0:00:08 > 0:00:09The Scottish landscape
0:00:09 > 0:00:13has often been a place of inspiration and escape...
0:00:14 > 0:00:17..but for one 20th-century artist, this small farm
0:00:17 > 0:00:21in the Pentland Hills would become a refuge from the outside world.
0:00:23 > 0:00:28He began transforming his tranquil surroundings into a work of art.
0:00:30 > 0:00:36But look more closely and all your expectations are subverted
0:00:36 > 0:00:40because what you encounter amidst the flowers is an art of conflict.
0:00:44 > 0:00:48The work of Ian Hamilton Finlay assaults you with questions.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51He challenges your perceptions of history,
0:00:51 > 0:00:53your sense of order and disorder,
0:00:53 > 0:00:57your very understanding of the term "civilisation".
0:00:57 > 0:01:01But his work isn't just rooted in the Scottish landscape,
0:01:01 > 0:01:02but in ideas.
0:01:07 > 0:01:11Finlay's garden echoes the path taken by Scottish art
0:01:11 > 0:01:13in the 20th century -
0:01:13 > 0:01:16a period convulsed not only by physical violence
0:01:16 > 0:01:22but by intellectual revolutions that redefined what art could be
0:01:22 > 0:01:26and challenged what it actually means to be a Scottish artist...
0:01:30 > 0:01:32..because in this period, more than ever,
0:01:32 > 0:01:36those two words embody a conflicted identity.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40Have we been most influenced by nationalism or internationalism,
0:01:40 > 0:01:43by radical innovation or tradition?
0:01:46 > 0:01:48During this century,
0:01:48 > 0:01:52a period of collision, confusion and subversion,
0:01:52 > 0:01:56Scottish artists were always to be found embroiled within
0:01:56 > 0:02:00some of the most exciting, creative movements the world has ever seen.
0:02:22 > 0:02:24In the early decades of the 20th century,
0:02:24 > 0:02:28a group of artists and writers felt a growing sense
0:02:28 > 0:02:31that something was missing in Scotland -
0:02:31 > 0:02:34an authentic cultural identity.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41What was needed was a renaissance,
0:02:41 > 0:02:46the reawakening of a creatively distinct, modern Scottish art...
0:02:49 > 0:02:53..art that looked not to the past but to the present
0:02:53 > 0:02:58and took inspiration from Scotland's greatest engineering achievements -
0:02:58 > 0:03:02the Forth Bridge and the great ships built on the Clyde.
0:03:05 > 0:03:09And one artist in particular would attempt to forge a new
0:03:09 > 0:03:12and very different vision for Scottish art.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19William McCance was a man who defied conventions.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27He didn't fight during the First World War
0:03:27 > 0:03:29but was imprisoned as a conscientious objector.
0:03:31 > 0:03:32A sense of violence,
0:03:32 > 0:03:37trauma and rupture with the past would still permeate his work.
0:03:43 > 0:03:45William McCance was fully aware
0:03:45 > 0:03:49of all the artistic experiments in Cubism,
0:03:49 > 0:03:54Futurism and Surrealism that were shaping the international art world.
0:03:54 > 0:03:58And his own approach to the canvas was completely untypical
0:03:58 > 0:04:02of anything that was happening in Scotland at the time.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06As a man, McCance detested violence and yet, curiously,
0:04:06 > 0:04:11his images have all the intense energy of a tightly-coiled spring.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15He completely subverts what a canvas should look like.
0:04:15 > 0:04:17Instead of simply having four edges,
0:04:17 > 0:04:22he gives us this kind of awkward seven-sided picture plane.
0:04:22 > 0:04:24Rather like the gun batteries,
0:04:24 > 0:04:27which are so fiercely abstracted in this image,
0:04:27 > 0:04:29it wants to make an impact.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32It really wants to shatter all your preconceptions of what
0:04:32 > 0:04:34Scottish art should look like.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37It wants to blast apart its associations
0:04:37 > 0:04:41with an imagery of sentiment and stereotype.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45And McCance felt that if Scottish art could purge itself of all
0:04:45 > 0:04:49those associations, if it could celebrate instead
0:04:49 > 0:04:53the intellectual prowess, the engineering capabilities,
0:04:53 > 0:04:58the independent spirit of a modern Scotland, then the nation
0:04:58 > 0:05:02could trigger its own authentic and indigenous cultural revival.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08McCance's sense of nationalism was encouraged by the poet
0:05:08 > 0:05:12Hugh MacDiarmid - a founder member of the Scottish National Party.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17MacDiarmid was the driving force behind calls for a Scottish
0:05:17 > 0:05:21cultural renaissance and thought that Scotland's greatest minds
0:05:21 > 0:05:24had become engineers, whereas art
0:05:24 > 0:05:27was only practised by sentimentalists.
0:05:30 > 0:05:32MacDiarmid believed McCance represented
0:05:32 > 0:05:34the future of Scottish art.
0:05:41 > 0:05:45What was William McCance doing that looked so exciting to MacDiarmid?
0:05:45 > 0:05:51Well, in the early 1920s, more than any other Scottish artist,
0:05:51 > 0:05:56McCance is looking at the latest developments in art,
0:05:56 > 0:05:58interpreting them and making them his own.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01So there's really nobody else painting works like
0:06:01 > 0:06:03Heavy Structures In A Landscape Setting,
0:06:03 > 0:06:06and I think that's what really excited MacDiarmid.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08- It's an art that's really cutting with the past, then, as well?- Yes.
0:06:08 > 0:06:13He is concerned with modernity and contemporary life.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16He's not looking to Scotland's history,
0:06:16 > 0:06:18whether that's art history or any other kind of history.
0:06:18 > 0:06:23It's very much about the now and an identifiably Scottish take
0:06:23 > 0:06:28on things and celebration and a reinvigoration of Scottish culture.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30And how did they think they could achieve that?
0:06:30 > 0:06:34I think it's to do with considering Scotland to have
0:06:34 > 0:06:40this wonderful nation of engineers but needing to move on from that
0:06:40 > 0:06:44and to appreciate art in its own right,
0:06:44 > 0:06:48so coming away from that almost industrial understanding
0:06:48 > 0:06:53and achievement, to lose some sort of provincialism
0:06:53 > 0:06:57and place Scottish culture in an international context.
0:06:57 > 0:06:59Because McCance seems to be investigating
0:06:59 > 0:07:01- more of a sort of machine-orientated world?- That's right.
0:07:01 > 0:07:05So we see it in works like his 1925 linocut,
0:07:05 > 0:07:07The Engineer, His Wife And Family,
0:07:07 > 0:07:11which is an extraordinarily radical image,
0:07:11 > 0:07:16completely flat, completely stylised, quite hard to understand.
0:07:16 > 0:07:17It's quite a brutal image
0:07:17 > 0:07:21and it's reducing the human figure to a robotic form.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24Because when you look at his work, even now, it feels radical,
0:07:24 > 0:07:27it feels so unusually not Scottish at all.
0:07:27 > 0:07:30I mean, it's throbbing with suppressed energy
0:07:30 > 0:07:35and almost a sense of sinister energy and intent there.
