Sculpture in Scotland

Class II stones are carefully shaped slabs dating after the arrival of Christianity in the eighth and ninth centuries, with a cross on one face and a wide range of symbols on the reverse.

There is evidence for the production of high-status jewellery, hanging bowls and other items that indicate that it was one of the locations where the Insular style was developed, which became common across Great Britain and Ireland.

Most are from modern Aberdeenshire,[5] but a handful of examples are known from Iona, Skye, Harris, Uist, Lewis, Arran, Hawick, Wigtownshire and fifteen from Orkney, five of which were found at the Neolithic village of Skara Brae.

[32] The Picts were a large tribal confederation of Celtic peoples during the Late Iron Age and Early Medieval periods living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland.

[34] Class II stones are carefully shaped slabs dating after the arrival of Christianity in the eighth and ninth centuries, with a cross on one face and a wide range of symbols on the reverse.

[36] Thomas Charles-Edwards has suggested that the kingdom of Dál Riata in the west of Scotland was a cross-roads between the artistic styles of the Picts and those of Ireland, with which the Scots settlers in what is now Argyll kept close contacts.

[44] From the eighth century Scandinavian invaders took territories in the North and West of Scotland, included the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland, the Hebrides and parts of the mainland.

Examples include the eleventh-century cross-slab from Dóid Mhàiri on the island of Islay, where the plant motifs on either side of the cross-shaft are based upon the Ringerike style of Viking art.

[52] The most famous artistic find from modern Scotland, the Lewis Chessmen, from Uig, were probably made in Trondheim in Norway, but contain some decoration that may have been influenced by Celtic patterns.

[58] The carvings at Rosslyn Chapel, created in the mid-fifteenth century, elaborately depicting the progression of the seven deadly sins, are considered some of the finest in the Gothic style.

[58] Sometimes the best continental artists were employed, as for Robert I's elaborate tomb in Dunfermline Abbey, which was made in his lifetime by the Parisian sculptor Thomas of Chartres, but of which only fragments now survive.

[56] The greatest group of surviving sculptures from this period are from the West Highlands, beginning in the fourteenth century on Iona under the patronage of the Lordship of the Isles and continuing until the Reformation.

[67] According to N. Prior, the nature of the Scottish Reformation may have had wider effects, limiting the creation of a culture of public display and meaning that art was channelled into more austere forms of expression with an emphasis on private and domestic restraint.

[68] Although tradition of stone and wood carving in churches largely ended at the Reformation, it continued in royal palaces, the great houses of the nobility and even the humbler homes of lairds and burgesses.

Alexander Mylne (d. 1643) was primarily a sculptor and in 1635 executed the royal arms over the entrance of Parliament House and two years later the two figures of Justice and Mercy on the same building.

Sir William Bruce (c. 1630–1710), the leading Scottish architect of the seventeenth century, favoured Dutch carvers for his realisation of Kinross House in Fife, where there are festoons, trophies and cornucopia around the doorways and gates.

[78] In the late eighteenth century the development of the Grand Tour took young Scottish aristocrats to the continent, particularly Rome, which was home to the exiled Jacobite Stuarts, and led to the buying of artistic works including sculpture and interest in classical and Renaissance styles.

[83] In the second half of the century Scots became the major figures in the trade in antique sculpture, particularly Gavin Hamilton (1723–98), Colin Morison (1732–1801) and James Byres (1734–1817), making them the arbiters of British taste in this area.

Much cheaper than carved stone, Coadstone was used for sphinxes, balustrading, capitals, coat of arms, tablets, ornamental vases, church monuments and fonts.

These included statues of druids on the portico of Penicuik House carved by one "Willie Jeans" in 1776; the marble bust of James Gillespie by the obscure Robert Burn (fl.

In the early decades of the century commissions continued to be given to English artists, including Samuel Joseph (1791–1850), who was working in Edinburgh in 1821–29 and was a founding member of the Scottish Academy.

The troubled National Monument of Scotland in Edinburgh, proposed in 1816 to commemorate the Scottish dead of the Napoleonic Wars, was envisioned as a pillar, arch, church and eventually was modelled on the Parthenon in Athens by Charles Robert Cockerell and William Henry Playfair and moved sites from the Mound to Calton Hill, where the foundation stone was laid in 1822.

The Scott Monument in Princes Street Gardens (1840–48) in Edinburgh was an elaborate structure built in the Gothic style, designed by carpenter and self-taught architect George Meikle Kemp.

[89] The late nineteenth century saw the beginnings of the Arts and Crafts movement in Scotland, influenced by William Morris, Ford Madox Brown and John Ruskin.

The project helped cement an Arts and Craft ethos in Scottish sculpture, which was perpetuated Carrick's students Tom Whalen (1903–75) and Hew Lorimer (1907–93), the son of the architect Robert.

Lorimer briefly studied with the leading Arts and Crafts sculptor Eric Gill and contributed several major works of public sculpture, including the 27 feet (8 m) high granite Our Lady of the Isles (1957), situated on South Uist.

Born in Estonia of Jewish descent, he originally came to Glasgow as an engineer, but changed to sculpture, producing work influenced by Auguste Rodin and Jacob Epstein.

Primitivism was also an influence on the early work of William Turnbull (1922–2012) and Eduardo Paolozzi (1924–2005), who met at the Slade School of Fine Art after the war and both later studied in Paris.

[101] George Wyllie (1921–2012), produced works of social and political commentary including the Straw Locomotive (1987), an event which raised questions about the decline of heavy industry and the nature of colonialism.

[110] In 2003, Lambing, Starling and Barclay were chosen to represent the newly devolved-Scotland at the Venice Biennale, marking the place of Scotland, and particularly Glasgow, as a hub of European art culture.