Lachlan Goudie visits the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney, a stone circle that has stood for thousands of years. He also encounters the Westray Wife, an ancient figurine on the island of Westray that is the oldest sculpted human figure in the British Isles. There is also a look at the sophisticated art of the Picts and the Gaels, the exuberant Renaissance period of the early Stuart kings, and the destruction of the Reformation, when religious artworks in Scotland were all but wiped out.
The 18th century heralded the greatest blossoming of Scottish artistry in its history. The most powerful and influential figures in Britain clamoured to have their portraits painted by Allan Ramsey and Henry Raeburn and their houses designed by Robert Adam; they stood in awe at the epic Highland landscapes of Horatio McCulloch and wept at the sensitive genre paintings of David Wilkie. In this film Scots artist Lachlan Goudie explores how the intellectual revolution of the Enlightenment and the classical influence of the continent gave these artists the confidence and the inspiration to forge a whole new artistic landscape. From dusty storerooms of Edinburgh to the dazzling antiquities of ancient Rome this will be a journey of startling contrasts: between the past and the future, between the forces of reason and romance, between Presbyterian restraint and unfettered emotion. Out of the ashes of the Reformation a new culture identity was beginning to emerge and it was built on art.
In this film artist, Lachlan Goudie, explores how, at the turn of the 19th century, Scotland's artists challenged the traditions they had inherited and, embracing new ways of seeing and painting from the Continent, revolutionised Scottish art. From the Glasgow Boys' intimate rural realism, to Arthur Melville's brilliantly experimental watercolours; from Hill House, Charles Rennie Mackintosh's 'total work of art', to J.D Fergusson's pioneering Scottish modernism, this generation transformed the way we saw Scotland's landscape and identity.
The climactic episode of this landmark series explores how, over the last 100 years, Scottish art has wrestled as never before with questions of identity and exploded like a visual firecracker of different ideas and styles. During the last century, Scottish artists embroiled themselves with some of the most exciting and dynamic art movements ever seen - provoking, participating and creating stimulating works of art that have left an extraordinary legacy. Lachlan Goudie discovers how artists such as William McCance attempted to bring about a Scottish renaissance in the visual arts, while a creative diaspora of artists such as Alan Davie and William Gear would court controversy and play vital roles in the revolutions of postwar art. Long before the 'Glasgow Miracle', the Glasgow School of Art was responsible for upholding a very different kind of tradition, of which Lachlan's father was proud to be a part. He discovers how artists such as Joan Eardley helped to bring the city to life, just as John Bellany did for the fishing villages of the east coast. Rebels such as Bruce McLean help explain how conceptual art would come to play such a large role in the Scottish art of today, and Lachlan meets one of the world's most expensive living artists, Peter Doig, to delve into the complexities of what it actually means to be a Scottish artist in today's market-dominated art world. He finishes his epic journey on the Isle of Lewis with a powerful call to arms for the continued relevance of Scottish art today.