Beauty Through my Eyes: The Scottish Highlands, by Gustave Dore

"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The more we open ourselves to appreciating beauty the more we will see it. Let me share with you a taste of the beautiful, I hope it will touch and enrich your heart. 

 I saw this picture, The Scottish Highlands by Gustave Dore, in the Toledo Museum of Art and it caught my attention right away. In person it's huge and imposing, the picture doesn't capture it's magnificence well.

My mother’s family, the Bankhead’s, came in the mid 1700s from Ayrshire Scotland to South Carolina. We believe they had lived in that area for hundreds of years as a smaller family protected by and serving the Boyd clan. The Boyd’s fought with William Wallace for Scotland's Freedom (the movie Braveheart is Wallace’s story). The understanding is that my ancestors, the Bankhead’s would have fought with the Boyd’s and Wallace. Every time I watch Braveheart I'm transported in time. I believe each generation is significant to future generations. We may never know all about our past but we are recipients none the less of the wisdom gleaned and failures endured by our ancestors. Seeing this sweeping highland picture reminded me of these words I wrote a few years ago.

Out of the mists of time the wild shadows march. The rugged landscape, the fierce pride that is Scotland, flows in my blood. I see the men; weathered, hardened by suffering. A thirst for freedom and a passion for home etched on faces as rugged as the highlands. Men and women out of ancient past, hero and rogue, to me nameless. I see them in my brother’s face, his red beard and tall frame an echo of our heritage.

Forefathers who, more than 200 years ago, left the land they loved for a land of hope. Forever their destiny changed and now their children hear only the haunting echo from a past world once called home.

Is there a piece of art, a painting, sculpture, music that connects you to your family's past whether distant or not so distant?