. The coat of arms has a number of different features and symbols each of which is tied to the story, both real and mythical, of early Glasgow. A good comprehensive guide to the coat of arms can be found at the Rampant Scotland website.

Although the Let Glasgow Flourish banner is by no means a particularly dynamic version of early twentieth century Scottish embroidery skills, and does not necessarily reflect the creative work that Macbeth was producing during this period, it does give an indication of her public persona in the city. The banner itself was presented by the city of Glasgow to the city of Lyons and therefore in many respects it gave its tacit approval to both the high standard of skills base that had been achieved largely through the localised Glaswegian Arts & Crafts movement, as well as that of Macbeth herself. 

It is perhaps difficult today to recognise other personalities within the Glasgow decorative arts movement of the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, other than that of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Although Mackintosh clearly had a creative reputation that was deserving, there were a number of other creative artists, designers and crafts people that were his contemporaries and just as disciplined, professional and committed to new creative horizons as himself. Many were women and they were involved in a cross section of craft disciplines including metal, glass, wood, jewellery, and textiles as well as craft work that bordered and often crossed over into fine art. That many have been either forgotten or marginalised could well have more to do with twentieth century repercussions due to their gender rather than their creative skills base.

Ann Macbeth had a dynamism and lifelong passion for the promotion and expansion of the history as well as that of the contemporary craft skill of embroidery. She was particularly effective in the use of education, being a vital member of the embroidery department of Glasgow Art School during the very early years of the twentieth century, when arguably the art school had reached the apex of it power and influence. Macbeth was also involved in the educational promotion of embroidery as a viable employment skill to young Scottish women. To this effect, she had a working relationship with the Scottish Education Department. In some respects, it was Macbeth's relationship and contacts with the political structure in Scotland that landed her with the Let Glasgow Flourish commission.

The ex-Lord Provost of Glasgow, Sir William Blisland who was a particularly keen supporter of the Glasgow Arts & Crafts movement as well as that of Macbeth and her educational promotion of embroidery, commissioned her to complete an embroidered banner that was to be presented to Lyons in exchange for their initial presentation of an example of their famous silk work given as a gift to Glasgow.

Although much of the effort expended by Macbeth was to fast disappear in the twentieth century, particularly after the trauma of the First World War, it does not negate the fact that despite the loss of the wide-scale attraction of embroidery as a contemporary and potentially financially rewarding craft, Macbeth did much to promote the idea of craft as a viable option and one that could enthusiastically as well as practically be accepted and promoted by politicians as a integral part of the state. It was important for Macbeth to see craft development as one that could be implemented through state education and through the political system of the day. 

Any viable relationship between the creative world and that of politics and the state is perhaps a dimension that we have either lost or are incapable of understanding in the contemporary world we live in. A world which is now dominated by politicians who hope to negate their intrinsic responsibilities to the state by endlessly outsourcing to private companies who have neither the inclination or resources to promote any form of creative educational expansion on the scale that Macbeth attempted and thought was necessary. We are ultimately the poorer for it.

Further reading links:
Educational Needlecraft (1911)
The country woman's rug book (Paragraph Press reprint series of craft & hobby handbooks)
Embroidered and laced leather work
The playwork book,
The Glasgow Style: Artists in the Decorative Arts, Circa 1900 (Schiffer Book with Values)
Doves And Dreams: The Art of Frances Macdonald And J. Herbert Mcnair
Textiles from the Archives of the Glasgow School of Art
The unbroken thread: A century of embroidery & weaving at Glasgow School of Art
The Flower and the Green Leaf: Glasgow School of Art in the Time of Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Movements of Modernity: The Case of Glasgow and Art Nouveau
GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART EMBROIDERY, 1894-1920.
Glasgow 1900: Art and Design
Glasgow Girls
Art Nouveau (Midsize)
Taking Tea with Mackintosh: The Story of Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms