Culture of Scotland

The culture of Scotland includes its distinct legal system, financial institutions, sports, literature, art, music, media, cuisine, philosophy, folklore, languages, and religious traditions.

[3] After the Davidian Revolution of the thirteenth century a flourishing French language culture predominated, while Norse literature was produced from areas of Scandinavian settlement.

[4] The first surviving major text in Early Scots literature is the fourteenth-century poet John Barbour's epic Brus, which was followed by a series of vernacular versions of medieval romances.

[7] In the late sixteenth century James VI became patron and member of a circle of Scottish court poets and musicians known as the Castalian Band.

[11] He helped inspire Robert Burns, considered by many to be the national poet, and Walter Scott, whose Waverley Novels did much to define Scottish identity in the 19th century.

[12] Towards the end of the Victorian era a number of Scottish-born authors achieved international reputations, including Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, J. M. Barrie and George MacDonald.

[14] Members of the movement were followed by a new generation of post-war poets including Edwin Morgan, who would be appointed the first Scots Makar by the inaugural Scottish government in 2004.

[15] From the 1980s Scottish literature enjoyed another major revival, particularly associated with writers including James Kelman and Irvine Welsh.

[21] The development of a common style of Insular art across Great Britain and Ireland influenced elaborate jewellery and illuminated manuscripts like the Book of Kells.

[22] Only isolated examples survive of native artwork from the late Middle Ages and of works created or strongly influenced by artists of Flemish origin.

In the sixteenth century the crown began to employ Flemish court painters who have left a portrait record of royalty.

[24] The Reformation removed a major source of patronage for art, limited the level of public display, but may have helped in the growth of secular domestic forms, particularly elaborate painting of roofs and walls.

[25] In the seventeenth century there were the first significant native artists for whom names are extant, with figures like George Jamesone and John Michael Wright, but the loss of the court as a result of the Union of Crowns in 1603 removed another major source of patronage.

[28] It also contributed to a tradition of Scottish landscape painting that focused on the Highlands, formulated by figures including Alexander Nasmyth.

[29] The Royal Scottish Academy of Art was created in 1826,[30] and major portrait painters of this period included Andrew Geddes and David Wilkie.

[31] In the post-war period, major artists, including John Bellany and Alexander Moffat, pursued a strand of "Scottish realism".

[39] In the twenty-first century Scotland has continued to produce successful and influential such as Douglas Gordon, David Mach,[40] Susan Philipsz and Richard Wright.

Regional dailies include The Courier and Advertiser in Dundee and the east, and The Press and Journal serving Aberdeen and the north.

Most of the independent television output is the same as that transmitted in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with the exception of news and current affairs, sport, comedy, cultural and Scottish Gaelic-language programming.

[49][50] Although the deep-fried Mars bar is jokingly said to exemplify the modern Scottish diet, Scottish cuisine offers traditional dishes such as fish and chips, haggis, the Arbroath smokie, salmon, venison, cranachan, the bannock, stovies, Scotch broth, tattie scone and shortbread.

In the Scottish Enlightenment Edinburgh was home to much intellectual talent, including Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, and Adam Smith.

An organisation called Iomairt Cholm Cille (Columba Project) has been set up to support Gaelic-speaking communities in both Scotland and Ireland and to promote links between them.