When the present picture was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy it was described by the critic in the Art Journal as 'a wild eerie scene, such as the traveller in the Highlands occasionally lights upon: a pine wood in its last stage of decay, the blighted trunks bare even of bark, a solitary raven the sole living occupant of this ghost of a forest, and the mountain mist rolling in masses, which give a chilly horror to the scene. It is a remarkable picture, which only a poetical mind could have produced.'