press clippings
Monday, 09 Apr 2007
taking art for arts' - and Scotland's - sake
CCW's Steve Cotton writes for the Scotsman
Steve Cotton explains why a debate at the Traverse Theatre this week over our country’s culture aims to put the arts at the heart of the election.
Despite its role down the generations in saying to each other and to the world who and what we are, and despite its adaptation to allsorts of new media, culture usually plays the part of the poor relation at elections.
It was not always so. In Linlithgow on 6 January, 1540, Ane Satyre of the thrie Estaites was deemed strong and potentially dangerous stuff. And a visit to almost any of Scotland’s museums and art galleries will show how active Scots were in cultural affairs long before the 16th century. So what has happened? Is it just that artists have often struggled to be taken seriously in their lifetimes? Burns explains …