ABSTRACT
This chapter will explore the close link between valued landscapes and artistic representation by examining theories that engage with the aesthetic relationship between people and their environments. This chapter explores the philosophical, literary and artistic roots of its imaginative reconstruction. The areas history, as a developing tourist resort, will be set in the socio-cultural context of the Picturesque and Romantic movements. The influence of novelists and poets who effectively created a language for articulating the Highlands as a valued and ideologically laden playground is also considered. Tourists also wanted to visit places associated with Walter Scott's life. Abbotsford, his fanciful baronial seat in the Borders, became a visitor attraction in its own right and remains so today. Thus, Scotland's literary tourism exploited sites both actual and imaginary and both were powerful magnets for visitors. The Highlands of Scotland are an example of one such site, a resort that was imagined into being by the twin influences of tourism and literature.
