Robert Burns Art influences

 

Robert Burns and other poets wrote with Scots Voices. In the 1700s many worked to write down and collect the old Scots songs.  

At a time when mainly Tory unionist voices were being heard - no other writer has done more to keep Scots voices and language alive than Burns. 

I was taken aback at the new Scottish Art galleries Edinburgh on my visit in October 2023, that there was only one mention of Robert Burns – with regard to his “Hunt” poem in an Edinburgh tearoom painting. I felt Burns legacy was a deliberate forgetting. Did his writing influence Scottish art? The main focus in the galleries was on the works of Walter Scott. 

 

Burns was influenced himself when he met many of the major enlightenment figures in Edinburgh in 1786, particularly James Hutton - whose theory was of the whole earth as a living organism. Burns explored the symbolism and spiritualism connections between the natural world, the creative fires and the established church teachings from his father – where dance was frowned upon.  

 

Burns thought of how he might fuse all these new ideas together in his poetry. Later in 1794, he wrote My luv is like a Red Red Rose - ‘ I will love you still my dear till all the seas gang try and the rocks melt with the sun.”  Burns collected and rewrote many of the auld Scots ballads.

 

Burns most famous narrative poem Tam O’ Shanter, was about warlocks, witches, faeries, demons – of the struggles between Old Spunkie’s creative fires and the church teaching - Tam O Shanter. He wrote this poem after a dream, on his walk along the River Nith at Ellisland farm. The Scottish painter Lachlan Goudie and his father were inspired to illustrate a book of the scary ghosts and witches in Tam O’Shanter. 

It was wonderful to see the new Scottish galleries in 2023. 

I realise Scott lived in Edinburgh but Burns was there for quite a few months in 1786 ad 1787. And was greatly influenced by his time there. He visited the men’s social clubs – Fencible Chronicles down Anchor Close. He visited William Creech’s bookshop and publishing house at the Tollbooth near St Giles cathedral and the Mercat Cross, where each day the great and the good met. 

 

He met the great love of his life here, late 1787, Agnes McLahose (or his Clarinda) – who he wrote many letters to, and his great parting song Ae Fond Kiss.

 

**Scott may have been read widely worldwide in the 1800s, but to my mind (and most Scots) Burns is our national hero and bard. He was painted by his good friend Alexander Nasmyth on their walks to Rosslyn. I realise Scott did write memorable books and poems – but his books seems one-sided and narrow of a mythical Scotland that is lost and gone forever. Of a Tory unionist Scotland, that is only part of Scotland.

 

As I walked around the Scottish art galleries – I thought ‘which’ Scotland are we emboldening and remembering here? After the first section covering the romantic period, I entered the brighter more modern period, with the windows open to the east Princes street gardens views and which display some of Scotland’s great impressionist artists – The Glasgow Boys, James Guthrie, John Lavery, William Macgregor: The Scottish Colourists, John Peploe, John Fergusson, Francis Cadell, Leslie Hunter. A memorable display.  

 

Burns was influenced by the Ossian poems of James MacPherson, as the first Scots bard – and also by the other great Scots poets. Burns was writing and collecting Scots poems before Scott, in fact he met a young sixteen year old Walter Scott at an Edinburgh literary party, after which Scott wore about Burns. 

*     *     *     *

 

 

Burns words, images and narratives are all pervasive, whether its his emotive love poems, his love of nature, his voice for all the people with his Socts a Hae and Mans a Man. His poetry has a big impact worldwide on authors in America and on Russian Burns clubs. Steinbeck’s 'Of Mice and Men' and J.D Salinger’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’.

Burns is the most significant Scotch image, heritage, word and song. We should be very proud of his legacies!

Demarco’s Festival of Thought

 

We hoped the internet would open new horizons –  and it does – but it also the internet means ideas go down dark, narrow rabbit holes and echo chambers. Our Scots bard was a free thinker – because he was well read and informed. A Man O Independent mind.

Edinburgh festival promoter, Richard Demarco advocates for a new – ‘Festival of Thought’ – to bring together the best minds and creative thinkers to counter this crushing of ideas by blind right wing dictatorships that aim to shut down open debate and silence creativity. Edinburgh was the home fo the Scottish enlightenment 1750 to 1790. 

 

*Freedom to be Creative 

 - Scottish cultural icon Richard Demarco, and long time Edinburgh festival supporter, has attended every festival since 1947. He advocates we need informed debate to counter the rise of the right across Europe and the world. 