0:07:35 > 0:07:36I mean, it is extraordinary.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44Many of McCance's images investigate the ever-growing impact
0:07:44 > 0:07:46of the machine age.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51But they also betray a growing feeling of uncertainty.
0:07:53 > 0:07:57The year after McCance completed this drawing,
0:07:57 > 0:08:00Fritz Lang's film Metropolis hit the picture houses.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07In both works, we seem to look the future in the eye - a cold
0:08:07 > 0:08:13robotic stare, a future that appears less than entirely benevolent.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24By the end of the 1930s, in other parts of Europe,
0:08:24 > 0:08:28concepts of national identity and cultural pride were being
0:08:28 > 0:08:32warped and exploited for increasingly sinister reasons.
0:08:35 > 0:08:39The concept of cultural nationalism, which McCance and MacDiarmid
0:08:39 > 0:08:43had explored in a Scottish context, was about to be corrupted.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57Mankind was once again about to unleash new forms
0:08:57 > 0:08:59of destruction upon itself.
0:09:02 > 0:09:06The creative fragmentation of Modernism was about to enter
0:09:06 > 0:09:07the nuclear age.
0:09:12 > 0:09:17When some artists awoke from this latest nightmare, it was
0:09:17 > 0:09:21almost as if they had to teach themselves to paint all over again.
0:09:23 > 0:09:27In the aftermath of the war, art underwent another regeneration.
0:09:30 > 0:09:34And one of the great post-war developments would be a new type
0:09:34 > 0:09:35of abstract painting.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44It's often thought that Britain failed to play
0:09:44 > 0:09:47much of a role in the struggle for post-war modern art,
0:09:47 > 0:09:52that the revolution was spattered across the canvases of Continental
0:09:52 > 0:09:56and American painting, but we had our revolutionaries, too.
0:09:56 > 0:09:59A new generation of Scots emerged
0:09:59 > 0:10:03who were going to care very little about ideas of Scottishness.
0:10:03 > 0:10:08They were going to leave home, become part of a creative diaspora.
0:10:08 > 0:10:13And the energy, the variety and the sheer violence of their work
0:10:13 > 0:10:16was about to hit the British public right between the eyes.
0:10:26 > 0:10:29These Scottish artists were bohemian and free-thinking.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38They were international men of action
0:10:38 > 0:10:40and their work would have a huge impact.
0:10:44 > 0:10:46Scottish art had just got cool.
0:10:51 > 0:10:57But 1950s Britain was still a place of economic and cultural rationing.
0:10:57 > 0:11:02At the Festival of Britain in 1951, William Gear, one of the pioneers
0:11:02 > 0:11:07of Scottish abstract painting, was awarded a £500 prize.
0:11:07 > 0:11:08There was outrage.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13Abstract art was perceived as a provocation,
0:11:13 > 0:11:16the outburst of feral youth.
0:11:16 > 0:11:20But if some people were incensed by Gear, then the work of another
0:11:20 > 0:11:24Scottish artist would soon have them choking on their Spam.
0:11:26 > 0:11:28Alan Davie was a true maverick.
0:11:28 > 0:11:29After serving in the war,
0:11:29 > 0:11:33he toured for a time as a professional saxophonist.
0:11:33 > 0:11:37He was one of the first British artists to soak up the new style
0:11:37 > 0:11:40of Abstract Expressionism pioneered in America
0:11:40 > 0:11:44by the likes of Jackson Pollock.
0:11:44 > 0:11:48Davie began improvising on canvas with the same kind of spontaneity
0:11:48 > 0:11:50as the jazz musicians he loved.
0:11:55 > 0:11:56Painting, for me,
0:11:56 > 0:12:01is simply a kind of private, religious, meditative activity.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06I'm conjuring up things which are beyond my comprehension
0:12:06 > 0:12:10and anybody looking at these paintings afterwards
0:12:10 > 0:12:12has to get into the same state.
0:12:12 > 0:12:15And a good painting is the one which succeeds in getting
0:12:15 > 0:12:21the spectator out of himself and into this universal, mystical state.
0:12:24 > 0:12:25Ha!
0:12:26 > 0:12:27Wow!
0:12:29 > 0:12:34This is Sacrifice by Alan Davie and it's exactly the kind
0:12:34 > 0:12:38of painting that was scaring the pants off the British public.
0:12:38 > 0:12:44And imagery like this had not come out of Scotland before -
0:12:44 > 0:12:49imagery that was so terribly abstracted that all you could do
0:12:49 > 0:12:51was respond emotionally
0:12:51 > 0:12:57because you can't really conceive of an intellectual definition
0:12:57 > 0:13:01of what exactly is exploding out into your face.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07He liked to think of himself almost as a shaman,
0:13:07 > 0:13:14a sort of wizard who creates these portals out of which an enormous,
0:13:14 > 0:13:21powerful, subconscious energy radiates out towards the viewer.
0:13:21 > 0:13:26And it's a whole new way of creating powerful, emotional,
0:13:26 > 0:13:30expressive, abstract painting that is no longer tied down
0:13:30 > 0:13:36to any landscape, to any discernible, definable inspiration.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39It is a kind of hallucination.
0:13:39 > 0:13:43It's the expression of a new counterculture.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50When Davie first exhibited in New York, Jackson Pollock
0:13:50 > 0:13:53and Willem de Kooning, the kings of Abstract Expressionism,
0:13:53 > 0:13:58fell in love with his work. The paintings sold out.
0:13:59 > 0:14:01Scottish artists were making a mark...
0:14:03 > 0:14:06..adding their own ingredients to a great bubbling pot
0:14:06 > 0:14:09of international experimentation.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19The cycle of artistic evolution was moving
0:14:19 > 0:14:23so swiftly that it was getting hard to keep up, but at every
0:14:23 > 0:14:27single regeneration, there seemed to be a Scot in the mix.
0:14:27 > 0:14:28"You've never had it so good!"
0:14:28 > 0:14:32Harold Macmillan told the nation in 1957.
0:14:32 > 0:14:34But by then, people wanted to see some evidence.
0:14:34 > 0:14:38Enough of all this post-war angst! Just bring us some bloody colour!
0:14:38 > 0:14:42And there was one Scottish artist who was only too happy to oblige.
0:14:54 > 0:14:56Eduardo Paolozzi was born in Leith,
0:14:56 > 0:14:59the son of an Italian ice cream seller.
0:14:59 > 0:15:03He was discharged from the Army after feigning madness.
0:15:03 > 0:15:08In order to escape further military service, he enrolled at art school.
0:15:08 > 0:15:10It was an inauspicious start.
0:15:12 > 0:15:16But after the war, he spent two years in Paris.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19Influenced by Surrealism, he started experimenting with collages
0:15:19 > 0:15:22that he felt reflected contemporary culture.
0:15:23 > 0:15:25Paolozzi had found his vocation.
0:15:30 > 0:15:33Artists' studios give you a real insight into the way
0:15:33 > 0:15:35their minds work.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39Some of them are really tidy and some of them,
0:15:39 > 0:15:44like this, are a kind of mulching compost heap for the imagination.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54From the very start, Eduardo Paolozzi was inspired to challenge
0:15:54 > 0:15:56the conventions of British art.
0:15:56 > 0:16:01He amassed mountains of cuttings of images, fragments
0:16:01 > 0:16:06of advertisements, figurines from Disney films, toys for children.
0:16:06 > 0:16:09And he shocked the British public by insisting that the
0:16:09 > 0:16:15imagery of popular culture could be recycled and repackaged as art.
0:16:15 > 0:16:20In his hands, junk was a whole new palette that seemed to democratise
0:16:20 > 0:16:24the creative process and ignited the fuse on the Pop Art movement.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36Paolozzi rebelled against the Establishment,
0:16:36 > 0:16:39lobbing his bombshells of colour and humour.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43But he also made three-dimensional collages.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48Like some highbrow rag-and-bone man, Paolozzi trawled scrapyards
0:16:48 > 0:16:52for disused engine parts, breathing new life into what he found.
0:16:57 > 0:17:01I mean, this is a kind of creative sacrilege, but I promise,
0:17:01 > 0:17:05when you're standing in the company of St Sebastian I,
0:17:05 > 0:17:09you're not spending time with a hunk of junk.
0:17:09 > 0:17:11Eduardo Paolozzi has managed to engineer
0:17:11 > 0:17:16a presence into something that's so obviously inanimate.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20And you can admire it just for that poignant fact.
0:17:20 > 0:17:25But this also represents a rebooting of religious iconography.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28All those elegantly martyred saints...
0:17:28 > 0:17:32Well, they've here been transformed into an ironman,
0:17:32 > 0:17:36a robot that's malfunctioning with pain,
0:17:36 > 0:17:40a ripped-open shriek of agony that's as powerful as anything
0:17:40 > 0:17:43we've encountered in the history of sacred art.
0:18:05 > 0:18:09Amidst all of this churning creative chaos,
0:18:09 > 0:18:11there would also be moments of calm.
0:18:16 > 0:18:21William Turnbull began his career working for DC Thomson in Dundee,
0:18:21 > 0:18:24producing just the kind of Pop Art that his great friend
0:18:24 > 0:18:26Paolozzi loved so much.
0:18:29 > 0:18:31But the rest of his career seems to have been
0:18:31 > 0:18:34a reaction against this kind of mass-produced imagery.
0:18:37 > 0:18:41Turnbull is perhaps best known as a minimalist sculptor
0:18:41 > 0:18:44but his experience as a pilot in the Second World War,
0:18:44 > 0:18:47flying through vast reaches of sky and viewing the world
0:18:47 > 0:18:52from a new perspective, would also inform his abstract paintings.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05William Turnbull wanted his paintings to be
0:19:05 > 0:19:09all about silence but that's the magic of abstract art -
0:19:09 > 0:19:11it engages you as a viewer.
0:19:11 > 0:19:16So I can choose to relate to this painting as a kind of Zen moment
0:19:16 > 0:19:19of contemplation or perhaps I can hear in it
0:19:19 > 0:19:23the echoes of that popular culture after all.
0:19:23 > 0:19:26Is this the shrinking spot of a television screen being switched off
0:19:26 > 0:19:32or perhaps the roaring afterburners of an Apollo mission to the moon?
0:19:37 > 0:19:40These artists belong to a generation of creative exiles.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48And the variety and impact of their work is staggering.
0:20:21 > 0:20:24But whilst these young bucks took to the international limelight,
0:20:24 > 0:20:30it begs the question - exactly what did they leave behind in Scotland?
0:20:32 > 0:20:36In many ways, the answer was tradition.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42And one of the outposts of this tradition was a grand country house
0:20:42 > 0:20:43called Hospitalfield.
0:20:46 > 0:20:49Students who had been recommended by Scotland's four art schools
0:20:49 > 0:20:53would come here each summer to learn and create.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07One of the most influential tutors here was a man called James Cowie.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14Cowie's own paintings often told subtle stories,
0:21:14 > 0:21:17reflecting on the heightened experiences of adolescence.
0:21:19 > 0:21:21His work is lyrical
0:21:21 > 0:21:25and steeped in the elegance of Italian Renaissance painting.
0:21:29 > 0:21:33And during this period, Scotland's art schools continued to
0:21:33 > 0:21:36nurture the practices and beliefs of an earlier era.
0:21:37 > 0:21:38It was a way of teaching
0:21:38 > 0:21:42that prized rigorously-controlled drawing,
0:21:42 > 0:21:44colour and brushwork.
0:21:46 > 0:21:50My father, Sandy, was also part of that lineage
0:21:50 > 0:21:52and he handed down those lessons to me.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58The work these artists produced was not radical.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02Instead, they proudly upheld a tradition - a tradition full of
0:22:02 > 0:22:07painterly confidence which looked to the Continent for its inspiration.
0:22:07 > 0:22:12Theirs was not an art of subversion but of celebration and it,
0:22:12 > 0:22:17too, has its place in the story of Scottish art.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20And if you want to look hard at their images,
0:22:20 > 0:22:23you'll find them to be full of intellectual engagement,
0:22:23 > 0:22:26full of ideas, full of provocation
0:22:26 > 0:22:30and even full of the kind of turmoil that any committed artist will
0:22:30 > 0:22:34put into their work, whether they're painting a cesspit or a sunset.
0:22:42 > 0:22:46One artist in particular, a former pupil at Hospitalfield,
0:22:46 > 0:22:49would prove that a traditional training was no obstacle to
0:22:49 > 0:22:53testing the boundaries of modern British art.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55Her name was Joan Eardley.
0:22:57 > 0:22:59Eardley was born in Sussex
0:22:59 > 0:23:02but studied at the Glasgow School of Art
0:23:02 > 0:23:05and her story would complicate and greatly enrich
0:23:05 > 0:23:08the question of what it means to be a Scottish artist.
0:23:10 > 0:23:12She developed her signature style
0:23:12 > 0:23:15in one of Glasgow's most deprived areas - Townhead.
0:23:16 > 0:23:20And there she became a familiar character, pushing around a pram
0:23:20 > 0:23:24filled with painting equipment as she searched out her subjects.
0:23:35 > 0:23:39Artists from Scotland had looked into the streets and into the
0:23:39 > 0:23:43lives of ordinary people for their inspiration already
0:23:43 > 0:23:46but Joan Eardley was going to match the gritty subject matter
0:23:46 > 0:23:50with a formidably passionate approach to the canvas.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53And her paintings were enormously important to me as I grew up
0:23:53 > 0:23:57because in them you could recognise not only what Glasgow
0:23:57 > 0:23:59looks like but also what it felt like.
0:24:01 > 0:24:03And Joan was able to capture that because she spent
0:24:03 > 0:24:06so much of her time out on the streets sketching,
0:24:06 > 0:24:10noting down the people that she saw around her and the buildings,
0:24:10 > 0:24:11like these, that stood in front of her.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14And that was how she captured the people
0:24:14 > 0:24:18and the places that would eventually live new lives on her canvases...
0:24:22 > 0:24:28..the sooty tenement walls, the patches of graffiti,
0:24:28 > 0:24:30shredded advertising hoardings.
0:24:33 > 0:24:37Eardley is particularly renowned for her portraits of city children.
0:24:38 > 0:24:43She documented their hard lives but also celebrated their spirit.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48At the present moment, there's a family.
0:24:48 > 0:24:52I've been painting them for about seven years, I should think.
0:24:52 > 0:24:58For me, they were Glasgow, this sort of richness which Glasgow has,
0:24:58 > 0:25:01I know that Glasgow has, I hope it always will have.
0:25:05 > 0:25:10As children, Pat and Ann Samson were two of Eardley's favourite subjects.
0:25:12 > 0:25:14Annie and Pat, it's a great privilege to me
0:25:14 > 0:25:18- because I've known your faces through paintings all my life.- Aye.
0:25:18 > 0:25:20And I love Joan Eardley's work.
0:25:20 > 0:25:23- So do you remember these early encounters?- Oh, aye.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27- She'd just be, like, "Come along." And it was like...- Baby-sitting?
0:25:27 > 0:25:31- ..the Pied Piper!- Aye! - All the weans following Joan.
0:25:31 > 0:25:33- And did you want to go? - Aye, loved it.
0:25:33 > 0:25:36Because we'd get thrupenny bit and a piece 'n' treacle.
0:25:36 > 0:25:40- What, a sandwich with treacle in it? - Yes! Back then, it was a luxury.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44But she became, like, part of our family.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47We were part of her family and she was part of ours.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50And when she'd done these sketches of you, or drawings of you,
0:25:50 > 0:25:52would you go and have a look at what she'd done that afternoon?
0:25:52 > 0:25:55She used to give us them and we used to make aeroplanes out of them.
0:25:55 > 0:25:57Go up the road and fire them.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59And my ma used to burn the lot of them.
0:25:59 > 0:26:01"Don't bring that rubbish into this hoose!"
0:26:01 > 0:26:03- Yes!- Your mother didn't like them?
0:26:03 > 0:26:05It wasnae that she didn't like them, she just...
0:26:05 > 0:26:08Because Joan was just an ordinary woman,
0:26:08 > 0:26:10she wasnae famous or nothing when we knew her.
0:26:10 > 0:26:14She actually described me, "Face round like a turnip,
0:26:14 > 0:26:17"carrot-red hair and squinty eyes."
0:26:17 > 0:26:20I had really bad squints and I think this appealed to Joan.
0:26:20 > 0:26:24Even though the images aren't really photographic,
0:26:24 > 0:26:27- you still feel the atmosphere? - Yes, you do. Aye.
0:26:27 > 0:26:31Because I just feel, the way she painted us,
0:26:31 > 0:26:35I mean, she painted us, what she saw in us.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38and I thought, "Well, that is just us."
0:26:38 > 0:26:40That was us.
0:26:40 > 0:26:41Because we were poor...
0:26:43 > 0:26:46..and she just painted us as poor children.
0:26:50 > 0:26:54Eardley made this adopted homeland her passion
0:26:54 > 0:26:58and she searched for its soul not just in the grime,
0:26:58 > 0:27:00but in the glory of its landscape.
0:27:08 > 0:27:13'I feel it's important to know the people, to know buildings, or...
0:27:13 > 0:27:15'And the same with landscape.
0:27:15 > 0:27:18'I found that the more I know the place
0:27:18 > 0:27:21'or the more I know the particular spot,
0:27:21 > 0:27:24'the more I find to paint in that particular spot.'
0:27:29 > 0:27:34Some of Eardley's most powerful paintings weren't created in Glasgow
0:27:34 > 0:27:38but on the east coast, here in Catterline.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44And in this wonderful landscape,
0:27:44 > 0:27:47she began to create extraordinary paintings.
0:27:47 > 0:27:49She would be pounding her canvas here
0:27:49 > 0:27:52with the same kind of broiling energy
0:27:52 > 0:27:56as the waves that come in off the North Sea
0:27:56 > 0:27:59and hit the shores beneath the line of cottages
0:27:59 > 0:28:00where she would make her home.
0:28:07 > 0:28:11Joan Eardley knew how to pick her tones perfectly,
0:28:11 > 0:28:16and when she froths up the canvas and the texture of the paint,
0:28:16 > 0:28:22it's because she's been observing and feeling this landscape
0:28:22 > 0:28:26for a protracted period of time with great intensity.
0:28:28 > 0:28:31They feel, to me, to be some of her most personal images,
0:28:31 > 0:28:34and they're also jam-packed full of joy.
0:28:41 > 0:28:44This woman from Sussex embodies the painterliness
0:28:44 > 0:28:47we've come to expect from a Scottish canvas.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52She feels like a local.
0:28:54 > 0:28:57Eardley died aged only 42.
0:28:57 > 0:28:59And I have the sense that,
0:28:59 > 0:29:03because the subjects and her career were so specific to Scotland,
0:29:03 > 0:29:06her wider importance has been neglected.
0:29:09 > 0:29:14She captures the spirit of a certain kind of Scottish landscape painting,
0:29:14 > 0:29:19but she also marks the moment when there was a change in the winds,
0:29:19 > 0:29:22when there was a new centrifuge in Scottish painting appearing,
0:29:22 > 0:29:24when artists weren't looking any longer
0:29:24 > 0:29:28towards the delicious, luscious, vibrantly coloured
0:29:28 > 0:29:30painting traditions of the Continent,
0:29:30 > 0:29:32and France in particular.
0:29:32 > 0:29:37They were finding something peculiar and exciting
0:29:37 > 0:29:41about the expressive anxiety of a more Northern tradition.
0:30:06 > 0:30:10One artist in particular decided to take his inspiration
0:30:10 > 0:30:14from the intense and expressive approach to the canvas
0:30:14 > 0:30:18often associated with Scandinavia and Germany.
0:30:22 > 0:30:25John Bellany would continue the brooding power
0:30:25 > 0:30:27of Eardley's paintings
0:30:27 > 0:30:30and he, too, would anchor himself within a local community.
0:30:39 > 0:30:42John Bellany of "Bellany" as he's known locally,
0:30:42 > 0:30:45was born here, in the village of Port Seton,
0:30:45 > 0:30:48just outside of Edinburgh, and his father was a fisherman.
0:30:48 > 0:30:52And the experience of belonging to this working community
0:30:52 > 0:30:55informed his paintings for the whole of his life.
0:30:55 > 0:30:57It endowed them with a sense of place,
0:30:57 > 0:31:02a commitment to the lives of ordinary, working people,
0:31:02 > 0:31:05and a Presbyterian directness.
0:31:05 > 0:31:07So, in a painting like Allegory,
0:31:07 > 0:31:10he takes a team of local fish-gutters
0:31:10 > 0:31:13and he makes them witnesses of the Crucifixion.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16He transports the community of Port Seton
0:31:16 > 0:31:20and he makes an equivalence out of their lives
0:31:20 > 0:31:23and the emotional turmoil of Christ's death.
0:31:23 > 0:31:27And in so doing, he joins a long list of Scottish artists
0:31:27 > 0:31:30who have told stories with pictures
0:31:30 > 0:31:35and who have given a monumentality to everyday experience.
0:31:35 > 0:31:40# Cauld winter was howling
0:31:40 > 0:31:45# O'er moor and o'er mountain... #
0:31:45 > 0:31:49Bellany's work acknowledges its debts to the great masters,
0:31:49 > 0:31:51but it still feels powerfully original.
0:31:51 > 0:31:54It's imagery that churns your stomach,
0:31:54 > 0:31:56that keeps your mind ticking over, as well.
0:31:56 > 0:32:01# When I met aboot daybreak... #
0:32:01 > 0:32:05It's art that feels severe,
0:32:05 > 0:32:07feels Scottish.
0:32:07 > 0:32:11And it was fuelled by Bellany's religious upbringing.
0:32:11 > 0:32:17# Asked me to show her the road tae Dundee... #
0:32:20 > 0:32:23How important is faith to this community?
0:32:23 > 0:32:27I would say strong. It's a strong faith that the people have here.
0:32:27 > 0:32:29I have a strong faith.
0:32:29 > 0:32:32It's a faith that I would say, most of the fishermen,
0:32:32 > 0:32:35although they don't go to church, they still have a faith.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38Do you think Bellany expresses that through his paintings?
0:32:38 > 0:32:40He does express it through his paintings.
0:32:40 > 0:32:43When he worked in the fish shop,
0:32:43 > 0:32:48he would be standing, filleting, and the people that worked with him,
0:32:48 > 0:32:52they were in the brethren, which is a close-knit community.
0:32:52 > 0:32:56And they would be trying to mend his ways and educate him
0:32:56 > 0:32:58about the sins of the world,
0:32:58 > 0:33:02but John didn't seem to listen to this, like!
0:33:02 > 0:33:04He survived it!
0:33:04 > 0:33:07John, do you remember the day that you fell in the harbour
0:33:07 > 0:33:10- when you were drunk? - Yeah, I lost a fight there.
0:33:10 > 0:33:12- The main thing is I got out! - HE LAUGHS
0:33:12 > 0:33:16# Turn your eyes, dear Lord
0:33:16 > 0:33:18# Through the morning light
0:33:18 > 0:33:21# The city of God... #
0:33:21 > 0:33:24It sometimes seems to me as if, in every Scot,
0:33:24 > 0:33:27there's a Calvinist just dying to get out.
0:33:27 > 0:33:31We start to feel a little bit guilty if we indulge in too much fun,
0:33:31 > 0:33:33too much...beauty.
0:33:33 > 0:33:37John Bellany captured the life of this fishing community
0:33:37 > 0:33:39from the inside.
0:33:39 > 0:33:42But in his work, he liked to see himself as a bit of an outsider.
0:33:42 > 0:33:46He turned his paintings away from the exuberant painterliness
0:33:46 > 0:33:49that he associated with the Establishment,
0:33:49 > 0:33:54and pushed it towards a more troubling and intense introspection.
0:34:02 > 0:34:08But by the 1960s, art was undergoing an existential crisis.
0:34:10 > 0:34:14As all the traditional definitions began to be overturned...
0:34:16 > 0:34:20..the horizons of Scottish art were also being expanded.
0:34:23 > 0:34:26Richard Demarco used the Edinburgh Festival
0:34:26 > 0:34:29to bring controversial international artists to Scotland.
0:34:31 > 0:34:34I couldn't care whether they're Japanese or English,
0:34:34 > 0:34:37or whether they're Scottish, for that matter.
0:34:37 > 0:34:39They're artists, and I believe they're good artists.
0:34:39 > 0:34:43Strangely enough, I think this gallery is the only gallery
0:34:43 > 0:34:47in Scotland prepared to...
0:34:47 > 0:34:49to show work of this kind.
0:34:49 > 0:34:52"Work of what kind?" People may ask.
0:34:52 > 0:34:56Well, work where, in fact, you're going to get the ideas,
0:34:56 > 0:34:59the thoughts, of some of the greatest minds of our time.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10Increasingly, what mattered were ideas...
0:35:12 > 0:35:13..the concept.
0:35:14 > 0:35:18The artistic front line was now about performances and happenings
0:35:18 > 0:35:21rather than choices of colour and brushstrokes.
0:35:25 > 0:35:27Bruce McLean was the Scottish artist
0:35:27 > 0:35:29who most provocatively embraced
0:35:29 > 0:35:32the new possibilities of conceptual art.
0:35:33 > 0:35:36He left Scotland in 1963 to enrol
0:35:36 > 0:35:39at St Martin's School of Art in London.
0:35:40 > 0:35:43Inspired by the spirit of creative freedom,
0:35:43 > 0:35:47he abandoned conventional materials and formal techniques
0:35:47 > 0:35:50and used his own body to poke fun at traditional notions
0:35:50 > 0:35:53of what a sculpture should look like.
0:35:58 > 0:36:00McLean believed he had the licence
0:36:00 > 0:36:05to throw a roll of photographic paper onto a rocky outcrop on Arran
0:36:05 > 0:36:08and call this a sculpture, a landscape.
0:36:10 > 0:36:13Well, I thought that, um... people photographing the landscape
0:36:13 > 0:36:15was just the same as painting the landscape,
0:36:15 > 0:36:17so I thought I'll paint the landscape.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20So, I got rows of photographic paper and I just painted the landscape.
0:36:20 > 0:36:21I rubbed it, really.
0:36:23 > 0:36:26But it was a sort of a... tongue-in-cheek joke about it.
0:36:26 > 0:36:28But what I could never understand
0:36:28 > 0:36:30was why it was called conceptual art.
0:36:30 > 0:36:33I could never understand or work out what happened...
0:36:33 > 0:36:36to art that WASN'T conceptual. I mean, you had to have an idea,
0:36:36 > 0:36:38it's supposed to be about something, isn't it? Or is it?
0:36:38 > 0:36:40Perhaps it isn't.
0:36:40 > 0:36:41How did the people around you react
0:36:41 > 0:36:43to the minimal things you were doing?
0:36:43 > 0:36:46They didn't know what I was doing. Nobody had a clue what I was doing.
0:36:46 > 0:36:48Doesn't really matter very much.
0:36:48 > 0:36:50I used to make stuff by the pond in Barnes,
0:36:50 > 0:36:53put bits of sculpture in the pond and floated it around,
0:36:53 > 0:36:55and a man came down and said, "What are you doing?"
0:36:55 > 0:36:57And I said, "I'm making a sculpture."
0:36:57 > 0:37:00And he said, "Sculpture? It's a plastic brick in a pond."
0:37:00 > 0:37:02I said, "It's moving around. It's a moving..."
0:37:02 > 0:37:05He said, "Why don't you do something that looks like something?"
0:37:05 > 0:37:08Anyway, a couple of weeks later, I found a mirror
0:37:08 > 0:37:11and I was reflecting the landscape in the mirror.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13And this bloke saw this and he thought
0:37:13 > 0:37:16I had painted a landscape painting, he said, "Fantastic!"
0:37:16 > 0:37:18I said, "No, it's a mirror." He said, "Oh, right, yeah..."
0:37:18 > 0:37:22But, clearly, this was a radical shift.
0:37:22 > 0:37:25I mean, the people who knew what art was up until this moment,
0:37:25 > 0:37:28or at least what they had been told it was, were shocked.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31But can I say something? I never thought I was making art.
