What’s up North?

This is a photograph of the Galloway coast, a favourite haunt of seascape artists. It’s ‘up north’ for many U.K. residents, but not for those who paint here.

Northerly places are usually assumed to be tougher to live in. They languish in colder weather and there are fewer people around. The imagined harshness and loneliness is accentuated because the North has mountains whilst other parts of Britain have hills. The Northern seas are part of the stereotypical Scottish landscape of the mind, which has in turn been portrayed as bleak and/or mystical, empty and/or abandoned, romantic or post-industrial wasteland. Any artist might build the clichéd elements into their world view. However, those who have lived in Scotland for an appreciable length of time might also have incorporated the actuality, what they could sense of the environment and absorb from the country’s culture.