 

He wants to see Edinburgh host an annual “Festival of Thought”. His idea is to bring to the city the world’s finest liberal thinkers from the humanities, from the Arts and culture, from all the sciences and technologies. “There should be no separation between science and the Arts. Leonardo Da Vinci, perhaps the greatest artist ever to live, was a great scientist, an engineer and artist.”

He calls for ‘a Festival of Thought’ to help save liberal democracy. The Freedom to find Truth and Light. “Truth is the foundation stone for all creativity, for all the unlocking of great culture, in any genre, in any society, in any land.

*Its about Truth -  To remind the world of the role of culture in love, in peace and in liberal thought and liberal society. 

Demarco see the rise of the far right and Reform as a threat to the freedom that necessary for creativity. A Scots Italian who sees himself as a European and Reform as the enemy of the beliefs that he has held dear throughout his life. 

“Reform is a danger to the Edinburgh Festivals” he says.

 

Demarco fears the world is on the edge of a new dark age. There is the rise of the authoritarian right and with that the capacity of humankind to dim the flame of enlightenment, “to quench the human spirit.” ….Ukraine is more than a fight for territory and national sovereignty: it is essentially a fight for democracy, for freedom of the mind, the heart and the soul. He profoundly believes in liberal democracy as the only civilized way of managing society so that human beings are truly free.  

The Far Right - is trying to shut down freedom thought

“The rise of the far right is a threat to the freedoms needed for creativity”. 

 

How much does the media truly reflect truth today, and not simply meaningless Soundbites and Clickbaits - and the lack of informed debate. How is impartiality possible when one side peddle obvious lies. Politicians speak of growth or austerity (or both) while following policies that are the opposite – there’s been no growth. Many countries are in crisis, which allows the views of the Far Right. We can’t sit on the fence. 

Demarco calls for his friend Robert Sturus to come to Scotland for the festivals 80^th birthday in 2026. Sturus is the director of the Rustaveli state Theatre of Georgia. In 1979 he brought Shakespeare’s Richard III to Edinburgh. 

II  **The First Festival:  The origins of the Edinburgh Festivals, from the geopolitics of the past 80 years and his travels across the globe carrying a torch for culture. For decades he has been a central figure in Scottish cultural life and an early shaper of the Festival. He was a pioneer of the Fringe and a lifelong champion of the power of the Arts to improve lives and promote the benefits of culture. He’s been critical of the Festivals, arguing that the city has become a theme park and have declined into parochialism……

Out of the darkness of the war and the crushing of democracy, human rights and freedoms came a world in desperate need of unity.,,, the first Edinburgh Festival. “It was an expression of the flowering of the best instincts of the human spirit.”

He’d like to see Edinburgh rediscover that spirit and its idealism…..“When the Festival started in 1947, I thought that the city could be the cultural capital of the world. It brought the world’s greatest musicians, actors, singers, dancers, playwrights, poets, authors and artists to my home” says Demarco.…when hope was in the air and the post-war world of Edinburgh and Europe was alive with optimism and possibilities.”  

“We must bring Sturus to Edinburgh in 2026. To reaffirm the roots of the festival, as a celebration of European culture and art every form. To hear him speak freely.” 

III    Richard Demarco is near his 95^th birthday and he still burns with urgent intellectual intensity and his passion for the civilizing qualities of culture and human creativity still burns strong.  Demarco says that out of the darkness of the war and the crushing of democracy, human rights and freedoms came a world in desperate need of unity.,,, the first Edinburgh Festival. “It was an expression of the flowering of the best instincts of the human spirit.”    

*      *      *       * 

**Martin Roche interviewed Richard Demarco – artist, author, organiser and cultural innovator – on the eve of his 95^th birthday. Fiercely pro-European, Demarco proposed a new “Festival of Thought”. 14^th July 2025  -  “A Reform government is a danger to the Edinburgh Festivals,” says Richard Demarco  He calls for ‘a Festival of Thought’ to help save liberal democracy. 

 

Extracts from.

**Article From a Perthshire Castle, Gauntlet of Truth is thrown down to Authoritarianism

Sunday National 31.8.25, Martin Roche

Black & White festival images

 Black and white festival images from last year. #edfest

Edinburgh festival 2025 Opens

 

 

The whirr of excitement to be back on the celebrated cobbled streets of Edinburgh festival in August – as it comes to life with the world's biggest Arts gathering together. To encourage innovation and creative thinking in the world of books, art, music, drama and dance. Also to offer the cross over between the Arts. 

