‘He glides like a dancer on a frozen loch’
Sunday Post art critic Jan Patience explains the enduring appeal of the painting: “It’s the playful contrast between what you expect of a buttoned-up Church of Scotland, late 18th Century minister and how he is skating freely, gliding like a dancer. “It’s also a graphic image, with the dark simplicity of the figure of the minister standing out sharply against the very Scottish background of a frozen loch and mountains and the triangular composition, which is memorable and easily reproduced. “The Skating Minister is certainly unusual among Raeburn’s works, but I don’t think fans will particularly care who painted it.”