WebMayJun2019

www.westendermagazine.com | 33
wife and responsibilities await him. Wheatley
moves focus to the outdoors, figures small
in the landscape, a gentle movement of the
grass, the slow pace of the river, the form
of a reclining female in the clouds watching
over – mother earth perhaps sympathetic
to the innate opportunity for ‘good’ that is
also within the bounds of our humanness.
A wonderful scene that’s as much an
allegorical reminder of the fragility of life
against the power and might of the natural
elements as it is for Tam as we contemplate
the sober reality of fleeting pleasures ending,
as they of course do.
There is beauty to be found in all
Wheatley’s paintings and they captivate
not just by their physical size and presence
but for his artistic skill, technical brilliance
and innate attention to detail. A cloud of
thistledown is finely depicted in the lower left
of the painting – so delicately worked and
recognisable within the childhood memories
of many Scottish children, as well as
Wheatley. ‘I remember catching thistledown
as a kid and when you blew it free, a fairy was
to grant you a wish.’ So lifelike in its rendering
that he recounts how his father thought it was
‘stuck on’ to the painting.
The pictures continue to journey through
Burns epic poem, the play of drama
intensifying. There is a reverence found in
the deep azure blue of the night sky, boldly
powerful above the solitary Tam riding on the
back of his horse Meg – man versus world in
the impending moments before high drama
unfolds on the path before them at Alloway
Kirk. Wonderful attention to detail is again
found in the characters making their way
through the blades of grass in the graveyard
towards the golden glow of light ahead and
what is to be a scene behold of merriment
and one of terror for the drunken Tam.
Evocative flames of light, dancing beings
– the night unfolds with darkness holding
power, a reality where truth and imagination
blend, a thinning of the veil between the
creatures of the unseen and the world of
humans. Two spectacular paintings reflect
Tams visions within the Kirk before we see
him escape with Meg through the land and
over Brig o’ Doon.
The landscape plays a significant part
in Wheatley’s narrative. On my second visit
there is more to see – the hordes of hell
chasing Tam over the bridge, the clouds,
which I found so captivating early in the
series remain so, almost developing and
reflecting their own shift in intensity within the
pictures as the story unfolds. Yet, Wheatley
was for many years reluctant to call himself
an artist. Art School disappointed in so
far as the training did not satisfy or go far
enough for him to feel expert enough. ‘I had
hoped to be taught as a painter,’ he tells
me. So began a rather more unconventional
journey, where the working world of industry
But Pleasures Are Like Poppies Spread ©Nichol Wheatley