by Norman Barry

It is well known that Caravaggio murdered someone and had to flee Rome. On his way back to receive a pardon he was murdered himself. In between he painted some of his most striking works. This leaves us to wonder how does the environment in which an artist lives affect, or not affect, his or her art?

The Eye of the Storm is a BBC Scotland film of the life of James Morrison RSA, RSW, sometimes described as one of Scotland’s finest landscape artists. He describes his art as a struggle with himself. He was constantly debating with himself about what he was doing. He is aware of the great European tradition quoting Manet in defence of his Glasgow tenement buildings: you paint what you see. And admired Matisse who painted from his bed when crippled and who thought art was a form of prayer. Although his son who is an art historian says his greatest influence was Horatio McCulloch, the 19th century Scottish landscape painter who kept close to nature.