Hornel has symbolised summer in the figure of a girl chasing a butterfly. Landscape and figures are seen as a flat, decorative design or pattern in two dimensions, not as a traditional scene receding into depth. Shapes
and colours seem abstract and arbitrary as in a tapestry or a stained glass window - although they convey the idea of summer very effectively. The blouse of the running girl has Japanese decorative patterns and the
curve of her body has the beauty of linear form common in Japanese art. There is a similarity with the French Post-Impressionists but no real evidence that Hornel knew their work. Summer caused uproar when it was purchased
because of Hornel’s unusual painting style. His technique is so extreme it almost hides the butterfly the girls are chasing. One newspaper headline read ‘Art and Insanity at the Walker Art Gallery’. Although this is
one of the most important paintings of the Glasgow School, the Gallery’s Chairman could only persuade the City Council in 1892 to buy it by the threat of resignation if they did not.
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The Scottish painter from Kirkcudbright E. A. Hornel had studied in the Trustees' Art gallery in Edinburgh before being trained in the Antwerp Academy. When Hornel returned to Scotland he joined a group of artists who
called themselves the Glasgow Boys.
Summer marks the period of Hornel's close collaboration with the painter George Henry (1858-1943). The purpose of their collaboration was to move away from the concerns of the Glasgow Boys and to explore ways to unite
colour, form and theme in paintings with an almost poetic and musical effect. In Summer the explosion of colour and motion conveys the spirit and mood of the season. The lack or realism and the sharp contrast of colour
caused the outcry from the City Council when P.H. Rathbone decided to buy the picture for the Walker.
Hornel was only 28 year old when Summer was bought and the painting was the first ever work by the Glasgow Boys (apart from portraits) to enter a public collection. Rathbone's decision was based on the belief that it is
a public art gallery's task to buy art apart from that which was established and easily understood by artists.
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