The Fine Art Society Ltd

SCOTTISH NATIONAL IDENTITY IN ART

Allan Ramsay, Portrait of a young lady

For a small country, and one whose nation school was late in developing, the history of Scotland’s visual arts is particularly rich and diverse. After The Act of Union in 1707, the newly founded image of Great Britain provoked Scotland into defining its own identity. For many Scots, The Act of Union was understood to be a negotiated partnership; the state of Britain had been created, yet Scotland kept its kirk, its law and its education system, conserving a level of national identity. This newly formed state enabled trade with English colonies, and saw Scotland rise culturally, socially and economically. As we mark the 275^th anniversary of The Battle of Culloden on 16^th April, we look at the ebb and flow of Scottish national identity in art, and how these changes reflect the way we perceive ‘Scottishness’ today.

It was against the backdrop of the newly formed Union that Allan Ramsay (1713-1784) rose as a painter to the highest levels of European success. As a result of his travels in Europe, Ramsay developed into a sophisticated artist capable of an elegance, particularly in his female portraits, equal of any painter in Europe. His clients were emblematic of Scotland's success, not only within the British Empire, but in the act of defining it against the backdrop of the Enlightenment. Through an introduction by the 3rd Earl of Bute, the King's first minister, Ramsay was appointed King's Limner in 1760. However, it was only three years before the Earl of Bute was forced to resign in the face of increasing anti-Scottish sentiment amongst the English. Ramsay and his successor, Sir Henry Raeburn (1756-1823), were among the first to embrace a dual identity: to be both Scottish and British, negotiating both the ambitions and frictions of union.
Sir Henry Raeburn RA, A Study for the portrait of Professor Adam Ferguson (1723-1816)

Raeburn's life spanned the evolution in attitudes towards Scottish identity. He was elected into the Royal Academy in London in 1815 and was the first Scottish painter to be knighted, yet his failed attempt at starting a London studio just five years prior to his status as an Academician reflected rising tensions within the United Kingdom.

Scotland came to be equally a source of romance as resentment for the English. Scottish legends became the stuff of popular history in eighteenth century Europe, yet none more so than that of the romantic and tragic Queen of Scotland – as much a product of myth as of historical document, fulfilling the European fashion for love and heroism. Others, such as Charles Stuart, Robert Bruce and William Wallace, were among historical figures taken by European and English painters to epitomise an embodiment of Scottish character.

Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841) more harmoniously embodied the dual identity of British and Scottish. Many of his pictures were based on the poetry of Robert Burns, and he often took aspects of Scottish life as his subject. Despite this, his pictures were painted for a British, rather than a Scottish audience, securing his fortune as the first Scottish painter to have a substantial international reputation, equal to that of his contemporaries JMW Turner and John Constable. His success in London inspired many of the best Scottish painters of the middle of the nineteenth century – Tom Faed, Joseph Farquharson and Alexander Johnston to name a few – to move south and in doing so they achieved recognition, status, and fortune. Midway through Wilkie's career, in 1822, King George IV visited Scotland, and it was through the pageantry of Walter Scott that engendered a dramatization between the Hanoverian monarch's connection with Scottish history. Walter Scott's Unionist-Nationalist stance was profoundly influential, shoring up the idea of union on the one hand while, on the other, underlining and encouraging the 'Highlandism' that was taking root in the nation's culture.
- Sir David Wilkie RA HRSA
  Portrait of Alexander Aitken (1789-1871), c.1804-1806
  oil on canvas
  30 x 25 inches
  
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- Joseph Farquharson RA
  The Rosy Flush of Dawn
  signed
  oil on canvas
  39 ½ x 59 inches
  
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- Alexander Johnston
  A Stolen Glance
  signed
  oil on canvas
  30 ¼ x 25 inches
  
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Alexander Nasmyth HRSA, Elcho Castle from the Tay

Artistically, this national culture took hold most firmly in the genre of landscape painting. Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840) was in many ways a product of the Enlightenment as an architect, landscape designer and painter. It is important, though, that we see his pictures of Scotland's rugged, romantic landscape against the emerging science of the time. He gave his landscapes special significance and Nasmyth's pictures of the rugged Scottish countryside speak of history measured in aeons, not centuries.

During the nineteenth century, art had a much more profound role than mere decoration. Many landscape painters were to follow in Nasmyth’s footsteps and took Scotland as their subject, one which became synonymous with the country's identity, as well as defining its singularity. Indeed, works such as John MacWhirter’s (1839-1911) Pre-Raphaelite inspired landscape of Culzean Castle speaks to the viewer about the fabled history of Scotland.

Artists increasingly sought to study abroad. Paris, Antwerp and the Hague attracted artists for what was considered an improved artistic education. This brought realism, learnt from French and Dutch contemporaries, to the centre of the subject matter of Scottish painters. No movement embraced this more than The Glasgow Boys, who enjoyed international acclaim, both on the Continent and in America. Their new approach to colour and technique was radical; as seen in E.A. Walton’s (1860-1922) November, the group took subjects that defined the social reality of Scotland. The Boys also travelled further afield, as seen in Arthur Melville’s (1855-1904) exquisite watercolour of Mosul at Dawn , which perfectly captures the beginning of the day.
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John MacWhirter RA HRSA RSW, Culzean Castle with Ailsa Craig island in the distance

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With the advent of modernism at the beginning of the twentieth century, alongside the turbulent social and political changes that faced much of Europe, a chasm opened up for a more progressive form of art. For Scottish artists, this transpired towards a decisive rejection of tartanry and the Kailyard. In a period when associated myths and romanticism of Scotland were being dispelled, Scottish art sought to discover a new national identity beyond the ‘constraints’ of the Union. Scottish artists were, and are, a disparate lot, and although there were groups and schools and movements, there are also individuals who were fiercely independent. The ‘Scottishness’ of Scottish art is elusive, but it clearly exists in the sheer enjoyment of painting.
- John Duncan Fergusson RBA
  The Quay at Dinard, c.1920
  signed on canvas verso
  oil on canvas
  26 x 21 1/2 in
  66 x 54.6 cm
  
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- Robert Macbryde
  Still Life with Bones, c.1959
  inscribed with title on stretcher verso
  oil on canvas
  18 x 20 inches
  
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