In Art and Identity in Scotland: A Cultural History from the Jacobite Rising of 1745 to Walter Scott, Viccy Coltman examines how Scottish identity was experienced and represented during the key period from the last Jacobite rising (1745–46) to the death of Walter Scott in 1832. This choice of time period is particularly shrewd, in that it was a period of significant evolution in the ways the Scots and the English experienced the invention and shaping of their common identity—Britishness. Indeed, after the last Jacobite rising and the restrictions placed upon the Highlanders by the British government that followed, known as the Disbandment Acts, Scotland had to redefine its cultural specificities in order to continue to exist as a distinct nation. The survival of the Highland culture, for instance, was at stake, and the Highland Societies that emerged from 1760s were intended to save and protect that culture their members—most of them being from the Highlands or descendants of Highlanders—believed to be threatened. Their influence increased through their actions and networks in Great Britain and overseas. Sir Walter Scott was their best and most famous ambassador. His reinvention and promotion of a specific Scottish cultural identity was a determining factor in the acknowledgment by the British society of the existence of specific but compatible cultures. This was believed to be a way to strengthen the unity of the nations within the Union. Thus, Coltman's book is a timely addition to the literature reflecting on this period. She brings new perspectives to the question of identity in the Union, by proposing a study of the expression of Scottishness in the arts and visual and material cultures in Great Britain and abroad.

Art and Identity in Scotland is very well researched, and Coltman exhibits an innovative approach to the Scottish identity question. By focusing on the expression and negotiation of Scottish identity through the visual arts and material culture, she adds paintings, sculptures, and architectural projects to the more familiar documentary evidence. By highlighting communication networks between Scots at home and abroad, Coltman situates these mediums and the contemporary debates they embodied in local, national, and transnational contexts. She considers the perception of the Scots across the world and compares it to the image they had of themselves, and the way they wanted to be seen. Her study revaluates the standard clichés about the Scots in Scotland, England, and on the European continent, mostly in Italy. Indeed, the Grand Tour led the Scots down to Rome, where they could compare their artistic culture(s) and savoir-faire to those of artists there. Scottish cultural identity resounded then as much as it grew from new experiences and relationships between artists and patrons. Coltman perceives in Scottish cultural identity an important and legitimate debt to the Grand Tour.

Scotland became a prolific art producer. A “Scottish school” was established and set specific national canons. Coltman questions, though, the role of the self-cultured nation in the invention of the common British culture in Britain, and in the expansion of the Empire. The reception of these canons depended on both the status and location of the artists, architects, manufacturers, or clients involved with the production of these visual and material pieces of “Scottish” art culture. Coltman also questions these very same people's awareness of national characteristics.

Coltman discusses the duality of the Scottish culture, divided between the Highlands and the Lowlands, to which she also adds a specific culture of the Borders. She does not forget to consider the impact of Ossian's poetry on the visual and material Scottish art culture. Ossian's romantic perception of the people and nature in the Western Isles became a source of influence in the representation of Scotland in general. The Highlands, their culture, and image—that were completely rejected and ignored even by the Scots of the Lowlands, up to the middle of the eighteenth century—became the visual and cultural reference for the whole Scotland. The stereotyped visual details reflecting this belonged to the Highland traditions. This was at least how Scotland was presented during George IV's visit to Edinburgh in 1822. This event, organized by Sir Walter Scott, inspired multiple artifacts and paintings—some of which even represented the king wearing a Highland outfit. It worked to reinvent Scottish culture, reducing it to the Highland one, although the event had been intended as an attempt to acknowledge the reconciliation between the monarchy and the Highland clans. The tartan kilt, the bagpipe, and the Highland dances all appeared, from that moment on, as the emblems of the Scottish culture in Great Britain. They became central features in the global representation of Scotland, despite the attempts of many artists, architects, or rich Scots to promote their native culture, adapting it to the British one, modeled on the English canons. Coltman uses microhistories to reflect these tendencies. The visual and material culture, based on painting, sculptures, monuments, and various artifacts made during Sir Walter Scott's lifetime, and even more after his death, reflected what he provocatively but legitimately calls “Scott-land” culture (253).

Coltman's strong analysis, through many microhistories and well-contextualized assessments of the impact of key events such as the defeat of Culloden and the worship of Bonnie Prince Charlie, or the visit of George IV to Edinburgh in 1822 as part of Walter Scott's reinvention of the Scottish cultural landmarks, contributes to the understanding of the influence of the arts in the assertion of Scottish cultural identity within Great Britain. Coltman's new perspectives on the current debates on Scottish and British cultural identity, through her approach of the visual arts, architecture, and artifacts, is particularly welcome and her book is an important contribution to the field of Scottish studies.