Bet Low approached painting as a poet approaches language. Her practice was bound by severe, self-imposed technical restrictions: in her reduction and concentration of visual data, she rejected the painterly equivalent of “free verse” to achieve a taut, emotionally charged expression. A picture such as After Sunset demonstrates at a glance the extent of her commitment to eschewing all unnecessary detail; to putting down in pictorial terms that a poet strives to put down on the page. In her method of working – she spent summers filling notebooks on Hoy before working up the subsequent paintings in her Glasgow studio throughout the winter – the poet’s process also comes to mind [note 4]. In her sketchbooks, the flurry of notes which sometimes accompany a sketch of a scene reveal not only the excitement of inspiration but also an obvious delight in language. One entry reads:

“Dove grey-bluish hills, lower ones towards water slightly darker, more greenish grey, as with darker strips of water. Brightest part, except for sun, is long straight strip of water at shore edge – pale, bright, silvery grey white dividing picture in two. Strip of sun brilliant gold/orange like moonlight on water. Soft and frosted when it is on light strip only. Except for sun – all picture frosted over – a pale milky grey” [note 5].

In these entries, we find Low groping for the essence of a moment by setting down visual phenomena in words. Her language is so evocative that one could almost imagine the same words inscribed roughly in the notebook of a George Mackay Brown or an Edwin Muir, perhaps: the molten base of a dazzling poem yet to be hammered into verse. Low’s habit of recording phenomena as language, as though the strength of her response could not be contained within the one medium of painting, does something to suggest the sensitivity of her poetic antenna, so to speak. It is further borne out in her reluctance to paint en plein air. Her practice of returning to the source of inspiration several months after the fact - to realise an image of the Hoy hills, for instance, in her Glasgow flat - allowed her to reap the rewards of a sort of artistic breathing space. She records the facts of the landscape then, like a poet giving form to feeling, allows the inspiration to cool; she contemplates the landscape at length before making her mark. And again, like the poet, she revises and reworks laboriously, seeking a concentrated impact which packs an emotional punch. When successful, the result is an accomplished work of art based on incisive observation but enriched by an impassioned and sincere feeling for the subject.

Towards Dusk, watercolour, dimensions unknown, 1977

(courtesy of Hospitalfield)

In Towards Dusk, for example, we sense that a series of notes must surely underpin details including the boulders protruding from beds of moss, or the distinctive patchwork of grasses that carpet the scene. But the image’s elegant, clean-cut contours and the essential ambiguity of the background, where sky meets sea in a magically seamless transition, suggest the hand – and heart - of the artist. It is a beautifully balanced, beguiling work which tugs on the heartstrings. Subtlety is key to the emotional charge of the picture: as in poetry, emotion is tightly controlled and expressed gently; it is there in the fresh, delicate light diffusing the scene, putting us in mind of the start of a new day, and in the feathery clouds which might be lifted from a dream. For the stirring effect this creates, we must pay homage to the facility and working manner which allowed Low to realise her vision; and the poetic streak in her personality which coloured it in the first place.

Something of the innate character of poetry, the beauty of its form, finds a visual equivalent in Low’s painting. The richness and complexity of language, the way that words, meanings and sounds can be woven together in rhyme and braided in rhythm, gives poetry a seductive, immediate quality which accounts in no small part for its timeless appeal. These formal qualities, while they can delight in themselves, can also act as a means of drawing the reader into a poem’s content. They can be reflected in the formal qualities of a painting: in some of Bet Low’s finest works, the comparison holds true and is in fact very striking indeed.

Estuary, oil on canvas, 70 x 90cm, 1967

(courtesy of Lyon and Turnbull)

In Estuary, a large oil which signifies the bridge between abstract and landscape work in Low’s oeuvre (it was painted in 1967, the year of Low’s discovery of Orkney), her delight in mark-making is evident [note 6]. She has slathered the canvas with a loaded brush, marking it with flamboyant oblong streaks in ultramarine, navy, cobalt and sapphire. Each mark seems to glow like a jewel. The painting assumes the hypnotic quality of rippling water. Here, we find something to ignite the senses in joyous celebration: a visual feast which chimes with the beauty of verse’s seductive, flowing form. For all the vigour evident in Low’s handling, nothing is left to chance; although Estuary provides a fascinating counterpoint to the serenity of Low’s muted Orkney landscapes, the same “poetic” sense of discipline which marks her later work is also in evidence here. The fantastic deluge of blues amounts, ultimately, to a clearly structured, serious piece of painting. Pulling back from the dashes and patches of colour, these deftly-placed marks meld to create the illusion of pools, working currents and dancing reflections. They drag the viewer into the picture space in a whirl of colour which sticks in the memory, like the rolling, gliding patterns of a fine poem.

