James Watt, Glasgow, by Francis Chantrey

James Watt (1736-1819)

Francis Chantrey

1832

Bronze on a Devonshire granite pedetal

George Square, Glasgow

The great inventor and engineer James Watt began his career by making mathematical instruments in Glasgow, and later carried out surveys of the Clyde, Forth and other canals, as well as improving the Clyde estuary ports (see McKenzie 123).

Photograph and text Jacqueline Banerjee

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Chantrey made a number of busts of Watt, which were regarded at the time as "the epitome of the sculptor's renowned ability to suggest the inner workings of a powerful mind" (McKenzie 123). They became good friends, and Chantrey is said to have secured a fine likeness of him in this monument. For all its defilement by the large bird population of George Square, it is a haunting study of someone totally absorbed in his intellectual pursuit, and it nicely illustrates the contemporary view of Chantrey's genius: "He calls up no established visions of the past; the moment.he breathes in is his; the beauty and the manliness which live and move around him are his materials" (qtd. in Potts 17).

References

McKenzie, Ray, with contributions by Gary Nisbet. Public Sculpture of Glasgow. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2002.

Potts, Alex. "Chantrey as the National Sculptor of Early Nineteenth-Century England." The Oxford Art Journal, 4 (2), November 1981: 17-27.

Last modified 18 October 2009