Scottish art
Encyclopedia
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
since the earliest times, forms a distinctive tradition within British and European art. It may be considered to begin with early carvings and artifacts that can date from Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
through Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
and Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
artifacts, particularly ornamental gold objects, and the religious carvings and illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
s of the medieval period and continuing down to modern times.
Early Scottish art
Petrosphere
In archaeology, a petrosphere is the name for any spherical man-made object of any size that is composed of stone. These mainly prehistoric artefacts may have been created and/or selected, but altered in some way to perform their specific function, including carving and painting.Several classes of...
s date from the late Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
to possibly Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
to the Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
and are mainly found in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. Carved Stone Balls are around 4000 years old, and nearly all have been found in north-east Scotland, the majority in Aberdeenshire. A similar distribution to that of Pict
PICT
PICT is a graphics file format introduced on the original Apple Macintosh computer as its standard metafile format. It allows the interchange of graphics , and some limited text support, between Mac applications, and was the native graphics format of QuickDraw.The original version, PICT 1, was...
ish symbols led to the early suggestion that Carved Stone Balls are Pictish artefacts. By the late twentieth century a total of 411 have been found, the core distribution also reflects that of the Recumbent stone circles in Scotland. As objects they are very easy to transport and a few have been found on Iona
Iona
Iona is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Irish monasticism for four centuries and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty. It is a popular tourist destination and a place for retreats...
, Skye
Skye
Skye or the Isle of Skye is the largest and most northerly island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate out from a mountainous centre dominated by the Cuillin hills...
, Harris, Uist
Uist
Uist or The Uists are the central group of islands in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.North Uist and South Uist are linked by causeways running via Benbecula and Grimsay, and the entire group is sometimes known as the Uists....
, Lewis
Lewis
Lewis is the northern part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island of the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The total area of Lewis is ....
, Arran
Isle of Arran
Arran or the Isle of Arran is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, and with an area of is the seventh largest Scottish island. It is in the unitary council area of North Ayrshire and the 2001 census had a resident population of 5,058...
, Hawick
Hawick
Hawick is a town in the Scottish Borders of south east Scotland. It is south-west of Jedburgh and south-southeast of Selkirk. It is one of the farthest towns from the sea in Scotland, in the heart of Teviotdale, and the biggest town in the former county of Roxburghshire. Hawick's architecture is...
, Wigtownshire
Wigtownshire
Wigtownshire or the County of Wigtown is a registration county in the Southern Uplands of south west Scotland. Until 1975, the county was one of the administrative counties used for local government purposes, and is now administered as part of the council area of Dumfries and Galloway...
and fifteen from Orkney, five of which were found at the Neolithic village of Skara Brae
Skara Brae
Skara Brae is a large stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, Orkney, Scotland. It consists of ten clustered houses, and was occupied from roughly 3180 BCE–2500 BCE...
and one at the Dunadd
Dunadd
Dunadd, , is an Iron Age and later hillfort near Kilmartin in Argyll and Bute, Scotland and believed to be the capital of the ancient kingdom of Dál Riata.-Description:...
hillfort. The balls were prestige objects used in ceremonial gatherings The possible use of the balls as oracle
Oracle
In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....
s has been suggested. The way in which the ball came to rest could be interpreted as a message from the gods or an answer to a question. The lack of balls found in graves may indicate that they were not considered to belong to individuals. The Picts
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
also, began to record geometric designs and animal forms on stone, sometimes accompanied with inscriptions in Latin and Ogham
Ogham
Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic language. Ogham is sometimes called the "Celtic Tree Alphabet", based on a High Medieval Bríatharogam tradition ascribing names of trees to the individual letters.There are roughly...
script. The purpose and iconography of these Pictish stones
Pictish stones
Pictish stones are monumental stelae found in Scotland, mostly north of the Clyde-Forth line. These stones are the most visible remaining evidence of the Picts and are thought to date from the 6th to 9th centuries, a period during which the Picts became Christianized...
can only be guessed at, yet the finest achievements of the idiom such as the Hilton of Cadboll Stone
Hilton of Cadboll Stone
The Hilton of Cadboll Stone is a Class II Pictish stone discovered at Hilton of Cadboll, on the Tarbat Peninsula in Easter Ross, Scotland. It is one of the most magnificent of all Pictish cross-slabs. On the seaward-facing side is a Christian cross, and on the landward facing side are secular...
and the Burghead Bull testify to a vigorous independent artistic practice and a strong feeling for line and rhythm.
