Under the Sea Wall

Robert Noble studied at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh and also in France. He was part of a group of Scottish artists who became known as the East Lothian Group. Scottish painting in the mid 19th century was dominated by high romanticism and a couthy sentimentality. As the century drew to its close, many young Scottish artists seeking to do something new, turned to European art for inspiration. They were drawn to the work of artists such as Jules Bastien-Lepage in France and members of the Hague School who took as their subject matter the lives of ordinary people in rural settings. They treated their subjects in a way that accorded them dignity, avoiding the sentimentality prevalent in Scottish painting. In Scotland it was the Glasgow Boys who most famously took up this new style but there were other Scottish artists who joined the movement and the East Lothian Group was amongst them.