Yesterday wasn't the nicest day for a walk: an Edinburgh special, grey and windy with a spatter of rain. But I ventured out anyway, to see a few things I've been meaning to go to for a while.
First up, the Into the Deep exhibition in St Andrew Square. This free exhibition of 60 huge photographs is part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival. Doubtless, with the benefit of sunlight, the images would have been much more impressive, but they were still commanding and beautiful even under the heavy cloud cover. I have to say, I preferred the exhibition last year, the photographs were more striking, but the show is still worth seeing. My particular favourites were 'Leafy Seadragon' and 'Denise's Pygmy Seahorses', both by Alex Mustard.
Then onto the main event, the National Gallery Complex on the Mound. I don't visit the gallery as often as I should, and every time I go in, I wonder why I don't go there more. It has a peaceful atmosphere which is hard to find in a busy city like Edinburgh, especially for a confirmed Leither like myself. The most modern painting I saw, 'Three Oncologists' by Ken Currie, is a striking study of three professors at the Ninewells Hospital and Medical School in Dundee. The characters are looking over their shoulders towards the artist, and have a ghostly feel, with a blurred style helping to create an otherworldly atmosphere. I was also struck by Rubens's Feast of Herod, Schalcken's Boy Blowing on a Charcoal, Velazquez's An Old Woman Cooking Eggs, and Meenix's Landscape with Huntsmen and Dead Game (Allegory of the Sense of Smell. I also had the chance to visit The Young Vermeer, a small exhibition of three early painting by Vermeer, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who has a few moments in the centre of town. I had never really 'got' Vermeer before, but The Procuress really blew me away, the use and depth of colour has to be seen to be believed, and it has an almost magickal feeling of presence.
The real reason for my visit, however, was the exhibition 'French Drawings from Poussin to Seurat', upstairs in the Gallery. The nature of illustration means that the three rooms devoted to the exhibition have an understated feel, a pleasant relief after the pomp and circumstance of the oils downstairs. The drawing does show the breadth of the artform, from the almost abstract Jean-Baptiste Pillement's 'Chinoisserie Design with Two Figures on a See-Saw' to landscapes and portraits. I tend to prefer images of ordinary people and ordinary life. I liked A Tavern Brawl by Pierre Alexandre Wille, for its ballsy depiction of alcohol inspired macho, the calm of Camille Corot's A Woman Writing and the mystery of Antoine Berger's The Conjurer. But the stand out for me was a drawing by Ernest Hebert 'Study for the woman of Cervaria'. A coloured study, the woman has a reality and sensuality that I did not really see in the rather stagnant drawings, she came alive with a sense of her place and time. All in all, the exhibition was a great chance to see works by lesser known French artists of the period.
Perhaps the best part of the exhibition was to wander out through a small gallery of impressionists, where I wondered a while at the genius of Van Gogh, and lingered in front of Claude Monet's Shipping by Moonlight, a dark intervention into the pastels and colours in the room. Then out, with just enough time to pick up a Sir John Lavery postcard for my good friend and ordained minister, the Rev. Erik Arneson of Portland, Oregon.
Waterstones, despite strong sales (they are almost the only bookshop in town) have recently closed their shop at the east end of Princes Street, and the last time I ventured to this great thoroughfare, the wind and rain were so intense that I turned around and went home, rather than battle up the road to the remaining Princes Street store. Today, however, I was determined to make it, and soon found myself at their shop at 128 Princes Street. Here I purchased an unabashedly masculine collection of books, The Innocents Abroad, and A Tramp Abroad, both by the eminent Mark Twain (who once visited Edinburgh and became friendly with Dr John Brown of Rutland Street), Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T E Lawrence, and as a bit of light reading, Pyrates by George Macdonald Fraser.
Yesterday was pancake day, and traditionally my family eat our pancakes with raisins, which we were sadly lacking. So the journey home took me into Scotmid (of which I am a member), to obtain my requisites. The local Scotmid to my home became a TESCO last year, meaning that both my closest supermarkets are TESCO, and I no longer visit the Scotmid as much as I'd like. I'd urge everyone to become a member of Scotmid, for a one pound investment in a share, you'll receive a £10 voucher to spend, and a sense of well being and community engagement, priceless.
The walk according to The Google Map Pedometer was 4.68 miles. Nice.
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