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Highlands and Glens
'Land of the Mountain and the Flood'
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For many people, the Highland region is
Scotland. Many Scots have found their national identity in the
landscape, costume and associations of this region. Nations
often adopt a 'rural face' in reaction to modernisation.
But the identification of Scotland with a region formerly perceived,
by Lowlanders and non-Scots alike, as barren and uncivilised,
is a result of a more particular history: the country's
relationship with England.
The creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain,
by the Act of Union of 1707, gave this way of picturing the
Highland landscape its unique force. It produced a sense of
crisis for the nation's independence and cultural distinctness,
and a determination to identify and preserve what was unique
about Scotland.
The Romantic period saw Scottish identity subsumed
within a myth of the Highlands. Fostered by British royalty
and the social elite, this reached its climax in the reign of
Queen Victoria (1837-1901). It found its most potent visual
expression in landscapes with historical and literary associations,
or awe-inspiring wilderness, epitomised by the work of Edwin
Landseer and Horatio McCulloch. Such imagery still resonates
today, despite the dynamism and international outlook of modern
and contemporary Scottish art.
Highlands and Glens - Introduction by David
Dimbleby
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