0:37:31 > 0:37:32I have to get that straight.
0:37:32 > 0:37:34I always thought I was making propositions
0:37:34 > 0:37:36for what sculpture could be.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39I'm not sure I've actually made any decent sculpture.
0:37:39 > 0:37:41But I always thought it was like a proposition.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44And art is something which comes later.
0:37:44 > 0:37:45"Art" is a three-letter word.
0:37:45 > 0:37:47And I wanted four-letter words,
0:37:47 > 0:37:50like "jazz", "punk", "pose", stuff like that.
0:37:50 > 0:37:53But if you take that proposition to the extreme,
0:37:53 > 0:37:55you're just coming out with the ideas,
0:37:55 > 0:37:57is that not a bit nihilistic?
0:37:57 > 0:38:00Do we not need to have something to interact with?
0:38:00 > 0:38:03Well, I am interested in the energy.
0:38:03 > 0:38:07I'm interested in the fact that something could be an action.
0:38:07 > 0:38:09The whole reason to be in this area of activity,
0:38:09 > 0:38:11it's not being some sort of bureaucrat.
0:38:11 > 0:38:14Surely, you can behave badly and do exactly what you want,
0:38:14 > 0:38:16push the boundaries of what is possible.
0:38:16 > 0:38:20But you weren't sentimental about your Scottish heritage or identity?
0:38:20 > 0:38:24- No.- That didn't matter to you?- No. I'm not a shortbread Scotsman.
0:38:24 > 0:38:28I'm very Scottish, I go back to Malcolm VI
0:38:28 > 0:38:31and Bertie, son of Malcolm VI in 1028,
0:38:31 > 0:38:33and I have the book to prove it! No, no! And, um...
0:38:35 > 0:38:37But I see myself as part of the world.
0:38:37 > 0:38:39I think I'm an international artist.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47But back home in Scotland,
0:38:47 > 0:38:51the tradition of painting wasn't ready to die just yet.
0:38:52 > 0:38:54In the 1980s, a new generation
0:38:54 > 0:38:56of painters emerged.
0:38:56 > 0:38:58They also considered themselves
0:38:58 > 0:39:00to be "international artists",
0:39:00 > 0:39:04but their national identity still shaped the work that they created.
0:39:07 > 0:39:09Much of their imagery documented a Scotland
0:39:09 > 0:39:12suffering from the collapse of its heavy industries
0:39:12 > 0:39:15and in fierce conflict with the politics of the day.
0:39:21 > 0:39:25The media opportunistically christened these artists
0:39:25 > 0:39:28the "New Glasgow Boys", recalling the golden age
0:39:28 > 0:39:30of Glasgow painters a century before.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36And they would enjoy massive, international success.
0:39:36 > 0:39:40MUSIC: Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus by Serge Gainsbourg
0:39:46 > 0:39:48Not all of these artists, however,
0:39:48 > 0:39:50chose to paint a picture of grim realism.
0:39:52 > 0:39:55When I first saw Steven Campbell's work at an exhibition in Glasgow,
0:39:55 > 0:39:58I was bewildered and thrilled.
0:39:59 > 0:40:01Campbell's strange and surreal work
0:40:01 > 0:40:03covered every inch of space
0:40:03 > 0:40:06as Je T'aime played repeatedly on a loop.
0:40:08 > 0:40:11He wrestled huge figures onto his canvases
0:40:11 > 0:40:14as if he was trying to create a modern kind of history painting.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20His paintings had attention-grabbing hoopla
0:40:20 > 0:40:22and noisy existentialism.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27There's supposed to be 150,000 artists in New York,
0:40:27 > 0:40:30and when I went there three years ago,
0:40:30 > 0:40:32everything was very nationalistic.
0:40:32 > 0:40:34The Italians would just paint Italian,
0:40:34 > 0:40:36the Germans and the French and the Belgians.
0:40:36 > 0:40:39And they seemed to have a lot of culture and paintings to draw on,
0:40:39 > 0:40:41whereas Scottish art doesn't seem
0:40:41 > 0:40:43to have much in the way of the modern stuff.
0:40:43 > 0:40:45So, I tried to invent a kind of modern Scottish art
0:40:45 > 0:40:49using the landscape and waterfalls and moors and the fir trees,
0:40:49 > 0:40:52use anything extremely Scottish,
0:40:52 > 0:40:54and try doing it in a modern kind of way
0:40:54 > 0:40:57so I could rival these people and stand close to them,
0:40:57 > 0:40:59but still have a national identity.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10Around the same time as the so-called "Glasgow Boys",
0:41:10 > 0:41:13there also emerged a group of female artists.
0:41:14 > 0:41:16They were less noisily celebrated,
0:41:16 > 0:41:19but made work that was intensely original.
0:41:23 > 0:41:26Alison Watt came to prominence in the late '80s
0:41:26 > 0:41:30and continues to create paintings that threaten assumptions
0:41:30 > 0:41:33about beauty and conventional symbolism.
0:41:38 > 0:41:41I like to think of my work as Scottish.
0:41:41 > 0:41:46I think, if I lived abroad or even lived in England,
0:41:46 > 0:41:48I think, definitely, my colours would be different.
0:41:48 > 0:41:51I think my colours reflect my surroundings.
0:41:51 > 0:41:54It's very earthy colours that have surrounded me all the time,
0:41:54 > 0:41:56so I think that's reflected in my work.
0:42:02 > 0:42:06Marat And The Fishes is an image that seems to reverberate
0:42:06 > 0:42:09with the memory of so many things that have been important
0:42:09 > 0:42:12throughout the story of Scottish art.
0:42:12 > 0:42:14You've got the clarity of line,
0:42:14 > 0:42:17you've got this crisp, tonal control.
0:42:17 > 0:42:19The sense that somebody wants to make an image
0:42:19 > 0:42:22that is much more than just a reflection of reality.
0:42:22 > 0:42:26This is a wistful and lyrical painting, which, in a sense,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29might have been a reaction to all the angsty images
0:42:29 > 0:42:31that were coming out of Glasgow in the mid to late 1980s.
0:42:31 > 0:42:34It is very much of its moment.
0:42:34 > 0:42:39But it is also deeply informed by the lessons of history.
0:42:39 > 0:42:41And it's that combination of the local
0:42:41 > 0:42:43and the wider narrative of art history
0:42:43 > 0:42:46that I think helps you become a greater artist.
0:42:47 > 0:42:52MUSIC: Wandering Star by Portishead
0:42:52 > 0:42:55The exchange between personal vision
0:42:55 > 0:42:57and the heritage of Scottish painting
0:42:57 > 0:43:00would also electrify the work of Jenny Saville.
0:43:04 > 0:43:09Saville was born in England, but went to art school in Scotland.
0:43:09 > 0:43:12Her vast nudes subvert the painterly tradition
0:43:12 > 0:43:15once associated with the Glasgow School of Art.
0:43:16 > 0:43:20Her portraits are challenging and confrontational
0:43:20 > 0:43:24and make you question accepted views of the female form.
