Hunterian

The Hunterian has been rehung: the entrance gallery has paintings in double rows with no labels (as they would have been displayed in previous centuries), and the curators have included a few empty frames to represent whatever the viewer wants to think they might represent. Viewing the works thus becomes a more active experience for the gallery-goer (or a more frustrating one, possibly, judging from some of the comments I overhead).

Since I managed to nab one of the information booklets and was reassured that old favourites (Cadell, Fergusson, Paterson) were still there, I approved of the rehang.

I’m not sure that I like The Patriot by David Evans – and I have no idea why it has that title – but it is intriguing. The hyperreal style and the slightly distorted three-quarters profile (to include both eyes?) is offputting and almost lizard-like, and what’s the meaning of the broken marble top and the empty, open drawer? And Hunter’s apples – like Cézanne’s they should be falling off the plate. Fergusson’s Voile Persan is one of several I’ve seen over the last couple of days that blur the outlines of women and flowering nature. I’m becoming more drawn to Eardley’s landscape paintings: this is both thickly layered paint and the sea at Catterline on a blustery day.

Mary Quant

I went to the Kelvingrove for the Glasgow Boys, the Scottish Colourists and the collection of French paintings . . . and ended up visiting the exhibition of Mary Quant fashions as well. It seemed too good an opportunity to miss – to see the genuine articles in the context of the time rather than as a familiar brand that had hung around too long (as it seemed to me by the 1970s/80s).

First the paintings: after my art course earlier this year, the debt owed to Cézanne and Matisse by the Scottish Colourists in their earlier work was clearer than ever. From that foundation they built their own style. I got a little sidetracked by a small exhibition of paintings on copper from the 16th and 17th centuries: little glowing jewels of still lifes.

Then the Mary Quant exhibition, which was very well done: not just the clothes but also magazines, patterns, short films (which you could almost imagine as Pathé newsreels) narrated in cut-glass voices (including Quant’s own) and comments from the young women who actually wore the skirts and tights and pinafore dresses. (I did feel for the young shop assistant with naturally curly hair: not the right look at that time!) One surprising thing I picked up was how “traditional” Quant’s early designs were: tulip-skirted cocktail dresses and crisp pleats in wool flannel – suitable, perhaps, for a debutante making the transition from court presentations to Carnaby Street.

The exhibition conveyed very well the novelty and verve of the early sixties. The skirts got shorter and the geometric shapes sharper. Quant said again and again that she dressed women who wanted to be looked at and to look sexy. I had to mentally shed a few decades and alternative interpretations in order to enter into the spirit of the statement, but I got there thanks to the displays. They represented a real sense of youthfulness, energy and potential: a feeling that the old, staid, post-war world had been replaced by limitless possibilities. They also conveyed the commercial acumen that went into expanding and marketing the Mary Quant brand . . . until the next Big Thing came along. But for a while Quant’s designs were the big influence on and symbol of the sixties, and I’m very glad I dropped in.

Necropolis

The Necropolis is a rocky outcrop, positively bristling with obelisks, urns and Celtic crosses, to the west of Glasgow Cathedral. It was established in 1831 and modelled on the Père Lachaise in Paris. It was designed as a public garden, to be “respectful to the dead, safe and sanitary to the living, dedicated to the Genius of Memory and to extend religious and moral feeling”. I’ve been intending to visit for ages.

As the train drew into Glasgow yesterday I noticed the solid, monumental tenement buildings which are such a feature of the Central Belt of Scotland – a means of housing large populations compactly. As I wandered around the Necropolis today I had the impression that here were the solid tenement dwellings of the dead, for some 50,000 people have been interred here. Some tombs are 14 feet deep – which answered the question running through my head of “where are they all?!” each time I read a monument listing half a dozen or more people.

