Edinburgh From Castle Street by Scottish artist William Crozier (1897-1930) depicts a curving street that then opens up on a lone statue and the rising hilltop with the looming shadow of Edinburgh Castle. The influence of Cubism from studying at academy under André Lhote is present here in Crozier's work with geometric way the buildings and hilltops are captured. Sharp corners and thick, symmetrical strokes of paint create the cube effect, contrasting the more curving and looser strokes of the street and sky. Crozier uses richer colours to create shadows that allow depth to come across from the buildings and the hillside closest to the statue, with a more solid colour palette for the farther hilltop and castle. The thick layers of paint that create the richness in the colour of the overall piece and the sharp corners of the buildings capture the stillness of this quiet street scene.

Crozier spent time in Paris through a Carnegie Travelling scholarship and also traveled to Italy, which led him to adopt influences from Europe of Modernism, which reduces Edinburgh's buildings into a geometric landscape, combining with his Cubism technique from studying at the academy with André Lohte. His works took his home of Edinburgh and changed it into a desolate landscape throughout much of his work. His artwork would help develop the Edinburgh School before he passed away young from complications related to being a haemophiliac. 

William Crozier ARSA, 1897-1930

The legacy of a childhood accident forced the Edinburgh-born Crozier to abandon a business career. He had always been interested in art, and, in about 1915, enrolled at Edinburgh College of Art. A bursary enabled him to travel to France and Italy in 1923-24. In Paris, like several other students from the college, including William Gillies, he studied at the academy founded by André Lhote, a painter who has been strongly influenced by Cubuism. Crozier made many further visits to France and Italy, becoming deeply immersed in their cultures, and is noted for his sensitive and highly individual depictions of the scenery. Crozier was an important figure in the development of the Edinburgh School despite his early death: a haemophiliac, he died at thirty-three.