The Highlanders Of Scotland

**OC Richard** · 15th July 10, 05:30 AM

For some reason, this book is sometimes attacked as being inaccurate.

These attacks are usually vaguely worded, and one might inquire what, exactly, is being asserted:

1) Is it being claimed that MacLeay did not accurately paint what was before his eyes?

2) Or is MacLeay's work itself not being questioned, but rather that his sitters were not wearing authentic Highland Dress?

The first claim, that MacLeay was not accurately painting his sitters, in effect inventing these images, cannot be taken seriously.

He was known for his accuracy and attention to detail and was commissioned in part for that very reason.

Many relics appear in his painting, which still exist.

I myself have seen photos of, or handled, or owned, examples of nearly everything seen in these paintings and time and again I am amazed at his attention to the smallest detail.

If he was inventing these images, how does one explain away photographs done at the same period, which show the same sorts of things?

Many of these photos were taken the very years that MacLeay was painting his subjects.

If however the claim is being made that the images in The Highlanders Of Scotland do not represent the way these men would dress when not in Highland Dress, I would counter that the way these men dressed when not wearing Highland Dress is irrelevant to the subject.

It's like claiming that illustrations of sports uniforms are inaccurate because the men don't look that way when they're not dressed in their sports uniforms.

There is no claim, openly stated or implied, that the sitters shown in The Highlanders Of Scotland wore that identical dress 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Some of the negative statements about The Highlanders Of Scotland make me think that it's simply a matter of some people nowadays disliking the Highland Dress current in the 1860's. I myself would rather be intrigued by things in the past rather than pretend that they never existed.