0:43:28 > 0:43:30Whatever size or type of woman you are,
0:43:30 > 0:43:33you have to conform to these ideas of femininity,
0:43:33 > 0:43:36and they're almost branded onto you,
0:43:36 > 0:43:39like, when you're born, or dug into you.
0:43:39 > 0:43:44I paint very traditionally, and I use the body quite traditionally,
0:43:44 > 0:43:47and I wanted to almost cut through the tradition.
0:43:47 > 0:43:53MUSIC: Fun 'N' Frenzy by Josef K
0:43:53 > 0:43:56What? Saville and the Glasgow Boys were the artists
0:43:56 > 0:43:59making all the noise when I was growing up.
0:44:00 > 0:44:03But there was another factor filtering into my imagination
0:44:03 > 0:44:06and affecting my perception of the world -
0:44:06 > 0:44:08Glasgow itself.
0:44:08 > 0:44:10Not just the school, but the city.
0:44:13 > 0:44:17Like Scottish art, this was a city in flux,
0:44:17 > 0:44:22where the '60s tower blocks that had once represented the future
0:44:22 > 0:44:24now looked increasingly melancholy.
0:44:33 > 0:44:37You know, the skyline of Glasgow is a great artistic statement
0:44:37 > 0:44:40and it's defined by three things -
0:44:40 > 0:44:43landscape, Victorian architecture and modernism.
0:44:43 > 0:44:45And I remember, growing up here,
0:44:45 > 0:44:49how I'd always catch sight of these great tower blocks
0:44:49 > 0:44:53framed against the hills that encircle this city.
0:44:53 > 0:44:55Now, you might think of them as ugly,
0:44:55 > 0:44:59and they are, undoubtedly, difficult places to live in,
0:44:59 > 0:45:03but their presence, and their gradual collapse,
0:45:03 > 0:45:06was a formative influence in my generation.
0:45:06 > 0:45:09They represented the kind of crumbling legacy
0:45:09 > 0:45:11of post-war optimism,
0:45:11 > 0:45:16and they were part of the everyday architectural context of our lives.
0:45:20 > 0:45:22MUSIC: Lease Of Life by Errors
0:45:28 > 0:45:31The sense of a city collapsing and regenerating
0:45:31 > 0:45:34is reflected in the work of Toby Paterson.
0:45:35 > 0:45:38He transforms the ruins of brutalist architecture
0:45:38 > 0:45:40into creative springboards,
0:45:40 > 0:45:44exploiting the freedom to work in different mediums
0:45:44 > 0:45:46that today's artists enjoy.
0:45:55 > 0:45:58I bloody-mindedly decided to look at buildings
0:45:58 > 0:46:00everyone else despised,
0:46:00 > 0:46:03and that goes right to the core of why I'm an artist
0:46:03 > 0:46:06and why I work with what I work with.
0:46:06 > 0:46:10I'm a painter, but I have an unerring interest in architecture.
0:46:10 > 0:46:13I can't escape from it - literally, can't escape from it.
0:46:13 > 0:46:17And I do think of myself now pretty much as a landscape painter
0:46:17 > 0:46:21because I am experiencing and responding
0:46:21 > 0:46:23to places, spaces, forms,
0:46:23 > 0:46:26that I encounter visually.
0:46:26 > 0:46:28But not always doing that with a paintbrush?
0:46:28 > 0:46:31No, the outcome of that is...
0:46:31 > 0:46:35Can take all sorts of forms, from a painting,
0:46:35 > 0:46:37a watercolour on paper sometimes,
0:46:37 > 0:46:42to right up to working with a string ensemble
0:46:42 > 0:46:47on a collaborative performance in a semi-derelict building.
0:46:47 > 0:46:50That is, I guess, the luxury of the contemporary artist.
0:46:50 > 0:46:54You can roam freely in terms of the different ways
0:46:54 > 0:46:56that you can map out your ideas.
0:46:56 > 0:47:00STIRRING ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
0:47:08 > 0:47:12I do feel like I've been very lucky to be part of a scene
0:47:12 > 0:47:14and a situation in Glasgow
0:47:14 > 0:47:16that is kind of...
0:47:16 > 0:47:17I think, in the future,
0:47:17 > 0:47:20will be looked back on as a sort of pivotal point.
0:47:20 > 0:47:23SUBDUED ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
0:47:32 > 0:47:37In his 1981 novel Lanark, the writer and artist Alasdair Gray wrote that,
0:47:37 > 0:47:40"If a city hasn't been used by an artist,
0:47:40 > 0:47:44"not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively."
0:47:44 > 0:47:46But over the last few decades,
0:47:46 > 0:47:49Glasgow, especially, has reimagined itself,
0:47:49 > 0:47:53thanks largely to its ever-growing artistic community.
0:47:53 > 0:47:57Old industrial buildings were gradually colonised
0:47:57 > 0:48:01as cheap studios for artists and a do-it-yourself ethos flourished.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13The increasingly elastic attitude to what the word "art" could mean
0:48:13 > 0:48:16was embraced by Scottish art schools in the 1980s.
0:48:18 > 0:48:21And over the last 20 years,
0:48:21 > 0:48:25an exceptionally large number of artists associated with Glasgow
0:48:25 > 0:48:28have featured in major contemporary art competitions.
0:48:30 > 0:48:31Douglas Gordon...
0:48:34 > 0:48:35..Christine Borland...
0:48:40 > 0:48:43..and Martin Boyce are just some of those
0:48:43 > 0:48:46who have won critical acclaim for their work.
0:48:49 > 0:48:51Today, Scotland is internationally renowned
0:48:51 > 0:48:53as a centre for contemporary art.
0:48:55 > 0:48:58Some of it, might, at times, leave you scratching your head,
0:48:58 > 0:49:02but the energy, and the sheer number of young hearts and thinkers
0:49:02 > 0:49:06striving here to create their art
0:49:06 > 0:49:08is undeniably a powerful force.
0:49:08 > 0:49:10There's one thing for sure,
0:49:10 > 0:49:14the story of Scottish art has come very far.
0:49:14 > 0:49:19And today, there seem to be infinite numbers of ways to be an artist.
0:49:19 > 0:49:21We can produce work in any medium,
0:49:21 > 0:49:26we can explain our ideas in any kind of form.
0:49:34 > 0:49:37So, it comes as a surprise to find that one
0:49:37 > 0:49:41of the most sought-after contemporary Scottish artists
0:49:41 > 0:49:43makes work that looks like this.
0:49:45 > 0:49:47Paint on canvas.
0:49:47 > 0:49:49Vibrant colour.
0:49:51 > 0:49:55Peter Doig is one of the most acclaimed painters in the world.
0:49:55 > 0:49:59His paintings sell at auction for tens of millions of pounds.
0:50:01 > 0:50:03He was born in Edinburgh in 1959,
0:50:03 > 0:50:06but left Scotland when he was a child,
0:50:06 > 0:50:07grew up in Canada,
0:50:07 > 0:50:12and now lives in the Caribbean - the setting for much of his work.
0:50:14 > 0:50:19He is an artist nomad who cannot be defined by nationality.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23But it seems to me, that the spiritual home of his art
0:50:23 > 0:50:26is a place of uncertainty and angst.