 

The searching to hold a spotlight on the world of today, with many wars and climate crisis. The festival was begun after the great war to offer hope of reconciliations and our shared humanity through the arts.  

There’s a dark shadow today: we live in a world of crises – from the destruction of Gaza and people starving – with people turning to simplistic answers. 

The festival opens this weekend with Dougie MacLean’s Singalong of Caledonia, and a family ceilidh and a family concert. The Hub with Kathryn Joseph and the Usher Hall will host a variety of musical concerts, with Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Puccinni’s opera. The Festival theatre, Mary Queen of Scots ballet and Brian Cox in a new theatre production Make It Happen. Cox will play the ghost of Adam Smith and Sandy Grierson will play Fred, the Shred, Goodwin - 17 years since the banking crisis has led to our present cost of living crisis.

With new theatre productions at the Traverse theatre, the festival theatre, and the Lyceum.  

Consumed at the Traverse, July 31 to Aug 24

The Nature of Forgetting at the Pleasance, Aug 9 to Aug 25

https://www.eif.co.uk

 

It encompasses several festivals – Edinburgh Arts festival, Edinburgh International book festival, Edinburgh film festival and The Fringe. 

THE TRUTH WE SEEK

Hinterlands and Confusions

Hinterlands, so we are confused, what is going on?

Regrets over what might have been or could have been here in Scotland. Our voices lost. I read of our great poets and philosophers – from Dunbar, Duns Scotus, Buchanan, Allan Ramsey, Hugh MacDiarmid, and of course our national bard Rabbie Burns. The great Scots songbooks: rediscovered, reframed and renewed, and given a fresh and memorable voice. So many voices calling on the vibrant, challenging Scottish winds – that blow wildly on our rugged coastlines and empty shores and islands. 

 

I visited the small coastal town of Montrose: birthplace of the Scottish renaissance 1930s. And then onto Arbroath Abbey and the stories of the return of the Stone of Destiny here. 

The folk singers and folk musicians, play their melodies and lively jigs and reels at the folk festivals and folk clubs. Looking back and building on and also taking the song forwards. Its crucial to have a hinterland – it’s the strong foundations, clarity, visions, 

Great artists instinctively know this.

 

At the Edinburgh book festival I hear many confused voices over the years I’ve attended. Debate and diverse voices are encouraged to broaden our outlooks. There can be controversy alongside a fear too. A fear of upsetting the voices of unionism. Guardian Sathnam Sanghera spoke of empire land; Kezia Dugdale recognised that Scotland is stuck; Lesley Riddick spoke of Scandinavia and better local governing; Irvine Welsh spoke of his personal journeys and successes and his dislike of imperialism; Ruth Wishart spoke of a free press. 'Together We repair' Edinburgh International book festival EIBF 2025. The question now is – to repair what path must we follow. We are mostly confused.

 

Nearly or over half of Scots support independence, but what does that mean? Indy in Europe? The picture is unclear. I try to hear as many and varied voices. Unionists feel brave and often speak up. While Britain feels broken and in chaos. Those in England have lost support for the Tory Brexit, then they lost support for Labour Change, and now turn to Reform, whose answers feel unclear and populist. 

 

The many voices from the National newspaper: vary from the writers of art, culture, history, economists and engineers. Where is Scotland now and where is it heading and how do we understand and know the past? What are we afraid of? Scotland’s songs fill my head. Caledonia, Westlin Winds, Sunshine on Leith, Ye banks and Braes, Jock O Hazeldean, Scots Wa Hae, Auld Lyne Syne. 

 

There are shoots and blooms of positive change – a new Scottish art galleries, national Scottish Theatre, National newspaper….This doesn’t mean inward naval gazing. But to be international, we must first be national. 

 

A Scottish narrative – a sense of place, and understanding of Scots voices. Sunset song, Waverly, A Drunk Man Looks at a Thistle.

Voices that wonder, what unionism really means? Are we united? There is so mush talk of political failure on every side – how is this constructive at all? Where is the vision and creativity for the future?

Marina Warner Forms of Enchantment Edinburgh book festival 2024

 

Paula Rego war 2003

New Ways of Beauty -   “We fight back with beauty”

 

Warner spoke of her experiences in Paris in the 60s, which offered new realms of experience. Stories and symbols. Intimacy of ideas, of subject matter and ideas. The conformity to an ideal

 

Paula Rego

*Warner discussed several crucial images - 

 

(1)  Paula Rego, War 2003, giving fear a Face

She was influenced by Goya. Hallucinary effects, with pastels.  

