Exploring Henry and Hornel’s ‘The Druids — Bringing in the Mistletoe’
While writing about beauty and design in our book Customer Experiences with Soul: A New Era in Design Maria and I describe an absolutely stunning painting which caused a scandal at the time of its creation — The Druids — Bringing in the Mistletoe.
In my most recent visit to the Kelvingrove Museum and Gallery in Glasgow where it is on permanent display, I took the opportunity to record this video exploring the painting and explaining my admiration for it.
The painting hangs permanently in the room dedicated to The Glasgow Boys, a loose-knit group of Glasgow-based artists who reached a creative peak in the 1880s and 1890s. It was jointly pained by George Henry (1858–1943) and Edward Atkinson Hornel (1864–1933) in 1890.
This was a hugely innovative and almost shocking piece of art for its era, ahead of its time not only due to the flattened perspective but particularly for the daring and revolutionary use of gold leaf which wowed spectators across Europe, especially in Germany where it was exhibited in Munich and declared the most radical painting of its era.
For me I could easily understand the response of those who viewed the painting, since there is a monumental spirituality in its experience — the expression in the druids, the moon-like mound, and the bright colours which have almost never been used to depict druids in this manner.
The mistletoe, a plant venerated by druids, can be seen on the heads of the white wild cattle. Henry and Hornel went to great lengths to ensure that this particular ancient breed would have been present in the era of the druids, and they studied the skulls of cattle to ensure as good a likeness as possible.
There is something about being up close against the brush-strokes of a great painting that places you in the presence of the artist as no reproduction possibly could. For this I am extremely grateful in having been able to visit this exceptional painting and indeed collection in person.
