Scottish Art - Paintings of Scotland:
Dunnottar Castle Ruins
by D. Bruce Bennett
Dark Dunnottar
Dark, in more ways than one, this picture of Scotland portraying the historic ruins of Dunnottar Castle makes you pause and think. Appropriately portrayed with dark, thunderous clouds rolling in over the North Sea, this cliff-top castle lives up to the moniker travel agents have given it - "Most Dramatic Scottish Castle."
(Click for larger view of Dunnottar Castle Ruins.)
A deep, natural cleft forms part of its natural defenses and handily leads your eye straight to the ruins. The buildings you see (14th century keep, barracks, lodgings, stables, chapel, and storehouses) were built over a Dark Ages Pictish Fort. Set on an enormous table-top rock, Dunnottar Castle ruins are bounded by sheer cliffs - one of which drops 160 feet to the sea - on three sides.
On top of one of these cliffs is the Whigs Vault, where 167 Covenanters were imprisoned for three months in 1685, standing in their own filth because it was "standing room only" in the dungeon, and no sanitary accommodations were provided. Neither was food, so few of those who survived and were shipped off to the West Indies ever reached the West Indies. (Two minutes after entering the Whigs Vault, we both became physically ill just thinking about the poor souls who died there.)
Before that, in 1652, there was the little matter of smuggling out the Scottish Regalia - after eight months of Cromwell's relentless battering. And let's not forget the whole Jacobite Rising in 1715, with a year-long imprisonment for 17 suspected Jacobites and seizure of the castle by the English government.
Oh, and did we mention William Wallace's burning an English garrison in the castle's church in 1297? That's just the Cliff's Notes version of these forbidding ruins. Once you know just these little bits of Dunnottar's past, Mel Gibson's movie version of Hamlet, shot here in 1990, seems a mite synthetic, doesn't it?
Now that was admittedly flip, and we certainly don't mean to be flippant about this amazing setting. Even if there were no evocative Dunnottar Castle ruins and no centuries of poignant history, this dark, imposing cliff top would still call to us.
But there are ruins and there is a rich history. Once you surround this large Scottish Art with appropriate-to-your-décor matting and framing, it will have an even larger presence in your home, reminding you of larger-than-life battles lost and won in the Scottish search for freedom.
Dunnottar Castle Ruins Picture of Scotland
Medium: acrylic on 300#, cold-pressed watercolor paper
Image Dimensions: 22" w. x 30" h.
Mat: none
Glass: none
Frame: none
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$275 (+S&H)
(matted & framed)
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Please note that all Paintings of Scotland (and Paintings of England, too) on this site are the original artwork of U.S. artist, D. Bruce Bennett. United States customers pay no U.K. exchange rate, no customs duty tax, and no international mailing costs. All we have to add to the very reasonable price of our Scottish Art is plain old U.S. postage (and state tax for Colorado residents).
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Duty-Free Scottish Art by a U.S. Artist
