Art and such things

It's been a bit January-ish round here, with even some snow, so we've been doing indoory things as well as going on our usual walks. There was an exhibition of early Ikea fabrics at the Dovecot Gallery, so we went there. I can't say that I would particularly like any of these in my house, but they were interesting to look at. 

I didn't really like 1960s and 70s fashion even at the time.

Hmm, don't think so. 

Then, because it was on our way back, we popped into the museum to look at some things. Such as this, which I thought was a little house, but turns out to be an 8th century casket, possibly for holding saintly relics. 

Everybody likes the Lewis chessmen, made probably in Norway in the 1200s but discovered on the Isle of Lewis in 1831. 94 pieces were found, of which 82 of them reside in the British Museum in London (ho hum) and only 11 in the National Museum of Scotland. One is in private ownership. None of them is on Lewis, which is where they probably should be. 

Of course there's the one that lives on my desk (do you see his friend in the photo above?) but it's just possible that it might not be an original...

There are some lovely carved pieces rescued ... or at least taken.. from old buildings. This dates from about 1530. 

Then today the pavements were quite slippery in the morning so we went to the National Gallery (of Scotland). This is a 1915 sketch by Francis Cadell, called "The Parting". Isn't it wonderful how Cadell conveyed the sorrow felt by the woman as she waved her chap off to war? 

I think the light on this painting of the Scottish Highlands is fantastic - sun just poking out from between the clouds, as does happen occasionally here. It's by someone called Peter Graham, of whom I must confess I hadn't heard. Or at least the name hadn't stuck.  He lived from 1836 to 1921 - quite a long time. 

And here's an 1823 sketch by David Wilkie of a Greenwich Pensioner. Again, so much character in what might seem a basic drawing with very little use of colour. 

So many clever people. I'm glad their work has survived to keep them sort-of alive. 
 

Drawings

It's been a fairly uneventful week. I've mainly been hand-quilting my rainbow quilt, which is to cover a single bed and is thus, by my standards, quite large - certainly the largest I've done. I'm having fun, though, just quilting it to please myself, not to any particular pattern. 

But we did go to an exhibition of Renaissance drawings at the King's Gallery - everything here is from the royal collections. (Why does one family have so much? Hmm.) First, we had coffee in the cafe, which has nice views out on to the hill behind. Sustenance and then art. 

The drawings were amazing, not least because they were on paper and had survived 500 years. (I don't imagine that anything I do will survive me by 50 years, let alone 500.) Mainly they were sketches for later paintings, some of which are now lost (or, who knows? maybe on someone's wall somewhere). The one below is by Battista Franco. He lived from 1510-1561; not all that long. This is the flagellation of Christ, so not exactly cheery. But doesn't it have movement? And aren't the expressions of the two chaps on the right interesting? One just dogged, the other somewhat horrified, as one might well be if Jesus was looking so intently into one's face. 

This is St Jerome by Bartolomeo Passarotti, who lived quite a bit longer: 1529-1592. 

And this head of a man is by the Circle of Cristoforo Canozzi da Lendinara, c 1427- after 1477. So possibly not even by Cristoforo himself. It's thought that it was a design for intarsia, in which pieces of differently toned wood are inlaid - hence the sort of contour lines. 

Now, this is a sad one. Parmigianino (1503-1540) was commissioned to decorate the vault of Santa Maria della Steccata, and this is his sketch for the middle of it. It's the coronation of the Virgin. But he was jailed for a while for his lack of progress, and then he died - at 37. Oh dear. 

All these chaps were so much cleverer than I am and I'd never heard of any of them. I'm glad that their work is still around, though. So thanks, King Charles, I suppose, for letting us see them. 

 

Doings

So in brief: we went to the Tirzah Garwood exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery - interesting, since we'd seen the Eric Ravilious (her husband) exhibition there some years ago and I've read her memoir.

Her art was very varied. 

and in various media.

I had a lovely visit to a school friend's house, and met her partner. M and I were never particularly close at school but we were friendly, and I always liked her. It's been so nice to reconnect. 

And then we came home and Littlest Granddaughter also came (to her) home and reconnected with her guinea pigs, which we had managed to keep fed and watered. 

Apart from that, it's been a flowery time. These mecanopsis were at Branklyn Gardens in Perth, which we always like to visit. 

