Skip to main content

More gallery picks

Anthony Gormley Sculpture
And so it rains in Edinburgh... Dr Fred and cronies went climbing which is probably why it rained.  I went to the Scottish National Museum of Modern Art which had quite a pleasant collection - a few odd bits and pieces including a Peter Doig, Anthony Gormley and a nice Hockey - the grounds are nice and have a good selection of interesting sculpture.  The huge steel sculpture of Vulcan by Eduardo Paolozzi in the cafe was very impressive. 
the vulcan

I walked back into town through more impressive Edinburgh streets lined with amazing four and five storey high terraces and then the rain arrived so I decided to have a wander around the Scottish National Gallery which was full of quite marvellous overblown Renaissance and Dutch/Flemish art.
        
Much of it was early religious iconic based - and then a lot of quite wonderful Italian Renaissance art - not exactly the kind of stuff I'd hang in the house - although I probably wouldn't turn down one of the amazing Raphael's or Titians... come to think of it they would look superbly out of place in my kitchen... alas its not to be. I really like the flamboyant over the top colours and imagery and considering some of these pictures were painted in the sixteenth century and some even earlier - the colours are glorious and the condition of the paintings excellent.. I wonder how much modern art will stand the test of time.
Waller hugh Patton - Entrance to the Cuirain

Alongside the very old masters on show were one or two more recent paintings - one in particular caught my eye.  It was painted in about 1870 by Waller Hugh Patton called ''Entrance to the Cuirain''  - depicting the Cuirain  (now spelled Quirain) on the Isle of Skye looking just as we saw it earlier this year... moody and atmospheric.... although much less snow on the painting.

By this time I had a serious case of 'museum leg' so time to jump on the number 10 and head back to base.

Next time I go up to Edinburgh I'm going to look in the smaller less feted galleries and try and track down some of the local contemporary artwork that pops up on my Instagram or Facebook, 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful.   There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...
1 comment
Read more

Autumnal Garden Days

I love these (rare) warm sunny late summer days and there is all sorts of lovely things  going on in my garden... I counted 12 red admiral butterflies whizzing around the over grown ivy which I had been about to hack down but then left until the flutterbies have finished with it... The late blooms add a dash of colour and the daisy strewn lawn is littered with autumnal leaves, debris from my brief half an hour of slash and burn and the stone wall is covered in glorious soft moss all shiny and tactile with a few late nasturtiums loitering. I've hacked out the brambles for this year, sadly I missed the fruit as we were away, ditto the strawberries, we never seem to get the fruit before the birds so I've made space and moved the plants that were getting swamped and so not performing to their potential - hopefully next year they will literally blossom now they have light and room to flourish.
Post a Comment
Read more

Total Eclipse Spain 2026

Eclipse day!!!!  Most of the photos on here were taken by friends...my phone died...  I dont use names on here but you know who you are thank you....  This will be Dr Freds 8th eclipse and my 6th... I have 100% clear viewing and its continued that way. Our friends have this amazing house tucked away on the side of a hill - fortuitously right on the centre line of the 2026 eclipse.  And... to make it even better they have a roof terrace which gave us an almost perfect elevation to see the total eclipse in all its glory.   Dr Fred wasnt sure at first - he worried that as totality was so close to sunset we might not be high enough before the sun disappeared under the ridge.  So, the evenings leading up to the night of the actual event, required a lot of balancing on the roof with spirit levels at various degrees and exact timings for exact positioning of the sun and considerable maths.... yes it was complicated but it p...
3 comments
Read more