0:50:35 > 0:50:40And this tension between exuberance and unsettling introspection
0:50:40 > 0:50:43feels somehow...familiar.
0:50:43 > 0:50:45It's a tension that has defined
0:50:45 > 0:50:49so much of the story of Scottish art during the last century.
0:50:50 > 0:50:53So, do you have any memories at all of Scotland?
0:50:53 > 0:50:54I have a lot of memories of Scotland
0:50:54 > 0:50:57because I travelled to Scotland a lot when I was young.
0:50:57 > 0:51:00Almost every year, I would spend summers in Scotland.
0:51:00 > 0:51:03The landscape itself was quite...
0:51:04 > 0:51:09Yeah, quite Gothic and quite scary for a youngster, in a way.
0:51:09 > 0:51:13Do you think that identity, nationality,
0:51:13 > 0:51:17plays any real role in the work that you create today?
0:51:17 > 0:51:19I don't know about identity,
0:51:19 > 0:51:23but I think where one's spent time certainly does.
0:51:23 > 0:51:25So, do you think it's possible, today,
0:51:25 > 0:51:27for an artist to be committed
0:51:27 > 0:51:30to try and paint within one national tradition?
0:51:30 > 0:51:33Does it exist? Is it irrelevant to think that way?
0:51:35 > 0:51:38I can't really think of an interesting one who does!
0:51:38 > 0:51:40I mean, to be honest, I think...
0:51:41 > 0:51:44I think everyone's influenced by - yes, where they come from -
0:51:44 > 0:51:48but I think nationalistic art is not so interesting, really.
0:51:48 > 0:51:51Because I think people move around so much,
0:51:51 > 0:51:52and I think, you know,
0:51:52 > 0:51:55especially since the advent of the internet,
0:51:55 > 0:51:58you can be working in Scotland
0:51:58 > 0:52:01and your work can be seen in...
0:52:01 > 0:52:02wherever, you know, worldwide,
0:52:02 > 0:52:05and that goes for people working around the globe now.
0:52:05 > 0:52:07I think it has really changed a lot.
0:52:07 > 0:52:12I mean, I can identify one European, Scottish, French train of painting
0:52:12 > 0:52:15that affects what I do and sometimes that's a real comfort.
0:52:15 > 0:52:18I know where I'm coming from. That never bothers you in any way?
0:52:19 > 0:52:21Not really, no. No.
0:52:36 > 0:52:40"Who do we think we are?" seems to be the question of our time.
0:52:43 > 0:52:46And I think that across the last century,
0:52:46 > 0:52:49our willingness to respond with many different answers
0:52:49 > 0:52:53has been a vital characteristic of Scottish art.
0:52:55 > 0:52:58The reason that the art of Scotland
0:52:58 > 0:53:00continues to be relevant and exciting
0:53:00 > 0:53:04is because Scottish artists have always refused
0:53:04 > 0:53:06to be imprisoned by our borders.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14Scots have always had to be comfortable
0:53:14 > 0:53:16with multiple identities.
0:53:16 > 0:53:20You've got Scottish, British, European, immigrant...
0:53:20 > 0:53:24But I don't actually believe that art is the by-product
0:53:24 > 0:53:27of any particular nationality.
0:53:27 > 0:53:29What is Scottish art?
0:53:29 > 0:53:31It's a mongrel. It's a hybrid!
0:53:31 > 0:53:35If I were to define it as one thing, it would slip between my fingers
0:53:35 > 0:53:39and transform itself into something completely different.
0:53:43 > 0:53:46The art of Scotland has its own particular accent.
0:53:46 > 0:53:51It has been coloured by our history and our landscape.
0:53:51 > 0:53:53But it has always participated
0:53:53 > 0:53:56in an international exchange of inspiration.
0:53:58 > 0:54:02And it just so happens that some of the most extraordinary examples
0:54:02 > 0:54:04of artistry were imagined here
0:54:04 > 0:54:07where the European Continent tumbles into the Atlantic.
0:54:12 > 0:54:14The memorial cairn at Aignish
0:54:14 > 0:54:18has loomed over the Hebrides for 20 years.
0:54:18 > 0:54:22It was designed by the contemporary artist Will Maclean,
0:54:22 > 0:54:25a poignant reminder of the struggle by local crofters
0:54:25 > 0:54:28to be allowed to work their land.
0:54:34 > 0:54:38But what I find most powerful about this structure
0:54:38 > 0:54:42is that it echoes something even older and more epic...
0:54:48 > 0:54:52..because on the opposite shore of the Isle of Lewis
0:54:52 > 0:54:57are a series of stone monoliths whose purpose is much more obscure.
0:55:01 > 0:55:03We began our story of Scottish art
0:55:03 > 0:55:06surrounded by ancient standing stones,
0:55:06 > 0:55:07and here we are
0:55:07 > 0:55:10encountering them again.
0:55:15 > 0:55:18These stones at Callanish were sunk into the soil
0:55:18 > 0:55:21almost 5,000 years ago,
0:55:21 > 0:55:25but they remain objects that defy simple explanation
0:55:25 > 0:55:28and instead, they liberate our imagination,
0:55:28 > 0:55:32and that's what Scottish art has been doing ever since.
0:55:37 > 0:55:41Scottish art has been shaped by religion...
0:55:42 > 0:55:44..by politics,
0:55:44 > 0:55:46by war, poetry,
0:55:46 > 0:55:47and love.
0:55:48 > 0:55:54But mostly, it has been shaped by the motivation that drives artists
0:55:54 > 0:56:00wherever they come from, that what they do isn't a useless indulgence,
0:56:00 > 0:56:05that art exists to convince every succeeding generation
0:56:05 > 0:56:10that there ARE things more beautiful, more precious,
0:56:10 > 0:56:13even more powerful than life itself.
0:56:14 > 0:56:17In Scotland, we've been carving,
0:56:17 > 0:56:19sculpting, painting
0:56:19 > 0:56:23and crafting works of art for thousands of years.
0:56:23 > 0:56:27And these artworks don't just matter because they're a Scottish story,
0:56:27 > 0:56:30they matter because the sheer power,
0:56:30 > 0:56:34the poignancy and brilliance of the human imagination
0:56:34 > 0:56:37ensures that they're part of your story, too.
0:56:41 > 0:56:44The people that raised these stones,
0:56:44 > 0:56:47they had no real idea of "art".
0:56:47 > 0:56:51They certainly had no concept of a nation called "Scotland".
0:56:51 > 0:56:54But they very obviously had an aesthetic -
0:56:54 > 0:56:59a dynamic sense of the architecture of space.
0:56:59 > 0:57:02And from this point in history,
0:57:02 > 0:57:05from this awesome springboard,
0:57:05 > 0:57:08Scottish artists have gone out into the world,
0:57:08 > 0:57:13they've evolved, they've been nourished by ideas of nationhood,
0:57:13 > 0:57:17by their conscience, by their humanity.
0:57:17 > 0:57:21They've mixed it with some of the most important artistic traditions
0:57:21 > 0:57:23humanity has ever seen,
0:57:23 > 0:57:28and they have never stopped inspiring, seducing,
0:57:28 > 0:57:31and liberating our imaginations.