James Giles (painter)

James William Giles
Self portrait
Born	4 January 1801 Aberdeen
Died	6 October 1870 Aberdeen
Nationality	Scottish
Known for	Landscape painting
Elected	Royal Scottish Academy
Patron(s)	Queen Victoria

James William Giles (4 January 1801 – 6 October 1870) was a famous Scottish landscape painter. Several of his landscapes were commissioned and purchased by Queen Victoria and members of the Scottish aristocracy. He was a member of the Royal Scottish Academy.

Giles was born in Aberdeen on 4 January 1801, the son of a designer at the local calico printing factory at Woodside, Aberdeen, an artist of some repute; his early death threw his son at an early age upon his own resources. At thirteen he maintained himself, his mother and sister by painting, and before he was 20 was teaching taught private classes in Aberdeen. Shortly afterwards he made a tour through Scotland and visited the continent, and on his return home he was introduced to the Earl of Aberdeen, with whom he became very intimate.

His earliest successes were in portrait-painting, but his visit to Italy gave him a taste for classic landscape, which he never entirely lost, for the mist seldom hangs about his mountains, even when the scene is laid near "dark Lochnagar". He was a keen angler, and fond of painting the result of a successful day's fishing. These pictures were his best works. He first exhibited at the "Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland", but in 1829 he became an academician of the Royal Scottish Academy, and contributed numerous works to its exhibitions from that time until near the close of his career. He also exhibited frequently at the British Institution in London, and occasionally at the Royal Academy and the Society of British Artists. His last work was a painting of himself, his wife, and youngest son, which he left unfinished.

In the middle of his life he lived in Edinburgh. In the 1830s he is recorded as living at 153 High Street in the centre of the Royal Mile.

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