Local Landscape Heroes Digital Art Trail

Exploring the landscape through paintings

The Local Landscape Heroes project has sought to celebrate and understand how people have been inspired by or changed the landscape of the Clyde and Avon Valley.

One way we have achieved this has been to explore the art and artists of the area.

Working with the ART UK website, a CAVLP Heritage volunteer has identified over 80 unique pieces of art from the Clyde and Avon Valleys, depicting everything from Lanark cattle market to the historic oaks at Chatelherault.

Much of the art was created in the 19th century during the time when landscape painting was perhaps at its height. These artists depicted a changing landscape, one that was beautiful and ancient but which was shifting into an industrial landscape, the remnants of which are around us today.

The artists that worked in the area came from both the local area and from across the Britain and while some are little known outside of Lanarkshire others include the likes of William Turner, who painted the Falls of the Clyde and local artist Alexander Fraser who painted a number of views of Chatelherault, many of which are hung in art galleries across Britain.

By studying this art we can see how the landscape of the Clyde and Avon Valley has changed over the course of the last few centuries and begin to interpret how people, and artists in the past, understood and depicted the landscape around them.

These artists have left us with a legacy of not just the art works themselves but a way of looking at the landscape, a way which, in many instances, is about understanding the landscape as a passive thing to be viewed and consumed, rather than as a living landscape, that has been changed and continues to change and evolve over time, affecting the ways in which people live their lives.

The interactive map below shows the locations of many scenes depectied in these paintings. Click a point for more information, and a link through to the painting on Art UK.

You can also view the whole of the gazetteer using the link on the right of this page, under Find Out More.


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