Dining room:-

Ceiling of Library (formerly the servant’s Hall)

Window recess, Library. Note thickness of the wall, for defensive purposes:-

The muniments room was where the owner did his accounts and doled out money. The chair is said to be very old:-

Door to sitting room:-

Sitting room:-

Sitting room fireplace:-

Sitting room ceiling:-

van Dyk portrait of King Charles I in Drum Castle. Sadly photo did not turn out well:-

Bedroom:-

War Death Commemoration, Chapel, Drum Castle. Lieutenant Robert Hugh Irvine, the Gordon Highlanders, aged 22 years, killed at Singapore, 13/2/1942:-

This Oak Room was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for Miss Cranston’s Tea Rooms, Ingram Street, Glasgow.

After those tea rooms closed for business the room was for many years stored by Glasgow Corporation and then Glasgow Museums.

The construction of the V&A Dundee provided a space for the rooms to be on show to the public once more.

Since Falkland is only about four miles from Son of the Rock Acres I was interested in this picture of Falkland Palace as it looked in mediæval times:-

Eduardo Paolozzi designed case for storing catalogues for Nairn Floors Ltd:-

Turkey Red Designs:-

Geometric brooches:-

“Butterfly” Tiara:-

Further to my post on Abbotsford, Walter Scott must be one of the few writers to have such a legacy, which I mentioned here.

In the section of the new V&A Dundee (posts passim) devoted to Scottish design there is a model of the Scott Monument the original of which stands in Princes Street, Edinburgh.

Model of Scott Monument:-

There is also a Robert Adam chimneypiece:-

Some Arts & Crafts furniture:-

A brooch designed to resemble a galaxy:-

A poster for the Festival of Britain‘s Industrial Light and Power Exhibition at the Kelvin Hall Glasgow:-

And a bookcase/cabinet by George Logan:-

Brantwood is the art critic John Ruskin‘s home above Coniston Water, now a centre for the arts.

Entrance:-

It’s an idiosyncratic building with several sticky-out bits:-

It has a magnificent situation with great views of the lake:-

and of the Old Man of Coniston:-

Sad, sad news.

Alasdair Gray has died.

If he had never done anything else in his life his first novel Lanark (arguably four novels) would have made him the most important Scottish writer of the twentieth century’s latter half, if not the whole century. (Perhaps only Lewis Grassic Gibbon rivals him in that respect.)

But of course he published 8 more novels, the last of which I read in 2009, 4 books of short stories – see this review of one of them – 3 of poetry (I reviewed a couple here and here,) many pieces for theatre, radio and television plus books of criticism (as here) and commentary (eg see here).

Yet that was not the least of it. There is also his work as an artist and illustrator to take into account. His drawing/painting style was unique and uniquely recognisable; much admired and sought after.

A polymath and curmudgeon, learned and contrary, Gray was one of a kind.

Even as his work lives on we will miss his acerbic presence.

And I still have his The Book of Prefaces to peruse.

Alasdair Gray: 28/12/1934 – 29/12/2019. So it goes.

An Art Deco department store in Liverpool.

This picture is from Wikipedia:-

The building is known as “Dickie” Lewis or “Nobby” Lewis due to the nude statue by Jacob Epstein more properly known as Liverpool Resurgent. Again the photo is from Wikipedia:-

Unfortunately my own photograph (taken from the tour bus) was shot into the sun, hence the two above:-

Also at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s Modern One (until 28^th October) is the above titled exhibition featuring the work of Raqib Shaw.

Apparently he could not afford oil paints so started to use enamels. This gives his work the appearance of huge but intricately decorated ceramic tiles. Some of it is a bit “bling”y for me but the effect can be stunning and the detail is extraordinary particularly in the circular area of his reinvention of the Cranach. The reproductions here do not convey just how shiny his pictures are.

To do this must be so time consuming even if he does have assistants to help. I left wondering how on earth he could make a living doing this. Unless every (enamel? can you really call them paintings?) sells for tens of thousands of pounds.

Shaw speaks for himself here:-

On the upper floor at Modern One (the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art) as part of the NOW exhibition is a series of art works by schoolchildren – the winning entries in the Tesco Bank Art Competition for Schools.

Some of these are just about the best things in the gallery. See the highlights a lttle down the page in the link.

That lino cut by Lucy Clarke (Secondary 1-3) is very impressive and Lucy Cairns’s picture from the Primary 4-7 category could be an illustration from a particularly scary children’s book.

Meanwhile over Edinburgh’s Belford Road from Modern Two; at the Modern One gallery of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is an exhibition called NOW which mainly features Jenny Saville. It’s on until 12^th September.

Most of her paintings are larger-than-life-size portraits – or at least feature human figures.

Some of them verge on – or overstep the boundary of – grotesque:-

This one of what looks like a child is less so:-

The introductory video from the gallery website is below. The eyes of the child in the painting over the artist’s left shoulder are very well done.