Volcanic talent

John Bellany’s brilliance shines from his posthumous show, while the creative connections of Joan Eardley endure

My job, as I see it, has never been to lay a tit’s egg, but to erupt like a volcano, emitting not only flame, but a lot of rubbish [too]”, thus Hugh Macdiarmid memorably summarised his idea of what kind of a poet he was. Tit’s eggs were never for John Bellany either. His creativity, too, was volcanic and his output prodigious, but inevitably, even if he did not produce a lot of rubbish along with the flames, he could be uneven. Nor was he always a severe enough critic of his own work, so a good Bellany exhibition has to be carefully selected. That was certainly true of the major retrospective in 2012, a brilliant show which did full justice to his best work. Happily too he lived to enjoy its success, crowning a career that sadly ended when he died early the following year, not very long after the exhibition closed.

The Capercaillie’s Song at the Open Eye is the first major show of his work in Scotland since his death, so it could be seen as a memorial, but if it is, that is not just a matter of timing. Selected by Helen Bellany, the artist’s widow, this really is a memorial show in a very personal way, for although it is the first exhibition of his work that she has ever selected, she brings to it a unique insight into the artist, the art and the stories that it tells. She has also chosen highs throughout. There is no volcanic rubbish here, only fire. Nor is the show burdened with the claims of a retrospective. Filling in a narrative, however summarily, means that retrospectives can be uneven. In contrast, this show really is a song as its title promises although in fact in real life the capercaillie scarcely sings. Rather it makes a variety of clicks and guttural croaks, but this not ornithology.

In the titular picture, the Capercaillie Sings from 1984, Bellany’s great Scottish bird really does sing whatever ornithology would decree. Big and bold, in brilliant plumage of red, blue and green, head back, it is giving voice with pride and confidence. It is a fitting image of the artist at his best.