Tom-Tom Players, Ceylon

Edward Atkinson Hornel 1864 - 1933

Summary

Wooded scene in Ceylon with a group of five young girls around a large tom-tom drum. Seated on the ground in a dappled sunlit wood, the girls play the instrument amongst trees and flowers. The nearmost girl on the left turns her head to look at the viewer whilst the other four look down towards the drum.

Display Label

Tom-Tom Players, Ceylon 1908 Edward Atkinson Hornel 1864-1933 Oil on canvas Hornel was one of the painters known as the ‘Glasgow Boys’ and was known for his fine handling of colour. In 1907 he and his sister Tizzy travelled to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), then an outpost of the British Empire. They visited their cousin, who was a marine biologist at the pearl fisheries of Colombo, toured the entire country, then sailed to Australia to visit their birthplace. Back home in western Scotland, Hornel made large paintings after glass photographic plates of Sinhalese life. The plates, today still at his house in Kirkcudbright, reveal that Hornel painted mature women as girlish, but otherwise has followed closely the composition of his photograph. It was a standard attitude of the time to see the native people of British Empire territories as childlike and their civilizations as immature. Purchased 1908.30