My Favourite Painting: Evelyn Glennie
'By gazing at it, I am given a lesson in music.'

Evelyn Glennie says:
'I have experienced the magic of the Orkneys first-hand, not least because many of my family live around Hoy. To me, this painting represents a piece of sound-music.
'The extreme textures in the landscape are akin to sound colour. The isolation and shape of the farm on top of the cliff suggest a legato phrase; the sea is like shimmering strings. This expressive, yet lifelike, scene gives the painting a performative quality.
'It is being “performed” in front of us so that we may compose our own piece of music from the acute detail and sweeping phrases. The rhythm of the painting offers a sense of forever moving forward and back in time with the elements. It is timeless.
'This image makes me feel the power of Nature and Nature’s rhythm. By gazing at it, I am given a lesson in music.'
Dame Evelyn Glennie is a solo percussionist. Profoundly deaf, she has honed the ability to feel sound using her body as a resonating chamber.
John McEwen says:
Stanley Cursiter successfully combined an artistic, cartographic and administrative career. He was born in Kirkwall, Orkney, the son of a baker and spirit merchant who died when he was nine, and educated at Kirkwall Grammar School. When at school, he voluntarily gained a certificate in Advanced Building Construction.
He went to Edinburgh, hoping to study architecture, but could not afford it and settled for an apprenticeship with a firm of lithographers and printers, as well as attending courses at Edinburgh College of Art. By 1909, he was earning a living as a painter and designer.
Sign up for the Country Life Newsletter
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
In 1913, he dabbled in avant-garde Italian Futurism and his seven pictures in this dynamic style ironically remain academically his most acclaimed—in 2016, one of them, The Ribbon Counter, achieved his record auction price: £336,000. Symptomatically, he simultaneously made lithographs of Orcadian subjects in the spare but conventional style of D. Y. Cameron.During the First World War, Cursiter saw active service with the Scottish Rifles.
Convalescence after the Somme led to a military OBE for innovative work on the vital need for accurate maps and photographs; a CBE followed in the Second World War, when he oversaw map production. He was director of the National Galleries of Scotland from 1930 to 1948—the last artist to hold this post—and, from 1948 until his death in 1976, HM Painter and Limner for Scotland. There is a Gaelic saying: ‘The bird sings sweetest where it was born.’
Despite his vital service in both World Wars, his substantial administrative duties and success in various styles of painting, including society portraiture, it was his love of the Orcadian landscape that prevailed.
Credit: The Kiss - Gustav Klimt
My favourite painting: Danielle Steel
Danielle Steel, the world's top-selling fiction writer, admits that 'Klimt stole my heart' with this wonderful work.
My favourite painting: Penelope Lively
'I love William Nicholson’s work. His still-lifes are incomparable.'
My favourite painting: Robert Macfarlane
Robert Macfarlane chooses his favourite painting for Country Life.
Bringing the quintessential English rural idle to life via interiors, food and drink, property and more Country Life’s travel content offers a window into the stunning scenery, imposing stately homes and quaint villages which make the UK’s countryside some of the most visited in the world.
-
Dawn Chorus: 2,400 pristine acres of The Highlands for sale, plus the ultimate boiled egg in a mere 32 minutes
By Toby Keel Published
-
Which of Henry VIII's wives was just 19 when she died? And nine more brainteasers in the Quiz of the Day
How much is that house? What's that crazy picture? And which of Henry VIII's wives was youngest when she died? It's all here in Tuesday's Country Life Quiz of the Day.
By Toby Keel Published
-
'As a child I wanted to snuggle up with the dogs and be part of it': Alexia Robinson chooses her favourite painting
Alexia Robinson, founder of Love British Food, chooses an Edwin Landseer classic.
By Charlotte Mullins Published
-
The Pre-Raphaelite painter who swapped 'willowy, nubile women' for stained glass — and created some of the best examples in Britain
The painter Edward Burne-Jones turned from paint to glass for much of his career. James Hughes, director of the Victorian Society, chooses a glass masterpiece by Burne-Jones as his favourite 'painting'.
By Charlotte Mullins Published
-
'I can’t look away. I’m captivated': The painter who takes years over each portrait, with the only guarantee being that it won't look like the subject
For Country Life's My Favourite Painting slot, the writer Emily Howes chooses a work by a daring and challenging artist: Frank Auerbach.
By Toby Keel Published
-
My Favourite Painting: Rob Houchen
The actor Rob Houchen chooses a bold and challenging Egon Schiele work.
By Charlotte Mullins Published
-
My Favourite Painting: Jeremy Clarkson
'That's why this is my favourite painting. Because it invites you to imagine'
By Charlotte Mullins Published
-
The chair of the National Gallery names his favourite from among the 2,300 masterpieces — and it will come as a bit of a shock
As the National Gallery turns 200, the chair of its board of trustees, John Booth, chooses his favourite painting.
By Toby Keel Published
-
'A wonderful reminder of what the countryside could and should be': The 200-year-old watercolour of a world fast disappearing
Christopher Price of the Rare Breed Survival Trust on the bucolic beauty of The Magic Apple Tree by Samuel Palmer, which he nominates as his favourite painting.
By Charlotte Mullins Published
-
My favourite painting: Andrew Graham-Dixon
'Lesson Number One: it’s the pictures that baffle and tantalise you that stay in the mind forever .'
By Country Life Published