And we met up with a very old friend, also M, and went to Little Sparta, about an hour's drive away, which is the garden of poet and artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. We've been meaning to go for ages, and when M - who lives in London - said that she would like to visit it, that was the spur for us to take her. M's mother and mine were friends in London during the war, specifically during the Blitz, and her mother was my mother's bridesmaid. 

It's a very pleasant garden

with various art installations and inscriptions, some rather mysterious. 

And then, at home, all is very floriferous.

A neighbour (whose front garden is mainly paved, with some neatly trimmed small bushes) said to me yesterday that she liked the wild effect of my garden. 

I know what she meant, but it takes a lot of work to achieve such a wild effect. 

And that's me just about caught up with our doings, though frankly I don't really know why I do this...
 

Art and things

Dear old Blogger has been doing some odd things recently, but today it will at least allow me to add photos - though not in the right order. Still, let's not look a gift horse, etc. 

So here's a photo of some nice Edinburgh weather, when I went up town to look at an exhibition of pictures which are at the bottom of this post. 

I've started my rainbowish quilt and have now completed the red row (which is now twice this length). The cutting-out messed with my head a bit at first but I think I'm now familiar with it. Famous last...

Yesterday Mr L was a bit under the weather with a bad cold, so I went alone by train to visit Son and family. Above, you'll see the sun setting on the way back over the bridge.

Here's Medium Granddaughter on a trapeze - and this might (or might not) be Small Grandson running back to queue up for another go. I think it's not actually him but another boy of similar size - but you get the idea. 

And this is the view from the bridge on the way to visiting them - in reverse order. 

But I don't suppose it matters.

It was a lovely day. 

Here are some watercolours that I really liked at the exhibition that I went to on my own earlier in the week. Mr L didn't come because of his cold. I'd have any of these on my wall: some pleasing birds and flowers here. 

Talking of cold - brrr. I like the shadows and the tracery of the branches. 

I really like the shadows on this one too, and the interesting angle. I'd love to own this. 

And these colours would look good on a quilt, don't you think? 

I don't know who painted any of them because I didn't buy a catalogue. 

There's an exhibition of Turner watercolours on at the moment in the same gallery, with a queue of over 2 hours to get in. I like Turner well enough - some of his paintings are a bit misty for my taste - but it was great just to walk past that queue and go to this exhibition instead. 

And that was my week. In reverse. 

Faster than fairies

Last week we took the train over the bridge to Kirkcaldy (pronounced Kir-coddy) to see the Jack Vettriano exhibition at the art gallery there. I don't know if Vettriano is famous abroad, or even in England, but he's quite famous in Scotland, being from Kirkcaldy. He's self-taught, and the art establishment tends to look down on him (one gathers) - maybe because of that but also because it doesn't consider his paintings as having artistic merit. Also, the subjects are a little bit sinister sometimes, and very much suggest a rather shady story behind the pictures. He always paints from photos, never from life, and sells his paintings for lots of money. Anyway, it was very interesting. 

He taught himself to paint by copying postcards and also prints from auction catalogues. Above is the real Monet; below is his version. 

Sometimes he changed them a bit. 

After a while he developed his own style and sold two paintings at the Summer Exhibition, after which he applied to Edinburgh Art College and was rejected because his "portfolio does not meet the standard". So he just went on painting. 

This is a very famous one of his - "The Singing Butler" - though it's not clear to me that the butler actually is singing. A lot of his paintings are of people in formal clothes - though sometimes he paints women who're more scantily clothed.

This one is "A Date with Fate". 

This one is "Live Art Show". 

I wouldn't actually want any of his paintings on my walls - they make me feel uneasy - but they seem good to me. Though what would I know? 

There was a little film about him, in which he says that for him, narrative is essential in painting. You can definitely see that in his work.

And then we had a little walk around Kirkcaldy, past this old milestone, saying that Dysart is 2 and three-eights miles from there. Very precise! My great-great-grandparents lived in Dysart, and their son, my great-grandfather, was apprenticed to a house-painter in Kirkcaldy. We have Great-Grandpa's indentures from 1869. Sadly, he died at 40, but not before fathering 8 children, 7 of whom survived him. I can't imagine how his widow managed. 

Then we walked down George Street, where Mr L lived for a while as a boy. 

And yesterday we were back across the bridge, this time by car, to visit Son and family. 

Which was lovely. The children are adorable; I wish we saw more of them but... it is what it is - as people tend to say these days. 

 

And so the days rush relentlessly on.