ONE hundred years ago George Henry was writing to his friend E. A.

Hornel in Kirkcudbright about a visit to Stirling and conversations with

a third member of the Glasgow Boys, William Kennedy.

''I had a pretty tough time of it . . . The Kurnel (Kennedy) was

pretty stinking in his remarks about Art generally. He seems to have his

knife in you about something or other. He talked a lot of D ---d rot and

seems to have nothing in his head but 'material.' He says that creative

work is easy. The difficult thing to do is to paint Material. Bl--y fool

he is ! I told him in the heat of debate that his work for the last four

years had been Bl---y rot.''

Thus the lively relationships of the Glasgow School, and one painter's

opinion of the work of another. Yet Kennedy had only just exhibited his

''Stirling Station'' at the Glasgow Institute, a work that may fall

short of greatness, but only just. In Roger Billcliffe's view, Kennedy

was never again able to synthesise so well the differing aspects of

French and Scottish painting, together with the influence of Whistler.

It is certainly not ''rot.'' Indeed Henry's judgment is harsh when one

considers that Kennedy remained an equal among them until the last.

Of the 20-odd artists who made up the Glasgow School we number four or

five as great -- certainly James Guthrie, Arthur Melville, John Lavery,

E. A. Walton, and George Henry. We can acknow-

ledge their frequent debt to French inspiration, notably

Bastien-Lepage, but even so, James Guthrie's ''A Hind's Daughter'' and

''To Pastures New'' of the early 1880s deserve the highest respect in

their own right, as do W. Y. Macgregor's ''The Vegetable Stall'' and

Lavery's ''The Tennis Party.''

They are fine paintings by European standards, and not to be confined

to a Scottish yardstick, as recent auction prices have indicated.

With William Kennedy we have an erratic and smaller talent. It is one

which has nevertheless been judged worthy of considerable comment,

starting with a typically opinionated view from James L. Caw, in his

Scottish Painting, Past and Present, 1620-1908.

He mentions Kennedy's Paris training, and names Bouguereau, Fleury,

Bastien-Lepage, Collin, and Courtois among his masters -- ''yet one

cannot say that his work shows the influence of any one of these.

Personal in merits and defects alike, it is eminently typical of his

outlook on life which is vigorous and self-reliant if somewhat deficient

in delicacy of perception and subtlety of feeling.''

Modern commentators tend to be more dismissive. William Hardie calls

Kennedy, Roche, and Millie Dow ''like most of the Glasgow School

painters ... minor figures indeed, but they briefly demonstrate the

catalytic effect which the movement had on its members.''

Kennedy's military and North African subjects, he says, are

''uniformly a bore, unfortunately.'' J. D. Fergusson, whose views on art

are often diffi-

cult disentangle from his nationalist rhetoric, gives us a clue that

Kennedy's claim to significance may be his outspoken views -- the

''rot'' that George Henry complained about to Hornel.

In Billcliffe's book on the Boys, Kennedy's life and work is woven

into the story of them all. The simplest account of his life has been

that given by Ailsa Tanner in her notable contributions to the

two-volume catalogue of the exhibition at Kelvingrove in 1968.

Kennedy was born at Hutchesontown, Glasgow, on July 17, 1859, trained

at Paisley School of Art, and joined various ateliers in Paris. By 1887

he was welcomed as head of the ''secret'' society formed by the Boys in

their reaction against London and Edinburgh.

W. Y. Macgregor wrote to James Paterson: ''Let us forget all our

differences, for if the society is to survive, let us keep down petty

rows. Kennedy will make a very good President, will be perfectly

straight and above board, and will take no end of trouble with the

affair.''

This was a period when Kennedy was painting at Stirling, his main

subjects the army camps, and he sported a waxed military moustache

himself -- the subject of many carica-

tures. He crossed by ferry to Cambuskenneth for more rural subjects,

and particularly horses.

It was at Craigmill, where Denovan Adam ran a school of animal

painting, that Kennedy probably met Lena Scott, a fellow painter (and

fortunately the daughter of a shipowner) whom he married in 1898.

In the early years of the century, Kennedy and his wife painted in

rural Berkshire, and there is some evidence that like other members of

the school (especially Lavery), photography was an aid in capturing

material. It was not the Kodak realism which distinguished the earlier

work of the Boys, however, indeed Kennedy's technique seemed to veer

away from it.

Bad health eventually took him to Tangier, where Lavery had a home,

and his later work concentrated on exotic scenes from Moorish life. He

died in 1918.

Like all judges of Kennedy's work, Ailsa Tanner mixes criticism with

enthusiasm. She ends . . . ''his best work is good by any standard and

is distinguished by a richness of tone and freshness and vivacity in the

handling of the paint, and the presence of that vital element which

makes it live for us all.''

These are welcome words for collectors with slim pockets, who cannot

command ''greatness'' yet who wish to pay their own tribute to

Scotland's painting of the past.