Bass Rock - Michael Windle

There are as many paintings of the glorious Bass as there are gannets on it, and here is another. Based on an iteration of an iteration, a painting by Minister of Duddingston John Thomson (not the skating minister, but the one who had 14 children and coined the phrase we’re a' Jock Tamson’s bairns) then transformed in print by Turner’s engraver, The Scotch Quaker, William Miller at the peak of Scottish romanticism. I came across the print in a boot sale, instantly enthralled by the exciting and perceptive tooled marks on the page. Expression and gesture. Searching online for an image of Thomson’s original painting was unsuccessful. Perhaps it doesn’t exist.