Where
Northern Rural Highlands/Fort Williams area of Scotland
When
Springtime, Mid Century – 1850.
Themes
• Origins of the rapidly changing modern world
• Lightly populated
• Wild, yet quite sophisticated for its time
• Spring scene with wisteria on the castle entrance, the formal garden in bloom, flowering trees along with the dirt and muddy road, flowering hedges, plus cultivating the garden for summer crops.
• Clearly defined and universally accepted class structure – rustic but proud for the hardworking working class with a powerful elite class.
• In balance with the natural world.
• The cycle of life – newborn baby under a clothesline, young and elderly folks, young couple, deer hunting, dead trees in the stream, and church graveyard. The ancient, classic and toppled gravestones give a perspective of centuries without change and times gone by. The ancient obelisks left by ancient peoples represent the power of memory, dedication, and imagination.
Design Elements
• Forced perspective – more prominent elements on the right side – HO scale (1:87) trees and doves N scale (1:160) in the middle and Z scale (1:220) to the far left with the church, castles, small Sheppard, dog, sheep as well as castle horses.
• Topography with rambling pastures along with river and lake leading to mountains in the distance.
• Rainy, overcast, with the sun beginning to peek through the clouds.
• The Presbyterian church is the communal gathering place and moral guide for the population – principles, honesty, and clan loyalty. Lynch gate is a symbolic separation of the secular world from the profane. It is a symbolic entrance to the graveyard.
• The overall artistic shape of this diorama – French curves.
Humor Elements- Why did the chicken cross the road? The black sheep goes in their own direction and away from the flock (one of my brothers). Also, there is a once-in-a-lifetime black swan (financial goldmine) and a scarecrow in the garden.
Small Elements – crows on the barn roof and shed, owls and woodpecker on the most giant tree, doves for peace, mallards and geese on the lake, lambs, two obelisks like the two Connor and I saw on our trip in 2011, stacked stone walls, hedges everywhere, the couple inside the waterfall.
Action Scenes
• The cycle of thatching the hay, horse cart with hay, hay used to repair thatched barn roof, fancy carriage going up to the mansion, milk and provision supplies carriage stopping by the humble cottage, the hunter in the field and blacksmith’s shop.
• The couple inside the waterfall.
• Boys are fishing on the lake.
• They doves taking flight.
• The red interior of the cottage represents a blazing hearth inside.
History
• Approximate birth year of James Wilson, my grandfather’s grandfather. Kathryn and I discovered his gravestone, below, in Nova Scotia -
• Charles Dickens publishes Hard Times, and A Tale of Two Cities
• Nathaniel Hawthorne published The Scarlet Letter in 1850
• Charles Darwin publishes The Origen of Species
• Herman Melville published Bartleby, the Scrivener in 1853
• John Snow – Considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology for his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, London, in 1854, when he removed the handle on the village water pump everyone was touching with their hands and passing along germs. Snow’s other findings inspired the adoption of anesthesia and fundamental changes in the water and waste systems of London, which led to similar changes in other cities: a significant improvement in general public health around the world.[2
• Benjamin Silliman fractionates petroleum by distillation for the first time
• The word girlfriend first appeared in writing in 1855.
• The word boyfriend first appeared in writing in 1856.
• Dominant Philosophers – Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Engels, Marx
• Age of Reason – Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained using reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.
Marc
I agree with all of the comments – it is a masterpiece! Did you give it a title? What is the story of the manor house? Who lived there, where did they go, etc. Seems like the beginning of a novel or at least a short story about this place. And, you are just the person to do it!
Colleen
Thank you all for your kind comments.
Marc
Breathtaking! It really gives you a sense of being there. The attention to detail was done with love it appears
Jeff P
What a brilliant work of art! I get a sense of being swept back in time to a place where life was so much simpler. Congratulations to Mr. Wilson for creating this masterpiece.
Here is the planning document for this layout -
Rural Scotland Diorama
Marc Wilson – 2022
Where
Northern Rural Highlands/Fort Williams area of Scotland
When
Springtime, Mid Century – 1850.
Themes
• Origins of the rapidly changing modern world
• Lightly populated
• Wild, yet quite sophisticated for its time
• Spring scene with wisteria on the castle entrance, the formal garden in bloom, flowering trees along with the dirt and muddy road, flowering hedges, plus cultivating the garden for summer crops.
• Clearly defined and universally accepted class structure – rustic but proud for the hardworking working class with a powerful elite class.
• In balance with the natural world.
• The cycle of life – newborn baby under a clothesline, young and elderly folks, young couple, deer hunting, dead trees in the stream, and church graveyard. The ancient, classic and toppled gravestones give a perspective of centuries without change and times gone by. The ancient obelisks left by ancient peoples represent the power of memory, dedication, and imagination.
Design Elements
• Forced perspective – more prominent elements on the right side – HO scale (1:87) trees and doves N scale (1:160) in the middle and Z scale (1:220) to the far left with the church, castles, small Sheppard, dog, sheep as well as castle horses.
• Topography with rambling pastures along with river and lake leading to mountains in the distance.
• Rainy, overcast, with the sun beginning to peek through the clouds.
• The Presbyterian church is the communal gathering place and moral guide for the population – principles, honesty, and clan loyalty. Lynch gate is a symbolic separation of the secular world from the profane. It is a symbolic entrance to the graveyard.
• The overall artistic shape of this diorama – French curves.
Humor Elements- Why did the chicken cross the road? The black sheep goes in their own direction and away from the flock (one of my brothers). Also, there is a once-in-a-lifetime black swan (financial goldmine) and a scarecrow in the garden.
Small Elements – crows on the barn roof and shed, owls and woodpecker on the most giant tree, doves for peace, mallards and geese on the lake, lambs, two obelisks like the two Connor and I saw on our trip in 2011, stacked stone walls, hedges everywhere, the couple inside the waterfall.
Action Scenes
• The cycle of thatching the hay, horse cart with hay, hay used to repair thatched barn roof, fancy carriage going up to the mansion, milk and provision supplies carriage stopping by the humble cottage, the hunter in the field and blacksmith’s shop.
• The couple inside the waterfall.
• Boys are fishing on the lake.
• They doves taking flight.
• The red interior of the cottage represents a blazing hearth inside.
History
• Approximate birth year of James Wilson, my grandfather’s grandfather. Kathryn and I discovered his gravestone, below, in Nova Scotia -
• Charles Dickens publishes Hard Times, and A Tale of Two Cities
• Nathaniel Hawthorne published The Scarlet Letter in 1850
• Charles Darwin publishes The Origen of Species
• Herman Melville published Bartleby, the Scrivener in 1853
• John Snow – Considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology for his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, London, in 1854, when he removed the handle on the village water pump everyone was touching with their hands and passing along germs. Snow’s other findings inspired the adoption of anesthesia and fundamental changes in the water and waste systems of London, which led to similar changes in other cities: a significant improvement in general public health around the world.[2
• Benjamin Silliman fractionates petroleum by distillation for the first time
• The word girlfriend first appeared in writing in 1855.
• The word boyfriend first appeared in writing in 1856.
• Dominant Philosophers – Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Engels, Marx
• Age of Reason – Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained using reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.
I agree with all of the comments – it is a masterpiece! Did you give it a title? What is the story of the manor house? Who lived there, where did they go, etc. Seems like the beginning of a novel or at least a short story about this place. And, you are just the person to do it!
Thank you all for your kind comments.
Breathtaking! It really gives you a sense of being there. The attention to detail was done with love it appears
What a brilliant work of art! I get a sense of being swept back in time to a place where life was so much simpler. Congratulations to Mr. Wilson for creating this masterpiece.