As an historical record, it is fascinating. Here monuments list the professions of the paterfamiliases commemorated: merchant, yarn merchant, foreign merchant, clothier, contractor, builder, baker, tobacco manufacturer, Indian Medical Service, property valuator. Their families cluster around them; sometimes the men’s names are preceded by their wives or (heartbreakingly) their infant or teenage children. Some died overseas – Basra, Gallipoli, an 18-year-old daughter in Valletta. There are some with two tombs topped by a unifying architrave, denoting brothers and their respective families. There are occasional quotations from the Bible, but the dominant style is pagan classicism rather than Christian. It is as if all these wealthy Glaswegians have decamped to this windy outcrop for its magnificent views and architecture and to enjoy the company of their peers in perpetuity. They may have shuffled off their mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible, but there’s no way they’re leaving their home town.

I had expected Glasgow Cathedral to be Victorian, but it’s much older than that – it dates from mediaeval times. There was a window by Douglas Strachan: Moses, I think.

Burrell and Hunterian

One of the pleasing things about revisiting the Burrell Collection is that I now know my way there: which way to turn when I come out of Pollokshaws West, which path through the trees, planning what I would like to see again. Even better was the weather: light rain and cooler temperatures, which revived me after the debilitating heat of the previous few days. There was great pleasure in unfurling my umbrella and stepping across puddles.

At the Burrell I revisited the recreated interior of one of his rooms at Hutton Castle: impressive, but not cosy. This time I was struck by the linenfold panelling and the fantastical carvings above. I also noticed some highly coloured stained glass windows which looked far too garish to be very old. But no, I was wrong: they were from a mid-fifteenth century Carmelite church in Boppard-am-Rhein.

I also returned to look at the lace: so beautiful and intricate – quite ridiculously so when you consider how long it took to create enough to make a collar or a flounce. I had never thought of the difference between needle-lace and bobbin-lace, and even now I’m not sure that I could tell the difference. The lace here was all needle-lace: Venetian lace of small patterns with self-explanatory names like Point de Rose, Point de Neige or Coralline. Point de France was the first type of needle-lace made in France, using different motifs and eventually taking in large floral designs.

As for the paintings: I realised that I had admired a Melville painting in the Harris. The reason I liked the Degas was because the rows of books reminded me of a TV programme I had watched about the Impressionists where the presenter had visited the artist materials shop in Paris that Degas had frequented and looked at boxes of pastels. They were arranged by colours and shade – and the line of blue spines in particular brought that to mind. I was also pleased to discover Henri Fantin-Latour – who cropped up later in the Hunterian.

I confess, though, that after visiting these collections by Lever, Bowes and Burrell in recent months – much as I enjoy them – I am getting visions of Citizen Kane and Xanadu!

To the Hunterian in the afternoon, where the highlight was the glowing Cadell still life. The Chardins I remembered from my previous visit; I’m not sure if I remember the Fergusson – a thought which I find rather amusing since it’s so in-your-face in comparison to Chardin. There is such vitality in the colour, the pattern and the figures. As for the Paterson – I just want to step into it.

Kelvingrove

I had to give up the idea of visiting the Hunterian for there was a power outage on campus, so I headed back to the Kelvingrove and French artists.

The paintings are arranged in a manner to encourage investigation and comparison. To see Monet and Cézanne side by side is to see dancing light beside static blocks.

There was a Wyndham Lewis which I sort of liked – although I’m not sure if the warmth of the colour isn’t outweighed by the sitter’s expression.

The Burrell Collection

A visit to the recently re-opened Burrell Collection, which is absolutely wonderful. Only a small proportion of exhibits are actually on display so it’s fascinating without being overwhelming. Some things I was expecting – Degas, Cézanne, stained glass – and other things I was bowled over by. The display of monochrome Chinese pottery between the 16th-18th centuries ordered by colour was astonishingly modern, like a Bauhaus exhibit. Yellow was the colour of the imperial dynasty and red for good fortune, for example. Chinese porcelain warriors, standing in isolation, I found interesting for the first time; the dragon knee-pads were definitely covetable.

The galleries upstairs focused on craft: glass, lace, tapestry, wood, stone, silver. Some beautiful, intricate objects which I viewed with a sense of awe at all the hours of painstaking work that went into their production. The needle lace, the woven tapestry, Dürer’s small engraving of a horse where the viewer was encouraged to look closely at the delicately etched shading and cross-hatching. Wonderful.

