From the Esturay (St Andrews)

Sky takes up nearly the whole canvas here, and that choice tells you everything about what Robert Macmillan wanted you to feel. Soft blues melt into pale grays across the upper reaches, drifting and pooling the way real weather does over the Scottish coast. A slim band of land clings to the bottom, painted in earthy browns and mossy greens, so low that it almost surrenders the picture to the clouds. Anyone who has stood in a wide open landscape knows this sensation, when the heavens stretch out huge and hushed above you.

Macmillan painted this in 2010, turning his gaze toward the estuary near St Andrews, the east coast town known for its ancient university and breezy, exposed shores. Rather than crisp lines and careful detail, he works loosely, letting brushstrokes and thin washes stay visible so the surface breathes with texture. The painting is less a portrait of one exact place and more a record of a mood, that cool damp stillness of a northern day when heavy clouds sink low and the horizon fades away into mist.