Page 115 - Art First: Helen MacAlister: At the Foot o’ Yon Excellin’ Brae

Epic detachment The diptychs are extracts from Roderick Watson on Hugh
neo-dhàimh bharr-sgeulach MacDiarmid: “In fact, what MacDiarmid has taken from his
Passionate objectivity interest in Gaelic art is a sense of epic detachment. This is
méidh-chothromachd lasganta conveyed through a special kind of passionate objectivity,
as if poetic description were an intense and relatively
diptychs, digital print, 2007, A6, edition of 10 selfless act which does not seek to invest the landscape
Printed by The Summerhall Press, Edinburgh with Romantic shades of the writer’s own psyche.” 1
The quotation notes MacDiarmid’s attention to
Kind thanks to: Gaelic – the 2 diptychs are simply translating that thought,
2
Paul Harrison, Visual Research Centre one move. The cool passion of distance – or space or
Michael Schmidt, Carcanet Press place – has bearing when one considers Gaelic, like Scots,
having 3 distances – seo, sin & siud: here, there & yon.

1 MacDiarmid (Open Guides to Literature) – Roderick Watson, p72
2 Translation by Aonghas MacNeacail

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