and political associations with
France. Poetry and scholarship were encouraged, if poorly
rewarded--one remembers Dunbar's unavailing poetical pleas for a
benefice--and relics and old records show that even in those stirring
times life was not without its refinements and tasteful accessories.
Yet only in the Church or for her service was there the quietude
necessary for art work of the higher kinds. Then came the Reformation
(during which much fine ecclesiastical furniture and decoration
perished) severing the connection of art with religion and sowing
distrust of art in any form.

Had the Union of the Crowns not taken place in 1603, it is possible
that the art of painting might have developed much earlier than it did.
No doubt that event brought healing to the long open sore caused and
inflamed by kingly ambitions and national animosities, but it removed
the Court to London, and with that some of the greatest nobles, while
the change in the religion of the ruling house from Presbyterianism to
Episcopacy, which followed, led to the Covenants and the religious
persecution, and drove the iron of ascetism into the souls of those
classes from whom artists mostly spring. Yet the logical rigidity of
the Calvinistic spirit, while taking much of the joy out of life and
opposing its manifestation in art, had certain compensating advantages.
Disciplining the mind, quickening the reasoning powers, and cultivating
that grasp of essentials which makes for success in almost any pursuit,
and not least in art, it helped very largely to make the Scot what he
is.

During the peaceful years which immediately followed the Union, there
was considerable activity in the building of country residences. Now
that the country was more settled these were less castles than
mansions, and the larger and better lighted apartments possible led to
a good deal of elaborate decoration. Of this Pinkie House (1613) with
its painted gallery is perhaps the most celebrated example. It is
difficult, however, to determine how much of this kind of work was done
by foreign, how much by native craftsmen, and as it seems to have
exerted little influence upon the one or two picture-painters who
emerged during the seventeenth century, one need not discuss the
probabilities. So far as has been discovered, the only link between
this phase of art and the other consists of the fact that George
Jamesone (1598?-1644), the first clearly recognisable Scottish artist