Mountains, Floods, and Darwinian Scottish Wilds

Posted: 30 August 2024

To Scottish painter John MacWhirter (1835-1911), Scotland was the perennial "land of the mountain and the flood." Or, at least, such was the title of this oil painting exhibited by the artist in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1875. The name is borrowed from 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel', an 1805 narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott. Today, it hangs in Skibo Castle's third-floor stairwell.

MacWhirter's ultimate muse, source of inspiration, and the subject of his undying fascination, the Scottish Highlands are pictured in many of the artist's most beloved compositions. So taken was he with the cloud-capped mountains, dramatic vistas, and verdant pastorals of northern Scotland that, on his first visit to the Isle of Skye as a young artist, he spurned the opportunity to draft a single scene under the belief that the 'material' he encountered there was beyond his artistic prowess.¹ Fifteen years were to pass before he felt skilled enough to capture the rugged scenery of Skye.

The Isle of Skye, Scotland

In Land of the Mountain and the Flood, MacWhirter presents us with an undeniably Scottish landscape. It is massive in scale at over two metres wide, confronting the viewer squarely and with unwavering force. Dense clouds shroud distant mountains in a veil of white as hillsides draped in vegetation slope down, down, down, towards a riverbed that ensnares the viewer's attention, its waters rushing towards us with all the ferocity of, as the title suggests, a flood of biblical proportions.

Scattered boulders attempt to halt the flow and contain it to the meagre riverbed, but to no avail. Miniature waterfalls form at each point of impact, pooling together in a rough, frothing mass that occupies the entire centre of the composition.

Fierce and unyielding, the scene embodies late nineteenth-century attitudes towards nature as an entity. Following Charles Darwin's bleak account of natural selection among plants and animals and Herbert Spencer's coinage of the term "survival of the fittest" in 1864, Victorians came to view the outside world as a fearsome, inhospitable place.² Trends in landscape paintings reflected this, and gone were the peaceful, pastoral landscapes of the likes of John Constable in which fat, white sheep laze in sunny fields as their farmers doze under leafy oaks. Where scenes of agricultural abundance populated exhibition walls in the earlier decades of the nineteenth century, later artists filled their canvases with black cliffs, raging storms and scenes of natural disaster.³

Constable, John. Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds, oil on canvas, ca. 1825. 

Land of the Mountain is a far cry from the rolling hills and blue skies that characterised the landscapes of the Constable era. This is a scene of Darwinian imagination, a battleground for survival from which only the most robust, well-adapted species will emerge victorious. In this case, the only champion appears to be the deluge that rages onward, leaving fallen trees and eroded boulders in its wake.

Darwin described evolution as an eternal struggle for existence, a notion which captured the imaginations of landscape painters. The concept of "struggle" pictures clearly in Land of the Mountain, where every tree and moss fight a near constant battle against wind, cold, and flood.⁴

Indeed, there is a notable absence of life pictured in this work. All along the hillside are skeletal remains of trees and other organic detritus, the low-hanging clouds casting a ghostly presence over the scene. For all the beauty and biodiversity of the Scottish Highlands there is little sign of it here, the only sound and movement coming from the rushing waters which can almost be heard through the canvas.

Macwhirter, John. Land of the Mountain and the Flood, oil on canvas, ca. 1875.

Apocalyptic imagery is a genre which circulated widely through late Victorian society and experienced immense popularity during MacWhirter's time.⁵ Scenes of a great deluge captured the public imagination, and many painters envisioned scenes of biblical floods sweeping the earth in a terrifying – if cleansing – process. While Land of the Mountain does not depict a flood on quite as large a scale as this, the imagery and language of the work and its title align it with popular narratives of disaster.

And yet, there is hope in the scene. With flood comes rebirth, rejuvenation, and promise. Flood hydrates the earth and yields new life. It clears out the old and ushers in the new, inviting change where it is required. When viewed in this light, MacWhirter's painting tells quite a different story to that of the death and decimation implied by the word "flood." The frothing waters he pictures in Land of the Mountain will wash away the parts of the land that are dead and dying, saturating the earth and readying it for new growth. It is a love letter to the green, wet place that is northern Scotland. Yes, it is a place of frequent rain and flood, but this is necessary to yield the lush, green, richness that has come to characterise Scotland's magical allure.

Fog and flood on the Skibo estate

In truth, the Scottish Highlands are densely populated by an incredible variety of plants and animals, many of which are threatened or endangered elsewhere. The Skibo estate is home to many native species, from roe deer grazing in the meadows to red squirrels foraging in the treetops, playful otters to pine martens and more. With glassy lochs, thick woods and purple meadows, the Highlands are certainly not nearly so bleak a place as MacWhirter suggests!

It is not a part of Andrew Carnegie's original collection; however, Land of the Mountain feels perfectly suited to the walls of Skibo Castle. Its links to Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer forge a connection with Carnegie himself, who was a great fan and friend of the latter and even devoted a chapter of his autobiography to the academic. Spencer is known to have visited Skibo Castle on at least one occasion. Carnegie also had a deep love for the rugged, wild landscapes of the Scottish Highlands and was in fact responsible for commissioning the construction of the small waterfall which flows just beside the castle today. Although he always had one foot in the USA and one across the pond, as the great philanthropist said himself; "My heart was in Scotland."⁶

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¹ James Dafforne, 'British Painters: John MacWhirter, A.R.S.A.', The Art Journal (1875 - 1887), Vol. 5 (1879), pp.33-35, p.197, JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/20569315.

² 'John MacWhirter, R.A., H.R.S.A. (1839-1911), The Track of the Hurricane', Christies, John MacWhirter, R.A., H.R.S.A. (1839-1911) , John MacWhirter, R.A., H.R.S.A. (1839-1911) , The Track of the Hurricane | Christie's (christies.com).

³ David Trigg, 'The Shifting Nature of British Landscapes in Art', Art Fund (2022), The shifting nature of British landscapes in art - Art Fund.

⁴ ‘Darwin’s Impact on the Visual Arts is Illustrated in Exhibit’, YaleNews (2009), Darwin’s Impact on the Visual Arts Is Illustrated in Exhibit | YaleNews. 

⁵ Ailise Bulfin, “The Natural Catastrophe in Late Victorian Popular Fiction: ‘How Will the World End?’” Critical Survey (2015), vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 81–101, p. 83, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24712573. 

⁶ Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1920), p.19. 

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