Yet, in the perspective of history, that popular image of the Highlands is a modern invention which became fashionable only from the very late eighteenth century. First created during the Romantic era as a direct consequence of a revolution in aesthetics and visual taste at that time, the iconography then became shaped by new concepts of scenic beauty, the picturesque and the sublime, which transformed how humans saw and experienced their natural environment. Before that time the conventional perception of the Highland landscape was radically different. Mist-covered mountains situated
...more