Roughly contemporary with Pictish art was the Celtic Christian art of the monasteries of the Western Isles. From the 7th century onwards St. Columba’s monastery at Iona
Iona
Iona is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Irish monasticism for four centuries and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty. It is a popular tourist destination and a place for retreats...
and other scriptoria nurtured the Insular style
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...
of manuscript work, probably including the Book of Kells
Book of Kells
The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier...
. Scottish schools within the insular-style, e.g. the scriptorium at Iona included conveying the gospels of the west to Northumbria
Northumbria
Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...
and in doing so helped produced the synthesis of Anglo-Celtic-Pictish art that went to form those masterpieces the Book of Durrow
Book of Durrow
The Book of Durrow is a 7th-century illuminated manuscript gospel book in the Insular style. It was probably created between 650 and 700, in Northumbria in Northern England, where Lindisfarne or Durham would be the likely candidates, or on the island of Iona in the Scottish Inner Hebrides...
and the Lindisfarne Gospels
Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated Latin manuscript of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the British Library...
. Celtic inspired art lasted up until the reformation in some of the remoter islands where high cross
High cross
A high cross or standing cross is a free-standing Christian cross made of stone and often richly decorated. There was a unique Early Medieval tradition in Ireland and Britain of raising large sculpted stone crosses, usually outdoors...
es mark a high point of native sculpture.
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages in Scotland did not produce a native religious art. The country’s poverty and obscurity combined with the eclipse of the Celtic church with the reforms of St Margaret of Scotland and her children left behind only rather provincial products in the styles of NormanRomanesque art
Romanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...
and Gothic
Gothic art
Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...
. Though the cathedrals of St Magnus, Orkney and Glasgow deserve honourable mentions. We have relatively little information about native Scottish artists in the late middle ages. As in England, the monarchy may have had model portraits used for copies and reproductions, but the versions that survive are generally crude by continental standards.
Renaissance
Northern Renaissance
The Northern Renaissance is the term used to describe the Renaissance in northern Europe, or more broadly in Europe outside Italy. Before 1450 Italian Renaissance humanism had little influence outside Italy. From the late 15th century the ideas spread around Europe...
. The products of these connections included the delicate hanging lamp in St. John's Kirk in Perth
Perth, Scotland
Perth is a town and former city and royal burgh in central Scotland. Located on the banks of the River Tay, it is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and the historic county town of Perthshire...
; the tabernacles and images of St Catherine and St John brought to Dunkeld
Dunkeld
Dunkeld is a small town in Strathtay, Perth and Kinross, Scotland. It is about 15 miles north of Perth on the eastern side of the A9 road into the Scottish Highlands and on the opposite side of the Tay from the Victorian village of Birnam. Dunkeld and Birnam share a railway station, on the...
, and vestments and hangings in Holyrood; Hugo van Der Goes
Hugo van der Goes
Hugo van der Goes was a Flemish painter. He was, along with Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Gerard David, one of the most important of the Early Netherlandish painters.-Biography:...
's altarpiece for the Trinity College Church in Edinburgh
Trinity College Kirk
Trinity College Kirk was a royal collegiate church in Edinburgh, Scotland. The kirk and its adjacent almshouse, Trinity Hospital, were founded in 1460 by Mary of Gueldres in memory of her husband, King James II...
, commissioned by James III, the work after which the Flemish Master of James IV of Scotland
Master of James IV of Scotland
The Master of James IV of Scotland was a Flemish manuscript illuminator and painter most likely based in Ghent, or perhaps Bruges. Circumstantial evidence, including several larger panel paintings, indicates that he may be identical with Gerard Horenbout. He was the leading illuminator of the...
is named, and the illustrated Flemish Bening
Simon Bening
Simon Bening was a 16th century miniature painter of the Ghent-Bruges school, the last major artist of the Netherlandish tradition....
Book of Hours
Book of Hours
The book of hours was a devotional book popular in the later Middle Ages. It is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Like every manuscript, each manuscript book of hours is unique in one way or another, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and...
