During the past few decades, many scholars have explored ideas about space, place, location and related social concepts like nation, region and community. Doreen Massey for example worked out a notion of space-time, showing that history wasn’t just about time, geography not just about space. For instance, it matters that Wallace’s battle with the English army was at Stirling Bridge and not on Braveheart’s wide field; equally, it matters that there used to be a mucky loch where gardens now grow at the edge of Edinburgh’s Princes Street.

Space-time is a useful concept when analysing images too.

These two paintings show the Scottish sea. The first is linked to a specific place by its title and depicted objects such as the beach and the pier. It is also associated with a particular time, also by its signature and date and by depicted objects such as the children’s clothes and the condition of the pier, and perhaps by its artistic style. The second could be described as timeless; certainly a Neolithic woman who stood on the same beach on a windy day in 3000 B.C. would recognise what the artist painted in 2019 A.D. Could it also be described as placeless, or is there something here that ties it to the place where it was conceived?