 

(2) Louise Bourgeois, Bodies of sense- femme- Conteau 

 

'Positive sew – negative cut': is the knife here about the mind, sometimes hurting us. 

(3)  Joan Jonas, Resonation, 2012 . Digital technologies

 

 

(4)  Hieronymus Bosch  - The Garden of Earthly delights (1490 – 1505)

 Prado Madrid - Icon clashes 

Message that can’t be tolerated and tell stories of the past empire building/ or vandalism. Meanings of building have changed in Paris – Olympic games preserving past and honour past. Statue repurposed.

 

The image is not an inert thing, may not be positive. No fixed meanings.

Dreamworks. A sense of energy, festive. Enquiry.

Relegating art to the elites – that art is not useful, is deplorable.

 

 

**Funding of the arts? - Language, art and buildings are how countries are defined. Neo Liberal policies are only market value thinking. Lord of the rings filming in New Zealand , depending on the film money. 

In Ireland – gerents, and in France, arts to be protected. Cuts to the arts in schools. In drama – read every word and are therefore more connected. 

 

The Art of looking – is a communal experience. Looking at art in books - graphics, illustrations - rewards attentiveness, mediation and slowness settles you.

In Scotland – Burns , Stevenson, Scott – create the bond that unites. 

 

BOOK –  Forms of Enchantment

 

New Scottish Art Galleries BURNS excluded

 

Burns and other poets) wrote with Scots voices and language - why is Robert Burns not included here?

At a time when mainly English Tory unionist voices were being heard late 1700s. No other writer has done more than burns. I was taken back, at the new Scottish galleries that there is only one mention of DB, with regard his The Hunt poem and an Edinburgh tea room painting. 

Its wonderful to see the new galleries. I realise Scott lived in Edinburgh, but Burns was there for quite a few months over the late 1786 and into 1787, and he was greatly influenced by his time there – he visited the men’s clubs – the Crochallan Fencibles Anchor close; William Creech’s bookshop and publishing house, at the Luckenbooths near St Giles, where each day the great and the good met; and the literary parties that Burns was invited to, where he met the renowned scholars of the Scottish enlightenment. He also met the great love of his life late 1786, Agnes McLahose: (his Clarinda) who he wrote many love letters to and his famous song of parting Ae Fond Kiss.

 

Scott may have been read widely in 1800s – but to my mind (and most other Scots) Burns is our national hero and bard. We was painted by his good friend, the artist Alexander Nasmyth – on their walks to Rosslyn.

As i walked around the Scottish art I thought  - which Scotland are we emboldening and remembering here? After the first section covering the romantic period – we enter the brighter more modern period, with the windows open to the east Princes st garden views. 

I felt that the Burns creative legacy was a deliberately forgetting – Question? does his writing influence Scottish art. Burns was himself influenced by art – the symbolism and spiritual connection between the natural world, the creative fires and the established church teachings from his father – where dance was frowned upon. These strong interconnections.

He was influenced by the Ossian poems –by James MacPherson as the first Scot’s bard and also by other great poets. Burns was writing and collecting song before Scott – in fact he met the young 16 year old Scott at an Edinburgh literary party and Scott wrote about Burns after this great meeting. 

 

Burns was influenced by art and the close ties between our emotional life and nature – when he wrote one of the best love songs ever written - "Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear/ And the rocks melt wi’ the sun/ I will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o’ life shall run."

It is hard to believe that Burns didn’t influence Scottish art with all the myths, memorabilia, statues and more that surround the great poet. Even so, his songs and poems were not enough to prevent the forgetting that occurred across Scotland over the 1800s. Today, as Lesley Riddoch writes in her 2023 book Thrive, ‘Scots know of William Wallace and Robert Bruce but nothing in-between up to modern times. Only in the past few decades have Scots recognised other great Scots from the 1980s onwards – with statues to James Clerk Maxwell and Adam Smith.

 

*      *      *      *       *

novelist Walter Scott

Scots bard Robert Burns

II   The galleries hold 60,000 works of Scottish art – from David Willkie, Alexander Nasmyth, Andrew Geddes, The Glasgow boys impress, particularly James Guthrie, and grand displays of William McTaggarts work.  

