River by Moonlight

Evening or night-time river scenes were a speciality of Robert Macaulay Stevenson's. He achieved a misty atmospheric effect by rubbing the canvas with a cloth whilst the paint was still wet. Stevenson was part of the Glasgow Boys group but it was in his role as unofficial spokesman for the group rather than with his paintings that he made his most significant contribution. In the latter he had always been influenced by the Barbizon painters. His search for the atmospheric can be attributed in part to the inspiration of Corot's atmospheric landscapes and in his pursuit of this his work took a different direction to the more naturalist work of other Glasgow Boys. Stevenson acted as editor of some of the early issues of The Scottish Art Review, a journal of limited success initiated by the Glasgow Boys in 1888.