Stories

Scottish art as a Christmas gift: what to give, and to whom
A print of a painting is an easy gift to get right if you pick the picture for the person. Here is how we would match them, with the full lists in Christmas Gifts and Gifts Under £50.For someone who loves the HighlandsLandseer's Monarch of the Glen is the obvious stag, and we tell its story in a longer piece. For a quieter picture, Joseph Farquharson's Evening, Finzean puts sheep in Aberdeenshire snow, which suits December.For someone who keeps flowers in the houseS. J. Peploe painted roses and still lifes... Read more...
Bonnie Prince Charlie in paint: two portraits of the Jacobite prince
There are two portraits of Prince Charles Edward Stuart in the Jacobites and Culloden collection, and they show the same man at two different moments in the Jacobite story. One was made in Rome for a court that had no throne. The other shows the prince as Scotland remembers him.Rome, 1732: the hope of the exiled StuartsCharles was born in Rome, the grandson of James VII and II, the king overthrown in 1688. Antonio David's portrait, dated 1732, is the work of the Italian who was the official painter of... Read more...
A short history of Scottish landscape painting
Nobody thought the Highlands were beautiful until surprisingly recently. Nasmyth, McCulloch, McTaggart, Farquharson and the painters who decided what Scotland looks like. Read more...
Glasgow Boys or Scottish Colourists? How to tell them apart
Two groups, thirty years apart, both from the west of Scotland, constantly confused. A field guide to the difference — and the one painter who belongs to both stories. Read more...
What size art print do I need? A practical guide
The most common reason a print disappoints is that it is too small. How to measure the wall, what each size actually looks like, and how to choose between black, wood and white. Read more...
The face of Robert Burns: one small unfinished canvas
The portrait on every Burns Night programme in the world was painted in 1787, is smaller than a sheet of A3, and was abandoned on purpose. Why Nasmyth's is the only likeness that stuck. Read more...
Edinburgh before the New Town: what the city actually looked like
Princes Street Gardens were a sewage lake. The Mound was a spoil heap. What Nasmyth and Roberts were painting, and why the historic views still hold a wall. Read more...
The Monarch of the Glen: how one stag became Scotland
Refused by Parliament, used to sell marmalade, bought for the nation in 2017. The strange career of the most reproduced image in Scottish art. Read more...
Iona, Looking Towards Mull and Ben More by F. C. B. Cadell
Iona: the island that changed Scottish painting
Three miles long, one village, and a turquoise nobody believes. Why Cadell and Peploe went back to Iona every summer for fifteen years. Read more...
Iona, Looking Towards Mull and Ben More by F. C. B. Cadell
The Scottish Colourists: four painters and one decision
Peploe, Fergusson, Cadell and Hunter went to France and came back refusing to darken their palettes. What they changed, why one of them can't be printed, and where the name... Read more...
A Hind's Daughter by James Guthrie, 1883 — a girl standing in a field of kail holding a knife
The Glasgow Boys: what they were actually rebelling against
They called the Edinburgh establishment's paintings "gluepots". Here is what that meant, who they were, and why the pictures still look modern. Read more...