ABSTRACT
In the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh is a large work by William McTaggart entitled The Storm, in which a sense of the monumental power of the elements is unleashed. Completed in the studio in 1890, The Storm was based on a smaller piece executed in 1883 when McTaggart visited Carradale village on the east coast of the Mull of Kintyre, the peninsular region of his birth (National Galleries Scotland n.d.). The utility of McTaggart’s original plein air study is evident in the light quality that characterizes the finished studio work. As Tim Ingold (2005, 97) argues, “light is fundamentally an experience of being in the world that is ontologically prior to the sight of things. Though we do not see light, we do see in light”. McTaggart’s image exemplifies this observation; when one actually stands in front of the work it feels illumined.
