Prof Arthur Pillans Laurie FRSE LLD (1861–1949) was a Scottish chemist who pioneered the scientific analysis of paintings, especially by Rembrandt. He also was a fascist sympathiser who opposed the Second World War.
Early life
Laurie was born on 6 November 1861, the son of Simon Somerville Laurie FRSE and his wife, Catherine Ann Hibburd. The family lived at Brunstane House, a 17th-century country house, south of Portobello, in eastern Edinburgh. He was the brother of zoologist Malcolm Laurie (1866–1932), also a fellow of the RSE.
Laurie was educated at Edinburgh Academy from 1871 to 1878 and then studied Science at University of Edinburgh and then King's College, Cambridge, where he took a first in science in 1884.
Chemist
The pre-Raphaelite painter William Holman Hunt interested Laurie in the chemistry of paint and the scientific analysis of paintings. Laurie pioneered the use of chemical analysis to discover the composition of artworks to show their true age and origins. He was the first to use infrared photography to reveal deeper layers of paint. Through infrared work, he found the date of a Rembrandt self-portrait in which the date painted by the artist had later been covered up.
In 1885, Laurie was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Peter Guthrie Tait, Alexander Crum Brown, Edward Sang and George Chrystal.
In 1895, Laurie became a lecturer at St Mary's Hospital Medical School and joined the Royal Commission on Secondary Education. In 1898, the Royal College of Physicians made him an examiner in chemistry. In 1900, Laurie became the principal of Heriot-Watt College, Edinburgh. He held that position until 1928. In 1912, Laurie became the professor of chemistry to the Royal Academy of Arts.
During the First World War, Laurie did extensive, if perhaps controversial, work as Chairman of the Chemical Inventing Committee, part of the Munitions Inventions Department, and he also served on the Chemical Waste Products and Buildings Committee. In 1915, Laurie complained that his eclectic interests were hindering his career as he wrote about his inability to get himself elected to the Royal Society: "I believe the trouble is I am neither 'fish, flesh, nor good red herring'". At various times, Laurie published articles on British politics, electrochemistry, stone preservation, paint, educational reform, munitions, vegetarianism and what he called the "scientific examination of art", which for him was "a mixture of scientific experiments and literary criticism".
In particular, Laurie set himself up as an expert on authenticating paintings by Rembrandt, who had been largely ignored during his own lifetime, and his fame was posthumous. It was only in the early 20th century that it was decided that he had been a great painter after all. Because Rembrandt had been ignored in the 17th century, it was difficult to determine whether paintings were actually by him since it was always easy for a forger to add a signature resembling Rembrandt's to a 17th-century painting by another artist or even to produce a complete forgery done in a style that resembled his style and to pass off the work as a previously unknown painting by him. Laurie believed that by taking magnified photographs of paintings, he could determine via scientific methods of analysis of the style of the brushwork whether or not the painting was by Rembrandt.
Laurie stood as a candidate for Parliament at the 1929 general election in the constituency of Edinburgh South for the Liberal Party, finishing second. In 1932, Laurie published the book The Brushwork of Rembrandt and his School.
Fascism
Between 14 May-15 June 1937, an Imperial conference attended by all the leaders of the Commonwealth was held in London to allow the Dominion Prime Ministers to attend the coronation of the new king George VI and to meet the new king. Laurie prepared a memo that he was able to have issued to the Dominion prime ministers on the account of his reputation as a world-famous chemist, stating his views about Eastern Europe and asking for the Dominions to apply pressure on the United Kingdom not to become involved in Eastern Europe. Laurie believed that there was a possibility that the new government of Neville Chamberlain might go to war with Germany on the account of a conflict in Eastern Europe and wanted the Dominion prime ministers to dissuade him from that prospect.