Postgraduate Course: From Jacobitism to Romanticism, The (re)invention of Scotland in visual and material culture (HIAR11022)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | In recent years, literary historians and to a lesser extent, art historians, have written of(f) aspects of Scottish culture as part of a 'myth' fabricated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Perhaps most controversially for Scots, part of their national dress - the tartan kilt - has been (mis)understood as an English invention of the late eighteenth century. |
| Course description |
This course aims to get to grips with the peculiarities and particularities of these so-called 'romantic myths' of Scotland as they were (re)invented in visual and material form. It will go beyond the theoretical framework of Roland Barthes' Mythologies to reinstate their antiquity and also their much-neglected basis in reality. We will examine a number of paintings by distinguished alumni of the Scottish School, including works by Henry Raeburn and David Wilkie. But the course privileges a thematic approach to these Scottish artists and their painted output rather than a biographical one. Our timeframe will be hinged on key historical events in Scotland's history: from the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite rebellions, to the visit of George 4th to Edinburgh in 1822 and on into the later nineteenth century when the 'land of cakes and whisky', the 'region of mist and snow' became the favoured retreat of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The visual and material culture generated in response to these historical events will be extended into that surrounding the literary phenomena that was the publication and illustration of Sir Walter Scott's poems and novels. Scott's many representations - in portraits, marble busts and sculptures and his monument in Princes Street - will be studied as part of the transformation of Scotland into 'Scott-land'.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Available to visiting History of Art students with prior approval by course secretary. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- acquire detailed knowledge and understanding of over a century of visual and material culture in Scotland, from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries
- tackle an ambitious secondary bibliography by academics from the discipline of art history and other related areas
- engage with a range of materials
- think creatively and critically about demolishing some of the cultural myths that surround Scotland
- deconstruct notions of romanticism which could be said to plague the entire legacy of art history
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Additional Information
| Course URL |
http://www.arthistory.ed.ac.uk |
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
Location will be confirmed in Handbook |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Ms Georgia Vullinghs
Tel:
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Anna Johns
Tel: (0131 6)51 5740
Email: |
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