John Muir Wood, Untitled (Burn), 1850s. Calotype. One of Muir Wood's densely-textured landscape photographs

Exhibition preview - John Muir Wood at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery until October 26 2008

An exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery is the first ever to investigate the origins of landscape photography in Scotland, and focuses on images produced between 1840 and 1860 by John Muir Wood, as well as photographs by some of his contemporaries.

John Muir Wood’s photographs present a romantic view of nature during a time of rural upheaval.

Chosen from an archive of 900 pieces, the selected photographs strongly evoke the contrast between Victorian social and religious values and increasing urbanisation.

Up to a third of Scots had been displaced from the land by the Clearances, pushing reluctant country-dwellers to seek their fortunes in the city. Muir Wood’s creations evoke the sanctity of natural images during this time of rapid industrialisation.

John Muir Wood, Untitled (Villa, Firth of Clyde), 1850s. Calotype negative. This negative evokes a ghostly image of a villa

The images are rooted in the photographer’s sense of place. Photographs of public monuments and buildings, taken on his 1847 continental tour, are prominent in the collection, but the landscape images are most striking.

Muir Wood hauled his photographic equipment to the North Ayrshire glens, the Kyles of Bute and the mountains of Arran to bring back images of their stark beauty.

Many of his photographs seem desolate, but yet they are curiously uplifting: his ruined cottage image may appear to be a stony skeleton, but it lies above lush grass and a stream. Muir Wood’s grasp of sensual detail is evident in how he captures the raw texture of scattered rocks in the water. The pallid tones of his forest photography suggest an almost ethereal glow.

John Muir Wood (1805 – 1892), Untitled (Ruined Cottage), 1850s. Calotype, National Galleries of Scotland

The exhibition gives context to Muir Wood’s photographs by including by the work of other photographers, such as Hill and Adamson, Horatio Ross, John Forbes White, Roger Fenton and WHF Talbot.

Amid these other prominent figures in Scottish photography at the time, Muir Wood’s significance as a force in landscape photography is abundantly clear.