Art and Identity in Scotland

"This book seeks to map the cultural contours and detours of identity by focusing on the representation of certain Scots as individuals and Scotland as a nation within Britain's global empire, from the middle decades of the eighteenth century to the early 1830s. Its conceptual starting point is a speech, specifically the fourth anniversary discourse delivered by David Stewart Erskine, the 11th Earl of Buchan, at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland on 15 November 1784. The foundation of the society in 1780 has been described as Buchan's most memorable contribution to the cultural identity of Scotland. In it, he informed his fellow antiquarians: 'I consider Scotland my native Country as a rude but noble medallion of antient sculpture which ought not to be defaced or forgotten in the Cabinet of Nations because it lay next to one more beautiful & splendid richer and larger, more polished, and elegant, but of less relief. As a Man I felt myself a Citizen of the World, as a friend to Peace to Liberty & to Science which cannot exist asunder I considered myself as an inhabitant of a United Kingdom, but as a Citizen I could not help remembring that I was a Scot'"--