Bath in Somerset was our main destination for our trip down south last year. Its architecture is mainly Georgian and reminded me a lot of Edinburgh.

This is Old Pulteney Street:-

To get to there from the city centre you must cross Old Pulteney Bridge:-

Though Bath’s most famous Georgian feature is the Royal Crescent (stitch of two photos):-

I must say that area of grass in front of the Crescent looked rather scruffy and unkempt.

Gable end of The Crescent:-

This block of flats is on Alexander Drive. Below is a stitch of two photos:-

Detail of taller portion. The windows have been modernised:-

Reverse view, from the car park of Wickes in Stevenson Road:-

This is in the background of my post from three days ago. It’s on the corner of Gorgie Road and Alexander Drive and used to be Poole’s Roxy Cinema. Only the facade of the cinema remains.:-

It’s glorious though:-

Detail in Alexander Drive. From the website linked to above this is a later addition, possibly from when the building was turned over to shops and flats:-

This one is on the corner of Gorgie Road and Westfield Road:-

Facade:-

Ironwork railings on balcony:-

Central Detail:-

The current Exhibition at Modern One, Edinburgh, is Tracing Time by the Korean artist Do Ho Suh, of whom I hadn’t heard until the exhibition came on. It ws quite interesting, though some of the exhibits were a bit of a miss rather than a hit.

The outline of this reminded me of the shape of the Korean peninsula:-

A fairly crude drawing of an odd subject:-

Circles or swirls feature in a lot of the exhibits:-

A somewhat scatological drawing:-

This seems to be just a shape:-

Houses, too, are a feature:-

This walk-thorough installation recreates the entrances to several of the homes in which the artist has lived:-

The Exhibition is on till Sep 1st.

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:-

Walking further round Dean Cemetery I found this monument to John Irving, Lieutenant on HMS Terror, one of only two men the remains of whose bodies were returned to the UK from the Franklin Expedition:-

Close-up:-

Several gravestones in Edinburgh’s Dean Cemetery contain dedications to those who died on active service.

Anthony Norman, Lothians and Border Horse, killed in action 20/2/1943, aged 29:-

David S C Turnbull, Lt. Black Watch and Royal Flying Corps, 1/4/1917:-

Harry Youmger, killed at St Valery, 19/6/1941, aged 41 and Laurence Younger, fell in action, Tunisia, 1943:-

Oswald Stanley Brown, 2nd Lt, 1st Black Watch, killed in action in France 22/12/1915:-

Dean Cemetery is right next to the former Dean Gallery now known as Modern Two.

On a visit last May we took a stroll through the cemetery and I came across this, which appeared to be a Crimean War Memorial:-

The plaque reads, “In memory of 369 non-commissioned Officers and men of the 79th Highlanders who died in Bulgaria and the Crimea or fell in action during the campaign of 1854-5,” with beow that on the stone steps “Alma” and “Sevastopol”.

Close-up on plaque:-

However, a plaque on the other side of the memorial is dedicated to the East Indies Campaign of 1857-1871:-

On the step below it is commemorated “Lucknow”:-

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.