To compare Low’s working manner to that of the poet might prove revealing, and to align the formal qualities of her painting to that of poetry might give a little more away, but the most striking reflection of “poetry” in her work can be found in the emotionally intimate dialogue she creates between herself and the viewer through the landscape. It is true that great poems captivate the reader because language and its treatment can make the hair stand on end, but the poet’s ability to communicate a deeply-felt sentiment is of course the measure of all great literature. In her painting, Low captures elusive, almost indescribable moments and feelings relating to the landscape, its atmospheric and climactic conditions – the strangely satisfying melancholy of a desolate loch at night, the gaiety of a frothing sea on a stormy day - in a way which we instantly recognise and, even if we do not fully understand, which we cannot help but relate to our own experience.

Moonrise, Northern Isles ,watercolour, 45 x 47.5cm

(courtesy of Lyon and Turnbull)

Moonrise, Northern Isles, for example, captures a very particular, affecting sense of atmosphere; the image of stilled tranquillity, touched by the growing summertime light of the very early morning, strikes a deep chord. The image has a power which seems to bind itself instantly to a long-dormant feeling or a half-remembered memory. Beach, an image charged with the quietly threatening atmosphere of a coming storm, is a further example which cuts to the core of poetry in Low’s work. Her best pictures are so moving in a way which is so far beyond words that, before encountering one of her works, we might privately have supposed that what she has captured in paint belonged to ourselves alone. Her work chimes with Keats’ famous comment that poetry “should strike us as a wording of our own highest thoughts and almost a remembrance”. That her work can engender such a powerful feeling in seemingly simple pictorial terms is a startling achievement. Indeed, her concentration of form, far from mere stylisation, is all the more powerful for its economy of means: she achieves an instantly arresting impact without compromising the integrity of the image. The result, ultimately, is that Low achieves the essence of poetry by transforming subjective experience into objective fact; by drinking in a transient scene, an elusive emotion, and presenting it back to the wide-eyed, slack-jawed, enchanted viewer.

Beach, watercolour, 46.5x60cm

(courtesy of Lyon and Turnbull)

Bet Low’s visual poetry invests her work with a rare and stunning potency which is central to its enduring appeal. Highly nuanced and challenging to express in words, there are several ways we might consider the poetic element in Low’s work, but it is clear that it occupies a central position in her painting. Low’s poetic sensibility was nourished by the landscape of Orkney and, when married with her astonishing technical gifts, was the driving force behind her intensely evocative images. By digging deeper into these works with an eye geared towards their inherent poetry, we can come closer to appreciating the strength, beauty and mystery of their power.

I’m grateful to Carly Shearer and the staff of Lyon and Turnbull for allowing me to reproduce several images of Bet Low’s works. I’m also grateful to Hospitalfield for allowing me to reproduce Towards Dusk.

Douglas Erskine

Note 1 – Clare Henry, “Bet Low Branches Out” (undated, unidentified newspaper cutting collected by Low), consulted in GB 247 MS Gen 1764/C, University of Glasgow Special Collections.

Note 2 – Martin Baillie, “Introspective paintings by an artist of integrity”, The Glasgow Herald, 19/10/67 (unnumbered cutting collected by Low), consulted in GB 247 MS Gen 1764/C, University of Glasgow Special Collections.

Note 3 – Agnes Samuels, “Bet Low”, The Scotsman, 19/12/07, https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/bet-low-2469129, accessed 01/02/23.

Note 4 – Cordelia Oliver, “Bet Low and Scottish Landscape”, in Bet Low: Paintings and Drawings, 1945-1985 (Glasgow, 1985), p.10

Note 5 – MS Gen 1764/C/5/5, University of Glasgow Special Collections.

Note 6 - Oliver, “Bet Low and Scottish Landscape”, in Bet Low: Paintings and Drawings, 1945-1985, p.10