The visual arts throughout the post-war era have made an invaluable contribution to the cultural development of modern and contemporary Scotland. Joan Eardley, Alan Davie, Eduardo Paolozzi, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Boyle Family, Craigie Aitchison, Barbara Rae John Bellany, Alexander Moffat, John McLean, Bill Scott, Joyce Cairns, Steven Campbell, Ken Currie, Lys Hansen, Alison Watt, Douglas Gordon and Kevin Harman – these are some of the artists whose work reflects the radical and complex transformations of the post-war period. These Scottish artists not only observed and absorbed the socio-economic and technological changes taking place during this era, but also devised a wide range of innovative ways to represent and creatively re-present those changes and their powerful impact on our times. Through a compilation of in-depth interviews with the artists themselves and accompanying critical essays, Bill Hare here examines the richly diverse work of these important figures in modern and contemporary visual culture, revealing the intellectual power and artistic imagination of those who have created one of the greatest eras in the history of Scottish art.

In comparison with many who write about contemporary art, Hare is never self indulgent or wilfully obscure – there is no bogus theorising to be found here. From the Foreword by ALEXANDER MOFFAT Alan Davie • Eduardo Paolozzi • William Turnbull • Janet Boulton • Ian Hamilton Finlay • Joan Eardley • Anthony Hatwell • Colquhoun and MacBryde • Boyle Family • Jack Knox • Barbara Rae • Lys Hansen • Joyce Cairns • Doug Cocker • John Kirkwood • Steven Campbell • Ken Currie • Peter Howson • Henry Kondracki • Paul Reid • Iain Robertson • Douglas Gordon This book is a wide-ranging exploration of Scottish art and artists by one of Scotland's leading art historians. Navigating the intricacies of aesthetic debate with attitude and aplomb, Bill Hare examines the historical forces that have shaped Scottish art. His elegant, approachable writings are a treasure-house of informed discourse. Illuminating and perennially relevant, these essays offer stimulating perspectives and nuanced insights into the confluence of passion, mystery and myth that lies at the heart of the best of Scottish art.

A lushly illustrated, magisterial exploration of the imaginative truth of the gospel In the modern academy, truth and imagination are thought to be mutually exclusive. But what if truth can spring from other fonts, like art, literature, and invention? The legacy of the Enlightenment favors historical and empirical inquiry above all other methods for searching for truth. But this assumption stymies our theological explorations. Though the historicity of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection is important, it is not of sole importance. For instance, is John’s Gospel any less “true” than the Synoptics just because it’s less historically accurate? David Brown challenges us to expand our understanding of the gospel past source criticism and historical Jesus studies to include works of imagination. Reading Scripture in tandem with works of art throughout the centuries, Brown reenvisions the gospel as an open text. Scholars of theology and biblical studies, freed from literalism, will find new avenues of revelation in Gospel as Work of Art. This volume includes over one hundred color illustrations.

'Welcome to a journey of remarkable buildings and remarkable thoughts about these buildings, shaped as they are by deep time, modern ideas and Scottish culture. Readers are sure to see new vistas in the land of stone open before them' From the Foreword by PROFESSOR ANDREW PATRIZIO What makes Scottish architecture Scottish? What ideas drive Scottish architecture? What has modern architecture in Scotland meant to the Scots? Ever since the 'granny-tops', rattling and clanking in the wind to draw smoke up the tenemental flues from open coal fires, caught my attention as a three-year-old, architecture and its many parts, purposes, processes and procedures has fascinated me. For me, architecture has always had profound significance. 'Land of Stone' seeks to disengage widely-held conceptions of what a Scottish architecture superficially looks like and to focus on the ideas and events – philosophical, political, practical and personal – that inspired architects and their clients to create the cities, towns, villages and buildings we cherish today.

Craig Richardson here addresses key areas of cultural politics and identity in a way that not only illuminates the development of Scottish art, but teases out another strand of the plurality of developments which led to the success of artists throughout the UK in the 1990s. It is of the highest relevance whether one's perspective is that of the development of the Scottish art, British art or European art of this period. The book adds significantly to our knowledge of the art of this period in a way that will aid not only our historical understanding but our understanding of the dynamics of art practice today. Providing an analysis and including discussion (interviewing artists, curators and critics and accessing non-catalogued personal archives) towards a new chronology, Richardson here examines and proposes a sequence of precisely denoted 'exemplary' works which outlines a self-conscious definition of the interrogative term 'Scottish art.' Among the artists whose work is discussed are John Latham, Simon Starling, Alan Johnston, Roderick Buchanan, Glen Onwin, Christine Borland, William Johnstone, Joan Eardley, Alexander Moffat, Douglas Gordon, Alan Smith, Graeme Fagen, Ross Sinclair and many others. The discussion culminates in a critically original demonstration of the scope for further research and practice within the subject, facilitating national cultural debate on the character of Scottish-national visual art.