Iona, One April

Exactly this time of year some years back, I took myself off to Scotland for a visit to the Inner Hebrides.  By going mid-April, I'd still find low-season rates ... and maybe, by then, springy enough weather to do some plein air painting.  The air fare was indeed excellent, the B&B rates weren't bad, and Scotland's west coast scenery was all I could have hoped for.  Wide expanses, old eroded volcanic mountains, plenty of open sky.  I positioned myself in the coastal town of Oban where I enjoyed a bit of whiskey-tasting, some wandering on foot (I didn't want to pay for a car rental or tackle left-hand driving), and dining in restaurants, all of which seemed to hark back to the '50s, whether serving down-home food or playing old Frank Sinatra songs. 

The town of Oban on the Scottish mainland

But ... Scotland in mid-April proved to be too wet, blowy, and downright freezing to do any satisfactory painting.  I carried my watercolors with me but came away with only one brief sketch ... done while wearing mittens.

One day, putting all else aside, I took the ferry from Oban over to Craignure on the eastern side of the neighboring island of Mull where I then caught a bus (or coach, as it was called) to Fionnphort on the western side.  The road was one-lane with occasional turn-outs where vehicles paused to let each other pass.  The driver kept up an amusing prattle.  To survive the Scottish winter, he said, "We 'ave a wee pairty from November to the aiend of March."

On the ferry between Oban and the Isle of Mull

At Fionnphort, I then took a small boat the short distance to the tiny Isle of Iona.  Beautiful, peaceful, light-filled Iona, only some three miles long and a mile wide, proved to be serene, unspoiled, and magical in its purity, its turquoise waters, and its views across to the mainland's snow-covered mountains.  Ireland's exiled monk, St. Colomba, had landed here in 563, founded a monastery, and introduced Christianity to Scotland ... from which it then spread to England.  Celtic manuscripts were produced here.  Scottish kings buried, including Macbeth and Duncan.

Inner Hebrides Isle of Iona with the Abbey to the right

The Abbey on Iona

I'd been wanting to see Iona since reading Kenneth Clark's description of it in his book Civilisation in which he said it gave one the feeling that "some God is in this place."  What was it, he asked, that produced its sense of peace?  "The light, which floods round on every side?  The lie of the land which, coming after the solemn hills of Mull, seems strangely like Greece, like Delos, even?  The combination of wine-dark sea, white sand and pink granite?  Or is it the memory of those holy men who for two centuries kept western civilisation alive?" (1)

Wavering up and down in the choppy seas, our little boat also made its way to the nearby puffin-inhabited rock-isle of Staffa, notable for its extraordinary columnar basalt sea cave, Fingal's Cave--the name Mendelssohn gave the Hebrides Overture he wrote after seeing Staffa.  One of our boat's American passengers looked up at it and muttered, "Awesome."

Fingal's Cave on the Isle of Staffa ...

... with more hexagonal basalt extending into the sea.

I always thought I might return to Iona.  Small enough to get around on foot and with only a tiny population, it would make a perfect spot for a retreat.  Or a real painting venture.  Almost treeless, it has radiant views.  With no cars, it offers a perfect quietude.  One can wander through its flower-dotted ruins or visit its handsome restored abbey.  And the sea is always there ... and the gulls.

Though mid-April proved to be too early in the season for outdoor painting, I did take photos and turned one into an oil painting after I got home.

"Snow Over Ben Nevis"

(1) p. 7, Civilisation by Kenneth Clark, 1969