Two days ago (Wednesday) I was in the Sainsbury’s at Straiton in Edinburgh. I happened to notice that the shop assistants’ name badges had poppies engraved on them.

It was October 10^th! Over a month till Remembrance Day.

(Okay; same time interval as last year.)

Last night a woman in the Question Time audience was sporting a largish cloth poppy. First TV sighting of the year. At least I can be sure she wasn’t corralled into wearing it.

As seen at Ingliston Antique Fair, Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, Edinburgh, September 2017.

“Ground” level view:-

“Platform side” view:-

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:-

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.

The art exhibition with the above title is on at ModernTwo (The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art,) Edinburgh until 21/10/2018.

Nolde was born in a part of Germany that became Danish after a plebiscite in 1920 (though had presumably been Danish before the war of 1864) thought of himself as German yet retained Danish citizenship.

I noticed at the entrance that the gallery felt it had to emphasise it in no way endorsed Nolde’s anti-semitic views.

Despite those views and his membership of the Nazi party Nolde’s works were the single most withdrawn from museums by the Nazis (1,052 works) and the most represented in their Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst) Exhibition, which managed to draw huge crowds – some of whom were quite enthusiastic about the contents.

I found myself not knowing quite what to make of Colour is Life. Some of the paintings were undoubtedly grotesque like Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve after expulsion from the Garden of Eden

and his Immaculate Conception (which I cannot find an example of to embed here) showing the mother of Jesus in an attitude of ecstasy as the Holy Spirit hovers nearby is in a similar style only more so.

Others are reminiscent of Toulouse-Lautrec posters, only more garish:-

On the other hand some of his pen and ink drawings reminded me of the Rembrandt ones in the exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery.

His depiction of the sails in one of his paintings of junks looked like Japanese calligraphy. I’m not sure I’ve found the exact match, the original image of the one below is apparently copyright so this is only a thumbnail:-

This is a more colourful version of a similar subject:-

The introductory video from the exhibition’s web page is also on YouTube:-

This memorial stands above Princes Street Gardens, to the south side of Princes Street, Edinburgh, and was originally erected to commemorate the men of the Royal Scots Greys who died in the Boer War, 1899-1902.

Dedication plaques facing Princes Street. The top one is the commemmoration of the dead of the Boer War (the Second Boer War, aka the South African War.) The lower plaque is to the Scots Greys fallen of the Second World War.

There are further dedication plaques on the western and eastern faces of the monument. The upper plaque here names privates of the Royal Scots Greys who died in the Great War. The lower states, “This memorial was erected in 1906 in memory of the Royal Scots Greys who gave thier lives in South Africa during the Boer War 1899 -1902. Tablets were added after the First World War 1914 to 1918 and after the Second World War 1939 to 1945. In 1971 the Royal Scots Greys amalgamated with the 3rd Carabiniers to form the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers and Greys.)”

Here the upper plaque names officers, NCOs and men who died in the Great War. The lower plaque commemorates the dead of conficts since 1945; in Korea, Northern Ireland and Iraq.

This is situated in the west end of Princes Street Gardens.

From west:-

The wording below the frieze reads, “If it be life that waits I shall live forever unconquered if death I shall die at last strong in my pride and freedom.”

From east:-

Central figure. The inscription on the plinth reads, “The Call 1914. A Tribute. From Men and Women of Scottish Blood and Sympathies In the United States of AMERICA to SCOTLAND.”
“A People that jeoparded their lives unto the Death in the High Places of the Field.” Judges V 18:-

Information plaque; situated to the east side of the memorial as a whole:-

Wojtek was the mascot of a Polish Division which fought for the Allies during World War 2.

The inscription on the panel reads, “Wojtek. In memory of the Polish men and Women who fought ‘For Your Freedom and Ours.'”

In June 2017 we actually had a wander through a part of Princes Street Gardens where we hadn’t ventured before – or at least I can’t remember doing so.

I saw this delightful lamp standard at the foot of the stairs leading from Princes Street to the gardens.

The latest exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland, Princes Street, Edinburgh – Rembrandt: Britain’s Discovery of the Master features quite a lot of paintings by the artist as well as many prints made from his etchings/engravings, along with other artworks by those who were influenced by him.

Of the two perhaps most famous of the paintings featured I found Belshazzar’s Feast to be somewhat overblown. (In the flesh it is a bit brighter than it seems here.) :-

The Mill is more restrained but an imagined Dutch scene I’d have thought. That promontory is just a bit too high, though the picture seems to have inspired many other artists.

His portraits, though, are stunning. Among those whose representations I could find on the net – these may disappear after the exhibition ends – are:-

An Old Woman Reading – originally thought to be a portrait of the artist’s mother:-

and Girl at a Window which is said on the caption to be so lifelike that passers-by at Rembrandt’s studio would speak to its subject. (That seems a bit unlikely, why would the painting be near or in a window?)

Two pictures in the exhibition capture light very well. Rembrandt’s own Landscape with the Rest at the Flight into Egypt:-

(The English artist Joshua Reynolds is on record as complaining that Rembrandt painted light rather than the objects which it reflects from. Each to his own.)

The Holy Family by Night – thought now to be school of Rembrandt rather than by the artist himself:-

An example of his etching is The Three Crosses (more properly Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves):-

I must confess I preferred his etchings of rural scenes such as The Three Trees to the religious ones as in Christ Presented to the People.

He was the first (or among the first) artist(s) to recognise the commercial possibilities of the limited edition, altering plates to make variorum prints. The popular title given to the one below reflects the price it is said to have achieved.

The Hundred Guilder Print:-

One of the most interesting exhibits, in a glass case in one of the rooms, was an actual etched copper plate set alongside a print made from it.

An introductory video to the exhibition can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=141&v=F1pjZqg5fTM.