3-053-540 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Passing Showers - Forest of Glentanner, Aberdeenshire," by E. A. Waterlow, 1873. 'The picture we engrave was in the last exhibition of the Royal Academy...The scene is one of the many picturesque views among the wilds of distant Aberdeenshire. It comprises almost every element of pictorial landscape. Mountain and valley, or "glen," forest and field, river and rapid, rock and boulder, cloud and mist, sunshine and rain, contribute to complete the comprehensive panorama. The herd of deer so skilfully introduced in the mid-distance serve to break the far-reaching solitude where nothing living besides intrudes. They are picking their way to safer haunts, through the shallows of the point of land that is threatened to be submerged ere long by the swelling flood of the stream in spate. A sturdy stag and an adventurous buck lead the way, and in another minute they, followed by the whole herd, may be bravely stemming the swift mid-current. Further variety and animation are lent to the scene by the aerial effects of the "passing showers," contrasted with the sunburst which gilds the cumuli and cirri of the upper-air strata, and silvers the mists that creep about the hillsides, and shines like polished steel on the distant reaches of the stream'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.