Glen Finglas

Coordinates: 56°13′48″N 4°21′43″W / 56.230°N 4.362°W

John Ruskin painted in Glenfinlas by John Everett Millais in 1853–4.
Study of Gneiss Rock, Glenfinlas. Pen and ink study by John Ruskin, 1853, now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Glen Finglas (Scottish Gaelic: Gleann Fhionnghlais) is a glen in the Trossachs, in the Stirling council area of Scotland. It is an area of forest in Highlands of the former county of Perthshire, north of Brig o' Turk, close to Callander in Menteith.[1] To the west is Loch Katrine.

The Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) wrote the poem Glenfinlas; or Lord Ronald's Coronach in 1803.[1] [2]

The Glenfinglas estate was acquired by the Woodland Trust Scotland in 1996[3] and is open to the public.

Ruskin and Millais

The leading Victorian art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) and the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais (1829–1896) spent the summer of 1853 together at Glenfinlas.[4] Millais started a painting of John Ruskin in front of a waterfall during the visit, which he finished the following year. The painting is held in the Ashmolean museum, and has been shows at several exhibitions, including "The Pre-Raphaelites" at Tate Britain in London during 2004.[5] John Ruskin himself was especially interested in the rock formations and, although primarily an art critic, undertook his own studies of these.

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