This pioneering account of Modern Spiritualism in late 19th and early 20th-century Scotland is a compelling history of the international movement's cultural impact on Scottish art. From spirit-mediums creating séance art to mainstream artists of the Royal Scottish Academy, this exposition reveals for the first time the extent of Spiritualist interest in Scotland. With its interdisciplinary scope, Modern Spiritualism and Scottish Art combines cultural and art history to explore the ways in which Scottish art reflected Spiritualist beliefs at the turn of the 20th century. More than simply a history of the Spiritualist cause and its visual manifestations, this book also provides a detailed account of scepticism, psychical research, and occulture in modern Scotland, and the role that these aspects played in informing responses to Spiritualist ideology. Utilising extensive archival research, together with in-depth analyses of overlooked paintings, drawings and sculpture, Michelle Foot demonstrates the vital importance of Spiritualist art to the development of Spiritualism in Scotland during the 19th century. In doing so, the book highlights the contribution of Scottish visual artists alongside better-known Spiritualists such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Daniel Dunglas Home.

"Tom Normand investigates Scottish art between 1928 and 1955 to bring into focus the multifaceted project that was Scottish modernism. At the core of this work lies the contention that Scottish modernism was underpinned by a desire to express a national consciousness. It was this ambition which became the defining feature of radical Scottish art, setting the parameters of its relationship with the idea of a coherent and international modern movement."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Scottish painter John Duncan (18661945) established his early style with paintings based on Arthurian legend; then he applied himself to Celtic myths and legends to create a series of paintings that are unique among early-twentieth-century Scottish art. While the Symbolist movement was probably his most important source of inspiration, his paintings were imbued with the spirit of the Italian Renaissance, and he spent much of his life experimenting with various compositions of tempera in order to obtain the precise density of color and smoothness of surface that characterize his work. In this book, a revised edition of the first full-color monograph ever published on Duncan (Pomegranate, 1994), author John Kemplay outlines Duncan's technical, intellectual, and spiritual development as an artist and his close association with Patrick Geddes, the botanist and socialist who was devoted to a renaissance of Celtic art and who was instrumental in Duncan's commitment to the same. Duncan eventually created a unique body of work rich in Celtic legend and ornament and steeped in the tradition of the Byzantine style. He came to have a vital influence on the art of Scotland and left behind an unparalleled legacy of painting. Kemplay used as his principal resource for this book a series of Duncan's notebooks donated to the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh by the artist's daughter, as well as letters written by Duncan, Geddes, and others, also in the collection of the Library. He also accessed materials from the Dundee Art Galleries and Museums, the University of St. Andrews, and the University of Strathclyde.

An exciting account of the origins of the modern world Who formed the first literate society? Who invented our modern ideas of democracy and free market capitalism? The Scots. As historian and author Arthur Herman reveals, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Scotland made crucial contributions to science, philosophy, literature, education, medicine, commerce, and politics—contributions that have formed and nurtured the modern West ever since. Herman has charted a fascinating journey across the centuries of Scottish history. Here is the untold story of how John Knox and the Church of Scotland laid the foundation for our modern idea of democracy; how the Scottish Enlightenment helped to inspire both the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution; and how thousands of Scottish immigrants left their homes to create the American frontier, the Australian outback, and the British Empire in India and Hong Kong. How the Scots Invented the Modern World reveals how Scottish genius for creating the basic ideas and institutions of modern life stamped the lives of a series of remarkable historical figures, from James Watt and Adam Smith to Andrew Carnegie and Arthur Conan Doyle, and how Scottish heroes continue to inspire our contemporary culture, from William “Braveheart” Wallace to James Bond. And no one who takes this incredible historical trek will ever view the Scots—or the modern West—in the same way again.