BUT Which Scotland – the empty Scotland or militarised? The proud Scotland or the shot stag. Romance or reality; mountain or flood;Ttory or Jacobin?

 

At the start of the exhibition there is an emphasis on the influence of Walter Scott’s historical fiction – Waverly and Heart of Midlothian. Scott was the inventor of historical novel. There is the claim “Nobody did more to popularise Scotland than Scott.’ There are photos of the construction of the imposing Scott monument nearby. David Octavious Hill’s pioneering photography, (a photography department at RSA 1857). On display is the painter John Drummond, and David Allan’s’ paintings of everyday life, the Porteous Riots.

*But I was surprised and saddened no mention of our great bard Robert Burns.

Moving on into the bright lit galleries with windows looking out onto east Princes st gardens displaying more modern art – the Glasgow boys, William McTaggert – The Sailing of the Emigrant ship, who was influenced by Constable 1776 – 1837 and Turner (1775- 1857). The Impressionist and Japanese print influences – of James Guthrie, Arthur Melville, Edward Arthur Waltour.

James Guthrie

Symbolism and Celtic revival 1890s - the alternative world of dreams, myths and visions. With John Peploe, George Leslie Hunter. And good to see several wmen artists – Frances Campbell Cadell, Anne Redpath. Margaret Macdonald, 

There is so much to be impressed with here and both the particular Scottish influence of Scotland soft ever changing light. The weather beaten and mountainous landscapes – the Celtic Ossian, Gaelic poetry, alongside other great Scots scholars and poets 1700s - Dunbar, Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns - who kept Scot’s voices alive. 

And of course Walter Scott’’s historical novels, which were popular worldwide. Political philosopher Tom Nairn criticised Scott - that he told of a ‘romanticised Scotland’ that was gone and lost forever’. This led to Scotland’s literacy voice being lost over the 1800s.

 

  

New National Scottish Gallery at the National gallery

 

Margaret MacDonald

Brand new galleries have been built behind the Mound art galleries Edinburgh to be a new and open home to display Scottish art From 1800s to 1845 – from the Glasgow Colourists: Francis Cadell, Leslie hunter, Samuel Peploe and JD Fergusson (1890 – 1914)

William McTaggart

The galleries hold over 60K works of Scottish art and 140 will be on display. Including – William McTaggart, Anne Redpath, Phoebe Anna Traquair, Margaret Macdonald, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow Boys.

Director john Leighton, Before retiring was ambitious to fulfil his desire for a proud spacious showcase for Scottish art at the national galleries. Before this Scottish art was displayed down some steep steps to  a confined, dark gallery space. 

 

On display is the controversial *Monarch of the Glen by English artist Edwin Landseer, 1661 - “thousands of real local people were cleared from surrounding glens to make way for aesthetically pleasing emptiness, deer and sportsmen.”

 

In 1830s, English reform campaigner William Corbett, was outraged that Edinburgh – which he regarded as the worlds finest city – was not surrounded by thriving agricultural villages, because aristocrats preferred their estates empty, rural and unspoiled. 

Allan Ramsay

 

Brexit Cancellations for UK Musicians & the Arts

Costs of Brexit –

The UK music industry WAS worth 6 billion before Brexit!

 

NOW

There is a 5 stops rule for British musicians touring Europe

Touring is down 32%,coampared to 2017 – 2019 figures.

The Serial number of very cymbal must be recorded for tours Eyrope.

 

Truckers and Roadies - Britain used to run 85% of this business across Europe before Brexit.

Now the trucking business KB Events ltd, which has a fleet of 20 lorries, has set up in Ireland. 

The costs to retrain their drivers to EU certificate is 20 million.

 

Sound engineers and Lighting crews are relocating.

Orchestras require extra staff for paper work, for work permits and can no longer use UK tour buses.

 

Tours require -

Carnets – custom passes 

The cost of £1500 for one truck.

 

 

Merchandise – British lands can no longer sell T shirts and other merchandise, due to costs of import duties and export duties.

 

Brexit has caused arts and music festivals to be cancelled, as well as affecting the income of major UK arts festivals such as Edinburgh International festivals. There's been a loss of around 50,000 music related jobs.

 

Brexit also hinders cross collaborations and prevents and discourages European artists and musicians from touring in the UK.

 

Its especially damaging for emerging talent to be able to tour and gain experience of the different audiences in Europe. This comes on top of the Covid crisis and now the rising cost of living /inflation crisis UK.

 

80% of musicians income comes from touring.