The New International Encyclopædia/Scott, David

SCOTT, David (1806-49). An English historical and portrait painter, etcher, engraver, and author, horn at Edinburgh. He exhibited his first picture, the "Hopes of Early Genius Dispelled by Death," at the Scottish Academy in 1828. In 1832 he visited Italy, making a short stay in Paris, where he was much impressed by the works of David, and from there going to Rome, he returned to Edinburgh in 1834. Although an artist of undoubted merit, he failed to win the appreciation of the public. His feverish and eager haste to portray his ideas hampered him in his use of color, and one must look to his work as a draughtsman to find the true interpretation of his genius. Among his designs are his Monograms of Man (1831). a set of six remarkable etchings somewhat resembling those of Max Klinger, and drawn in delicate outline on copper, and his designs for Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, begun in the same year, published in London (1837), a series characterized by vivid imagination and great power. Most of his paintings are in private collections in Scotland. The National Gallery of Edinburgh possesses the "Vintager" and "Ariel and Caliban." Other paintings include: "Achilles Addressing the Manes of Patroclus," Sunderland Art Gallery; "Vasco da Gama," Trinity House, Leith; the "Descent from the Cross," Smith Institute, Stirling; and portraits of Dr. John Brown and of Emerson (Public Library, Concord, Mass.). Scott's last works were the 40 illustrations to Pilgrim's Progress, and a series of 18 beautiful designs to Nichol's Architecture of the Heavens, both issued after his death. Consult W. B. Scott, Memoir of David Scott (Edinburgh, 1850).