, given by James IV to Margaret Tudor. Scottish renaissance painted ceilings
Scottish Renaissance painted ceilings
A number of Scottish houses and castles built between 1540 and 1640 have painted ceilings. This is a distinctive national style, though there is common ground with similar work elsewhere, especially in France, Spain and Scandinavia. Most surviving examples are painted simply on the boards and...
were decorated with vividly coloured painting on boards and beams, using emblem
Emblem
An emblem is a pictorial image, abstract or representational, that epitomizes a concept — e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory — or that represents a person, such as a king or saint.-Distinction: emblem and symbol:...
atic motifs from European pattern books or the artist's interpretation of trailing grotesque patterns.
Scotland's ecclesiastical art paid a heavy toll as a result of Reformation iconoclasm
Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes...
; as the empty niches of St Giles High Kirk, Edinburgh testifies. And with the removal of the court to London in 1603 the seventeenth century is a period of diminution in the cultural history of Scotland. Yet there is sufficient wealth and interest for a number of immigrant and native portrait painters to make a living, amongst whom is one George Jamesone of Aberdeen (1589/90-1644) – the first identifiable Scottish-born artist, and master of John Michael Wright
John Michael Wright
John Michael Wright was a portrait painter in the Baroque style. Described variously as English and Scottish, Wright trained in Edinburgh under the Scots painter George Jamesone, and acquired a considerable reputation as an artist and scholar during a long sojourn in Rome...
.
The Scottish Enlightenment period
Scottish Enlightenment
The Scottish Enlightenment was the period in 18th century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By 1750, Scots were among the most literate citizens of Europe, with an estimated 75% level of literacy...
is the high-water mark of Scotland’s cultural development. Its artists and architects were self-consciously cosmopolitan and took a leading role on the international stage. Charles Cameron
Charles Cameron (architect)
Charles Cameron was a Scottish architect who made an illustrious career at the court of Catherine II of Russia. Cameron, practitioner of early neoclassical architecture, was the chief architect of Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk palaces and the adjacent new town of Sophia from his arrival in Russia in...
, Colen Campbell
Colen Campbell
Colen Campbell was a pioneering Scottish architect who spent most of his career in England, and is credited as a founder of the Georgian style...
, James Gibbs
James Gibbs
James Gibbs was one of Britain's most influential architects. Born in Scotland, he trained as an architect in Rome, and practised mainly in England...
, William Adam and most significantly Robert Adam
Robert Adam
Robert Adam was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam , Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him...
in many ways dominated the British Palladian and later the Neoclassical movements in architecture. In addition the painters Allan Ramsay, Gavin Hamilton
Gavin Hamilton (artist)
Gavin Hamilton was a Scottish neoclassical history painterwho is more widely remembered for his hunts for antiquities in the neighborhood of Rome...
, Henry Raeburn
Henry Raeburn
Sir Henry Raeburn was a Scottish portrait painter, the first significant Scottish portraitist since the Act of Union 1707 to remain based in Scotland.-Biography:...
and David Allan were artists of European significance, although only Raeburn remained based in Scotland throughout his career. The period also saw the creation of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art in 1826, an indication that there was an audience and a market to sustain a body of professional painters. Beyond the demand for portraiture, which Raeburn commanded, there was the emergence of the romantic landscape
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
, which brought English and other artists to tour Scotland in great numbers, and whose iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
David Wilkie
David Wilkie (artist)
Sir David Wilkie was a Scottish painter.- Early life :Wilkie was the son of the parish minister of Cults in Fife. He developed a love for art at an early age. In 1799, after he had attended school at Pitlessie, Kettle and Cupar, his father reluctantly agreed to his becoming a painter...
can lay some claim to developing.
Nineteenth century
Alexander Thomson
Alexander "Greek" Thomson was an eminent Scottish architect and architectural theorist who was a pioneer in sustainable building. Although his work was published in the architectural press of his day, it was little appreciated outwith Glasgow during his lifetime...
. However toward the end of the century this was eclipsed by the fashion for Gothic Revival, Baronial style and Beaux-Arts eclecticism. In painting the figure of William McTaggart
William McTaggart
William McTaggart was a Scottish landscape painter who was influenced by Impressionism.-Life and work:...
stands out from his generation of landscape and history painters for his development of a proto-impressionistic technique of loose brush-work. By the 1890s there emerges a school of artists associated with the Glasgow School of Art
Glasgow School of Art
Glasgow School of Art is one of only two independent art schools in Scotland, situated in the Garnethill area of Glasgow.-History:It was founded in 1845 as the Glasgow Government School of Design. In 1853, it changed its name to The Glasgow School of Art. Initially it was located at 12 Ingram...
