MCCULLOCH, Horatio

Scottish landscape painter. He was trained in the studio of the Glasgow landscape painter John Knox (1778-1845) for about one year alongside David Macnee (1806-1882) and at first earned his living as a decorative painter.

After he moved to Edinburgh in 1825, he began painting in the tradition of Alexander Nasmyth, working from nature. Gradually he formed his own style on a close study of nature. From 1829, he regularly exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy, where he was elected Academician in 1838.

McCulloch’s landscape paintings celebrate the romantic scenery of the Scottish Highlands, emphasising its dramatic grandeur. McCulloch, from Glasgow, was influenced by John Knox’s luminous paintings, Sir Walter Scott’s vivid prose and the expressive pictures by John Thomson of Duddingston (1778-1840).

McCulloch’s summer sketching tours of the West Highlands inspired some of his most powerful paintings, which were created back in the studio. His landscapes combine a magnificent sense of scale with an emotionally charged atmosphere, and contributed to the popular Victorian image of the Highlands. McCulloch also recorded the crumbling houses of Edinburgh’s Old Town, and was among the first artists to focus on the urban and industrial landscape of Scotland.