'The Great Glen through Four Seasons' was commissioned by Inverness Airport for permanent display. Through consultation with the airport staff, using illustrations of earlier pieces, James Hawkins and the staff came up with the idea of a panorama based on the Great Glen, which was to include both a notion of changing times of day and the four seasons.

Illustrating all the seasons means that the painting is not a 'frozen' moment, rather it represents a longer period; this is reinforced by the additional layering of different times of day. It gives the painter the possibility to include many different aspects of the Highlands in one coherent image. The combination of these storytelling possibilities and the wide-screen panorama (more than would be seen from one viewpoint without turning the head) gives the painting a filmic quality, making it not static, but shimmering and alive.