More art

We're making an effort in our retired life to go to exhibitions before the final week. It's so easy to say, oh, it's on till September - plenty of time. And then you're there with the hordes on the last Saturday, not really able to see.


So today we walked along the road to Modern Gallery 1, admiring the cherry blossom as we went.

This is what we wanted to see: "The Lamp of Sacrifice", cardboard models of 286 Edinburgh churches made in 2004 by Nathan Coley. It's interesting how powerful such things can be when they're crowded together like this. I don't know if any bloggy friends have seen Antony Gormley's  "Field", but it consists of up to 35,000 tiny terracotta figures on the floor facing the onlooker - the figures are very basic, but somehow the effect of all these little people apparently looking towards one is - what is it? - touching? alarming?

The churches are also rather moving - think of all of these buildings and all of that money raised to build them by ordinary people to make somewhere worthy of the God they believed in. Whether you're religious or not, it's likely to make you think of the effort, the good intentions - and what's going to happen to these buildings in the future. Some of them are no longer used as churches.

Outside, two swans were swimming around in the ponds in the Landform. It would be quite hard to make a nest here, without any sticks lying around for them, but they seemed to be finding things to eat in the water.

This is "Reclining Figure: Two Piece, 1960" by Henry Moore. We're not tempted to steal it.

Then we walked home along the river, 

enjoying the plashing sounds

and wondering what it would be like to live in one of these houses. Very pleasant, I'd think, though the river does sometimes rise considerably higher than this, so I imagine the bottoms of their gardens occasionally become rather wet.