A Shared Legacy: Essays on Irish and Scottish Art and Visual Culture brings together for the first time a unique selection of new research by leading Irish, Scottish, English and North American scholars to explore the varying ways in which the visual can operate within the context of two countries with related experiences of lost statehood yet retained nationhood. Covering a span of three centuries, this skilfully-crafted book takes the discussion of Irish and Scottish art beyond the often isolationist approach adopted in the past, dealing directly with issues of nationality in a wider context. The authors identify national concerns through a range of themes: race, class, union and assimilation or nationalism and internationalism and while many of the essays focus on paintings, sculpture, prints and watercolours, others consider a wider notion of visual culture by investigating photography, magic lantern slides and the home arts of embroidery and textiles.

A Shared Legacy: Essays on Irish and Scottish Art and Visual Culture brings together for the first time a unique selection of new research by leading Irish, Scottish, English and North American scholars to explore the varying ways in which the visual can operate within the context of two countries with related experiences of lost statehood yet retained nationhood. Covering a span of three centuries, this skilfully-crafted book takes the discussion of Irish and Scottish art beyond the often isolationist approach adopted in the past, dealing directly with issues of nationality in a wider context. The authors identify national concerns through a range of themes: race, class, union and assimilation or nationalism and internationalism and while many of the essays focus on paintings, sculpture, prints and watercolours, others consider a wider notion of visual culture by investigating photography, magic lantern slides and the home arts of embroidery and textiles.

Looking past the apparent lack of a sustainable Irish display culture, this book demonstrates that there is a very full story to tell of the way Ireland displayed its art from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Ireland on Show analyzes the impact of the display of art as a significant political and cultural feature in the make-up of nineteenth-century Ireland - and in how Ireland was viewed beyond its own shores, in particular in Great Britain and the United States. Fintan Cullen directs much-needed critical attention and analysis to a subject that has been largely overlooked from an Irish perspective. This study moves beyond museums, to address the range of art institutions in Irish cities that displayed art, from the Royal Hibernian Academy, founded in the 1820s, to Hugh Lane's Municipal Art Gallery, opened in Dublin in 1908. Throughout, the book explores the battle between the display of a unionist ethos and a nationalist point of view, a constant that resurfaces over the period. By highlighting the tension between unionist and nationalist viewpoints, Cullen uses the display of art to investigate the complexities of Irish cultural life before the founding of the Free State.

Looking past the apparent lack of a sustainable Irish display culture, this book demonstrates that there is a very full story to tell of the way Ireland displayed its art from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Ireland on Show analyzes the impact of the display of art as a significant political and cultural feature in the make-up of nineteenth-century Ireland - and in how Ireland was viewed beyond its own shores, in particular in Great Britain and the United States. Fintan Cullen directs much-needed critical attention and analysis to a subject that has been largely overlooked from an Irish perspective. This study moves beyond museums, to address the range of art institutions in Irish cities that displayed art, from the Royal Hibernian Academy, founded in the 1820s, to Hugh Lane's Municipal Art Gallery, opened in Dublin in 1908. Throughout, the book explores the battle between the display of a unionist ethos and a nationalist point of view, a constant that resurfaces over the period. By highlighting the tension between unionist and nationalist viewpoints, Cullen uses the display of art to investigate the complexities of Irish cultural life before the founding of the Free State.