Page 54 - Art First: Helen MacAlister: At the Foot o’ Yon Excellin’ Brae
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Ben Dorain ‘Ben Dorain’ ascribes to given analysis of Donnchadh
1
oil on linen, 2010, 148 x 210cm Bàn MacIntyre’s poem, Praise to Ben Dorain as being a
panegyric to a mountain, a visual documentary.
At the Foot o’ Yon Excellin’ Brae However, the pieces are also conceived of
oil on linen, 2010, 42 x 59.4cm looser conceits: the bàn is Gaelic for fair-haired, (off)white
but can also signify blank, empty and pale ie, talamh bàn
= fallow ground (an uncultivated field is pale in contrast
to the dark ground of ploughed) and of course fallow as in
fallow deer. By extension there is the pertinent dèan bàn =
depopulate.
Thomas Clark in A Book of Deer is apposite:
‘In a glade of smoky light, that which is
lost, or is constantly displaced, steps
beyond its image.’
The title of the show is Hamish Hendersons.
At the Foot o’ Yon Excellin’ Brae , a text in which he says
2
‘the purpose of this present essay is to demonstrate that a
curious “bilingualism in one language” has always been a
characteristic of Scots folksong at least since the beginning
of the seventeenth century.’ He further points out that the
3
language is never purely colloquial but is formal and even
stylized. ‘It is in the great songs, licked into shape like
pebbles by the waves of countless tongues, that this sense
of formality is most marked.’
‘At the Foot o’ Yon Excellin’ Brae’, as
declarative, ‘steps beyond its image’.
1 Dùthchas Nan Gàidheal: Selected Essays of John MacInnes, p266
2 A line from Courtin’ Amang the Kye, sung by Willie Mathieson
3 Alias MacAlias - Hamish Henderson; edited byAlec Finlay, p52 &
p54
Drawing = © St Andrews University Library, Photographic Collection
Painting = © St Andrews University Library, Photographic Collection
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