This is a past event
Elphinstone Institute Public Lecture Series
The talk, which will be lavishly illustrated, is based on a forthcoming study of some 150 paintings and drawings of Scottish towns and urban life before photography. It takes as its starting point three iconic images of Aberdeen: the townscape panorama of William Mosman (1756), and the views of the Castlegate by Hugh Irvine of Drum (1803) and J.W. Allen (1840). The first and third of these provided the cover illustrations for two-volume history of the city commissioned by Aberdeen City Council in 2000-02. The work of artists in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries is a valuable and much under-used resource to show what towns and town life looked like. In some cases, they provide the only glimpse of buildings or streets long since destroyed or much altered. But artists also manipulated or distorted their subjects, especially if the work was commissioned, as Mosman's was. So paintings need to be treated with as much caution or scepticism as any other kind of evidence.
Michael Lynch was born and grew up in Aberdeen, where he attended the Grammar School. His first degree, in History and English Literature, was taken at the University of Aberdeen. He gained a Ph.D. in History at the University of London. After acting as a lecturer at University College, Bangor, he was appointed a lecturer in Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh. He was appointed to the Sir Wiliam Fraser Chair of Scottish History and Palaeography in 1992. He has particular interests in religious, social and urban history. Amongst his publications are Scotland: a New History (1992) and The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (2001). He was co-editor of Aberdeen before 1800: a New History (2002).
- Speaker
- Michael Lynch, University of Edinburgh
- Hosted by
- Elphinstone Institute
- Venue
- MacRobert Building