Re-viewing history: antiquaries, the graphic arts and Scotland's lost geographies, c.1660-1820

Hutton, Ailsa Kate (2015) Re-viewing history: antiquaries, the graphic arts and Scotland's lost geographies, c.1660-1820. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis examines topographical art depicting Scotland’s natural scenery and built environments, architecture, antiquities and signs of modern improvement, made during the period 1660 to 1820. It sets out to demonstrate that topography and topographical art was not exclusively antiquarian in nature, but ranged across various fields of learning and practice. It included the work of artists, geographers, cartographers, travel writers, poets, landscape gardeners, military surveyors, naturalists and historians who were concerned with representing the country’s varied, and often contentious, histories within an increasingly modernising present. The visual images that are considered here were forms of knowledge that found expression in drawings, paintings and engravings, elevations, views and plans. They were made on military surveys and picturesque tours, and were often intended to be included alongside written texts, both published and unpublished, frequently connecting with travels, tours, memoirs, essays and correspondence.

It will also be argued that topography was a social practice, involving networks of artists, collectors, publishers and writers, who exchanged information in drawings and letters in a nationwide, and often increasingly commercial enterprise. This thesis will explore some of the strands of such a vast network of picture-making that existed in Scotland, and Britain, between 1660 and 1820, as visual images were circulated, copied, recycled and adapted, and topographical and antiquarian visual culture emerges as a complex, synoptic form of inquiry.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Due to copyright restrictions the full text of this thesis cannot be made available online. Access to the printed version is available.
• Keywords: Topographical art, topography, Scotland, Scottish landscape, antiquarianism, graphic arts, travel writing, tourism, military surveying, picturesque, geological illustration.
• Subjects: N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR; N Fine Arts > NC Drawing Design Illustration; N Fine Arts > NE Print media
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > History of Art
• Funder's Name: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
• Supervisor's Name: Leask, Professor Nigel
• Date of Award: 2015
• Depositing User: Ailsa Kate Hutton
• Unique ID: glathesis:2015-7361
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 01 Jun 2016 10:43
• Last Modified: 03 May 2024 09:51
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.7361
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/7361