Translation projects played a central role in literary culture during the Romantic period. Numerous ancient and contemporary texts were translated into other languages. Against this background, the question arises: To what extent can similar phenomena be identified concerning the visual arts? Based on the transnational circulation of Ossianic pictures, my project explores the connection between translation and imagery by applying an expanded concept of cultural translation as well as approaches from visual studies. The paradox of nationalist influences within the larger trans-regional phenomenon that we now call Romanticism is a topical issue in art history, especially after Brexit. Rather than catering to the conventional idea of national schools, I contend that Ossianic imagery should be understood as visualisations of transcultural entanglements that penetrate national boundaries and bring the permeability of cultures into focus. I aim to detach the pictorial reception of Ossian from the historical and individual case-based approach that predominates in research and to open it up to higher-level questions of translational transmission processes as well as specific mechanisms of agency and functioning of images.

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