The centre piece of the Rijksmuseum’s Great Hall is Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Night Watch.

Imagine our disappointment when we entered the room in which it is displayed to see this:-

It was cordoned off and we therefore could not see it properly. Apparently minor air movements make the canvas flex, potentially damaging it, and they were measuring just how large the movements were so that they can prevent any future deterioration.

However there was a painting of a similar subject (well, lots of Dutch burghers) just to The Night Watch’s right as you look at it, which I had to take two photos of to get it all and then stitch:-

Vermeer’s milkmaid was also in the Great Hall but the lighting conditions weren’t good and my photo came out blurry.

Also nearby was this still life. Still Life with Cheese by Floris Claesz Van Dijck:-

In The Netherlands it’s sometimes difficult to tell whether a building is Art Deco or an example of De Stijl, though De Stijl tends to be starker.

Anyway I found some buildings in Amsterdam which I thought were Deco.

Horizontals, verticals, rule of three in windows, canopy, rounded window column:-

The lower windows on this one have been knackered though:-

But its detailing is good. Note the figures in the columns between the lower windows:-

This tall one has lots of verticals and horizontals plus elaborate ironwork round the windows and great detailing on upper level and towards roof:-

Another tall one was the Station Rokin Building:-

Upper Level:-

Lower level:-

This exhibition, exploring 250 years of Scottish landscape is on until the 2nd of June 2024 at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh. We visited in mid February.

These four are a sample of what you can see.

Threatening Storm by William Gillies:-

A Late Snowfall, Galloway, by Charles Oppenheimer:-

A corrie in Argyllshire, by James Lawton Wingate:-

A street in Temple by William Gillies:-

This Exhibition is at the Scottish National Gallery, Princes Street, Edinburgh but alas only till 25/2/24. The good lady and I only managed to get to it last week.

One of Hokusai’s views of Mount Fuji: “Sudden shower below the summit” from 36 views of mount Fuji:-

Kasawe Hasul’s Shin Ōhashi Bridge from Twenty Views of Tokyo:-

Concert Hall by Sybil Andrews. I liked the very Art Deco feel of this:-

A Picasso print. It looks like a ‘face’ playing card:-

Toulouse Lautrec’s ‘Jane Avril’. I grew up with Toulouse Lautrec’s prints on my grandparents’ and, later, parents’ walls. I inherited a couple which now hang in my bedroom.

There was a Hockney:-

a Vanessa Bell:-

and I rather liked this John Piper offering:-

If you want to see it you’ll have to be quick. The exhibition is due to end on Sunday.

I was so sad to hear that John Byrne, artist and playwright, has died.

People who won’t have consciously known of his work will certainly have seen it (if they are of a certain age.) He contributed album covers to the work of both Billy Connolly and – his partner in the Humblebums – Gerry Rafferty, both in his time with Stealers Wheel and his solo work.

Indeed Rafferty wrote a song, Patrick, in Byrne’s honour. (In Byrne’s early days he used his father’s – and his own middle – name.)

It was as a playwright though that Byrne made most impact on the public consciousness, firstly with the stage play The Slab Boys, for which he drew on his experiences in the paint shop of a carpet maker’s, and subsequently with the TV series Tutti Frutti  and Your Cheatin’ Heart of blessed memory.

Hie art work is distinctive. You can rarely mistake a Byrne painting for one by someone else.

The video below is illustrated with some of Byrne’s art works.

The Humblebums: Patrick

John Patrick Byrne: 6/1/1940 – 30/11/2023. So it goes.

Grayson Perry’s Smash Hits Show at the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, got a rather sniffy and somewhat off the point review in the Guardian.

Yes, it’s about Englishness, even a very Grayson Perry kind of Englishness, but why should an exhibition about Englishness not take place in Edinburgh? Especially in the middle of an International Festival.

In any case it could be argued that Englishness has had more effect on Scotland than any other influence (except perhaps Calvinism) and is therefore an entirely appropriate subject for contemplation in the Scottish capital.

