Picture courtesy of Montrose Pictures
A strikingly mounted film portrait of a truly great landscape artist, Eye of the Storm appropriately had its world premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival, the home town of James Morrison, a modest but gloriously talented painter whose work hangs in the homes of the Royal Family and JK Rowling as well as galleries and private collections around the world.
Making impressive and judicious use of animation and music, filmmaker Anthony Baxter gently and astutely tells the story of a life dedicated to art; of a proud Scot whose work beautifully reflected the light, sea, landscape and buildings of his country, and of a compassionate and articulate man who let his craft and body of work do much of his talking.
Baxter spent two years filming with Morrison who, at the age 85 and having been side-lined by a series of operations and failing eyesight, picks up his brushes again. He talks refreshingly and candidly about what art and creativity means to him, and looks back to his childhood and fledgling years as an artist. While at his studio (which amusingly has the words ‘wet paint’ on the glass door) he remarks how “my sight has quite badly deteriorated. And the thought of coming in here and not being able to pick up a brush and do something with it really terrifies me. It appals me.”
Born in Glasgow, where his father worked in the shipyards, he discovered art as a boy (when interviewed he proudly shows the drawing of Mickey Mouse he completed as an eight year-old) and went on to study at the Glasgow School of Art in 1950. His early works as a student were of the city’s tenement buildings, and while other students embraced abstract art he was drawn to the landscape painters of a different era, such as Claude Lorrain and his own favourite, Scotland’s own Horatio McCulloch.
After moving to the small fishing village of Catterline in north east Scotland in 1959 he truly found his artistic inspiration. He never painted a human figure and instead focussed on the stunning skies and landscape, taking his large canvasses to the hills, fields and beaches to paint the ever-changing vistas. In subsequent years he would find himself challenged as he painted outside in the high arctic reaches of Canada and Greenland, while also returning to Paris in search of perfect paintbrushes.
The telling of his life story is wrapped around contemporaneous attempts to deal with worsening eyesight and to deliver a new painting for a new solo exhibition of his work in Edinburgh, mounted by The Scottish Gallery in 2020. He finishes the work, and with COVID just a few weeks away in the UK he arrives at the gallery in wheelchair, guided by his daughter Judith, to find that one of his final paintings, titled Dark Landscape, has already sold. He would die a few months later in August, aged 88.
Certain moments of Morrison’s past are brought to life by award-winning Scottish animator Catriona Black – especially her animation of his art school days and his time spent painting in the High Arctic – while Karine Polwart adds to the tone and mood of the film with a series of haunting and plaintive songs.
This fond, insightful, illuminating and gently powerful film is a memorable tribute to a remarkable talent and a celebration of art and the Scottish landscape.
UK, 2021, 78mins
Dir: Anthony Baxter
Production: Montrose Pictures, BBC Scotland, Creative Scotland
Producer: Richard Phinney
Editor/Cinematography: Anthony Baxter
Music: Dominic Glynn, songs by Karine Polwart
Animation: Catriona Black