Then a brief visit this afternoon to the Kelvingrove to revisit the Glasgow Boys and the Colourists.

Glasgow

A wet day, so I’ve done very little of what I’d planned. Mackintosh’s Herald building is currently closed and I’d forgotten where the Daily Record building was until I finally stumbled across it. Hopefully I will get to the Burrell and/or Kelvingrove tomorrow.

Dundee

And so to Dundee – which was my motivation for coming to this part of the world. It’s been on my “to visit” list since January 2020.

Another impressive bridge across another impressive estuary, but not quite as impressive as the Forth Bridge. Another handsome Scottish town (are they all like this?!): I photographed the Desperate Dan statue first (I am a tourist after all) and looked in the direction that I expected to find the McManus gallery. At the top of the road was a neoclassical building with a very impressive portico. Obviously this was the gallery, so off I went. Nope – it was a high school. Just a high school. The McManus gallery, mind, was just as impressive in a different idiom – this time Northern European Gothic. The usual stuffed animals (which I am beginning to grow fond of), an exhibition of Dundee’s international history and links, and some lovely paintings.

Next was the V&A on the waterfront – the velcro on which Dundee’s re-invention hangs. It’s an impressive (if gimmicky) building with an interesting display of Scottish design. As is usual today, it emphasised the international foundations and exploitation that went into what is thought of as “Scottish” design (e.g. Paisley shawls). I rather liked “Tynecastle tapestry” – i.e. fake Cordoba leather wallpaper – which made me think that flocked wallpaper is presumably pretending to be velvet wall coverings.

My pleasant surprise was discovering that Discovery – the actual steam/sail ship that Shackleton and Scott voyaged to the Antarctic on in 1901 – still exists and is right next to the V&A. Next time . . .

A lovely, lovely stay. So much to discover and enjoy.

Kirkcaldy

So: Kirkcaldy. Lino. Nairn. All long gone. Raith Rovers (beside the railway line), which always brings back the memory of old Bill on a Saturday afternoon in Greece, his ear pressed to the crackly football results on the BBC World Service. It’s a very handsome town (as are so many Scottish towns) that its inhabitants may find difficult to live up to.

The Town House is just wonderful, but [sigh] difficult to photograph. There is an Adam Smith Theatre, a nightclub in what looks like a Greek temple, an impressive art gallery/museum/library, and a silvery shoreline. Goodness knows what has happened to the old lino factories, and I have the impression that there is an awful lot of Kirkcaldy that is not at all handsome (except for the Art Deco ice rink on the way out of town, which is also lovely).

The art collection is dominated by Samuel Peploe and William McTaggart thanks to a local collector and textile manufacturer, J Blyth. The Peploe paintings reminded me of the pre-Covid exhibition I had seen in Kendal. The building itself is fronted by an impressive war memorial, whose inscription makes clear that the citizens of Kirkcaldy were determined to make a better world after the death of so many of their young men.

Then along the coast to Elie and Anstruther (fish and chips). It’s a delightful coastline, and I can see that it deserves a return visit.

To Kirkcaldy

First, though, to Edinburgh for an unsuccessful visit to the Apple store. I consoled myself afterwards with a visit to the Scottish National Gallery and spent some time looking at Vision of the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel), which is a peculiar mixture of religious fervour and Japanese woodcut precision. The red background is very surprising: it jumps into the foreground, and dwarfs the subject of the painting (a bit like Brueghel’s Icarus). I also liked The Bait Gatherers by William McTaggart; some of his other paintings were slightly “Bubbles”, but this escaped sentimentalising.

And then over the Firth of Forth on the railway bridge – a first: what a view! – to Kirkcaldy. I would have loved to return to the castle ruins beside the railway station at Aberdour and walk along the coast for a bit, but my desire for nice food got the better of me and left me no time.

Kirkcaldy is a handsome town – I’m staying beside the wonderful, continental-looking Town House (begun in the 1930s and finished in the 1950s) – but doesn’t seem to have the everyday life to match. More tomorrow, when I have explored and visited the art gallery.