(founded in 1845 as a government Design school) known as the Glasgow Boys. Herbert MacNair, Margaret and Frances McDonald and Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, designer, watercolourist and artist. He was a designer in the Arts and Crafts movement and also the main representative of Art Nouveau in the United Kingdom. He had a considerable influence on European design...
formed “the Four” or the “Spook School” made a distinctive contribution to the European scene in interpreting and developing the Art Nouveau style in architecture, painting and interior design.
By 1914 Mackintosh had ceased to practice and with the lacuna of the War the Scottish arts scene did not revive until the 1920s with the appearance of the Scottish Colourists
Scottish Colourists
The Scottish Colourists were a group of painters from Scotland whose work was not very highly regarded when it was first exhibited in the 1920s and 1930s, but which in the late 20th Century came to have a formative influence on contemporary Scottish art....
who as a group looked to Paris and the post-impressionist for inspiration. The Scottish Colourists
Scottish Colourists
The Scottish Colourists were a group of painters from Scotland whose work was not very highly regarded when it was first exhibited in the 1920s and 1930s, but which in the late 20th Century came to have a formative influence on contemporary Scottish art....
painters included John Duncan Fergusson
John Duncan Fergusson
John Duncan Fergusson was a Scottish artist, regarded as one of the major artists of the Scottish Colourists school of painting.- Early life :...
, Francis Cadell
Francis Cadell (artist)
Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell RSA was a Scottish Colourist painter, renowned for his depictions of the elegant New Town interiors of his native Edinburgh, and for his work on Iona....
, Samuel Peploe
Samuel Peploe
Samuel John Peploe was a Scottish Post-Impressionist painter, noted for his still life works and for being one of the group of four painters that became known as the Scottish Colourists...
and Leslie Hunter. This was part of the larger “Scottish Renaissance
Scottish Renaissance
The Scottish Renaissance was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid 20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance, although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics...
” movement; an umbrella term for the Modernist strain in inter-war Scottish arts.
Contemporary period
After the Second World War Scotland has enjoyed a lively arts scene thanks in part to the attention generated by the Edinburgh festivalEdinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
. A number of international figures of post-war art from come from Scotland, including Eduardo Paolozzi
Eduardo Paolozzi
Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi, KBE, RA , was a Scottish sculptor and artist. He was a major figure in the international art sphere, while, working on his own interpretation and vision of the world. Paolozzi investigated how we can fit into the modern world to resemble our fragmented civilization...
and Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay, CBE, was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.-Biography:Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas of Scottish parents. He was educated in Scotland at Dollar Academy. At the age of 13, with the outbreak of World War II, he was evacuated to family in the countryside...
and contemporary artists such as Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon is a Scottish artist; he won the Turner Prize in 1996 and the following year he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale...
, Lucy McKenzie
Lucy McKenzie
Lucy McKenzie is an artist based in Brussels, Belgium.McKenzie studied for her BA at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee from 1995–1999 and at Karlsruhe Kunstakademie in Germany in 1998....
and Christopher Orr
Christopher Orr
Christopher Orr may refer to:* Chris Orr , English artist* Christopher Orr , Scottish painter* Christopher Orr , American actor...
.
See also
- British artBritish artBritish art could refer to:* Art of the United Kingdom - post 1707* English art* Irish art* Scottish art* Welsh art...
- Celtic artCeltic artCeltic art is the art associated with the peoples known as Celts; those who spoke the Celtic languages in Europe from pre-history through to the modern period, as well as the art of ancient peoples whose language is uncertain, but have cultural and stylistic similarities with speakers of Celtic...
- Irish artIrish artThe early history of Irish art is generally considered to begin with early carvings found at sites such as Newgrange and is traced through Bronze Age artefacts, particularly ornamental gold objects, and the religious carvings and illuminated manuscripts of the medieval period...
- Western art historyWestern art historyWestern art is the art of the North American and European countries, and art created in the forms accepted by those countries.Written histories of Western art often begin with the art of the Ancient Middle East, Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Aegean civilisations, dating from the 3rd millennium BC...
- Aberdeen Art