One of the most intriguing exhibits at the Exhibition was a model of a ship, titled The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman. (I’m always a sucker for ship models.) Perry’s explanation of the piece is here.

Another piece, Temple for Everyone, reminded me of the story of Hansel and Gretel. See Perry’s explanation here.

I was more taken with this kintsugi piece than I was with Perry’s undamaged vases. Kintsugi* is the Japanese Art of smashing an object – especially a piece of pottery and then gluing it back tgether and highlighting the joins with gold:-

This plate, Two Old Guys Wearing Checked Skirts, like a lot of pieces at the exhibition, (far too many in fact) features Perry’s childhood teddy bear Alan Measles and is a sort of homage to the late Queen Elizabeth:-

This piece of pot, English Wanker, just about speaks for itself:-

*Edited to add: I have since found out that the Japanese frown on deliberately breaking something to reform it. Kintsugi is more properly the highlighting of imperfections – the repair of broken pottery lending itself to this.

A couple of weeks ago myself and the good lady went to the Grayson Perry Exhibition at the National Gallery in Edinburgh. It’s called Smash Hits.

I wasn’t expecting much as what I’ve seen of his work on television didn’t inspire me. However we are Friends of the National Galleries and that has various benefits – among them a discount in their cafés  (the one in Modern Two is excellent) and free entry to exhibitions such as this. (I would not have paid the entrance fee of £19.)

I had known Perry made his name as a potter and has an alter ego as Claire whom I find tiresome in the extreme.

I was, though, pleasantly surprised to see in the first gallery two sculptures which to me had a Japanese look.

Our Father and Our Mother. Clicking on the links should take you to my photos of the blurb accompanying each:-

The next gallery had a series of tapestries collectively titled The Vanity of Small Differences and based on Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress but updated for the Twenty-First century:-

Note the cafetiere and “literature” mugs in the second one above. Apparently these are emblems of being middle class. I admit to using a cafetiere. I don’t have literature mugs though.

The background in the last one seemed to me to sum up life in Britain in latter years:-

Another huge tapestry illustrated Perry’s lack of originality. It’s titled Morris, Gainsborough, Turner, Riley:-

His “Battle of Britain” ended up as a conscious channelling of Paul Nash. It’s quite effective though:-

One of the places we visited on West Dunbartonshire’s Open Day last September was the Masonic Lodge in Gilmour Street, Alexandria. It was originally built as the Ewing Gilmour Institute for Working Girls in 1888 but by 1915 it had become the “Bonhill and Alexandria St Andrew’s Royal Arch Lodge, No. 321.”

It’s fairly imposing from the outside (this is a stitch of two photos to get it all in):-

However the interior is amazing. Murals adorn the corridor’s walls. This one is above the entranceway:-

The paintings were all done by Harrington Mann and we were told the model for all the female figures was a girl from the school.

Corridor window. Note the 1888 on the run-off collector above the rone pipe to left:-

The main hall is impressive:-

Close-up on mural above fireplace and below clock:-

The hall has a hammerbeam roof:-

There was a craft sale on that day. I had to drape back some of the items for sale in order to photograph the Lodge’s Roll of Honour:-

Last week we attended the Exhibition titled A Taste for Impressionism: Modern French Art from Millet to Matisse at the Scottish National Gallery on Princes Street. The exhibition has been on for nearly two months and finishes on 13/11/22.

Some of the pictures on show weren’t quite what I would describe as impressionistic but all were worth looking at.

Two of the interesting ones for me were this Cézanne, Montagne Sainte Victoire, in which the abstract nature of the depiction of the fields in the flesh/paint looked to me to prefigure Cubism.

Thsi painting, The Open Window by Edouard Vuillard, reminded me of John Henry Lorimer:-

Also in February we went to a William Morris Exhibition at Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh. The exhibition is now over.

William Morris was one of the leading proponents of the Arts and Crafts Movement. His wallpaper patterns covered many a Victorian wall and have been fashionable on and off ever since.

Wallpaper Patterns:-

A printing block:-

Textiles:-