Page 20 - Art First: Helen MacAlister: At the Foot o’ Yon Excellin’ Brae

blank, empty and pale; pale as an unploughed field, the
white in her beautiful glass piece, or here as pale and
empty as the girl’s sleepless nights. Though he is called
bonie, there is no hint in the song that the girl’s love is
fair-haired, but fair is after all frequently a poetic synonym
of bonny, so you could well imagine that he might be. If
so, that white, empty ground in the picture would be both
the dream of his presence and the fact of his absence,
all summarised in a few words on a blank field. But that is
how her art works. It is, as she admits understated, but it
resonates all the more for that.

1 http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/reidinqu.pdf, p101
2 Reid, 51
3 Reflections on Reading Hamish Henderson’s Alias MacAlias,
Scottish Affairs, no.6, winter 1994

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