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:-

Last week we also visited the City Art Centre in Edinburgh to have a look at an exhibition entitled National Treasure; The Scottish Modern Arts Association. The exhibition started on Sat 21 May and runs to Sun 16 Oct 2022.

The Scottish Modern Arts Association was started in the early 1900s to foster interest in and knowledge of upcoming Scottish artists. The Association mostly comprised artists and their supporters and over the years built up a collection of over 300 art works.

Unfortunately the collection never had a home to house it in despite several possibilities being put forward. Money for a building was the main problem but also a suitable site. The Association hoped to find a benefactor who could provide both. None materialised. It might have happened but the two World Wars scuppered likely suggestions.

When the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art was proposed that could have been ideal but its proponents wanted to present modern art in a wider-world context and the Association’s collection was felt to be focused too much on works by Scots.

In the end the collection was handed over to the city of Edinburgh in the 1960s and the Association wound up.

There are many very good paintings in the City Art Centre exhibition. It’s well worth a look.

One of the artists whose work I recognised instantly was Arthur Melville. This is his A Scene in Tunis:-

Very familar too was John Henry Lorimer whose The Flight of the Swallows (see link) is featured:-

Also unmistakable was the work of Joan Eardley. Field of Barley by the Sea:-

New to me was John Quinton Pringle’s Muslin Street Bridgeton which is very good indeed.

Ian Cheyne’s Loch Duich is an unusual depiction of a Scottish Loch. There is something almost Japanese about the picture. It’s also reminiscent of the art in those 1930s railway posters but not quite so delineated:-

Earlier this week the good lady noticed that there was an exhibition of the works of John Henry Lorimer at the City Art Centre Edinburgh. That was only just in time. The exhibition opened in November but finishes tomorrow!

I have mentioned this artist before. And not just the once.

On Thursday (17^th) we made post-haste to see the exhibition before it closed.

One of the first of his pictures previously unfamiliar to me was The Long Shadows painted, like so much of his work, in the grounds of Kellie Castle in Fife. This photo does not do it justice:-

Lorimer was a good portraitist. One of the paintings on show depicted the ordination of elders in a Scottish Kirk. The figures were so lifelike in all their Calvinistic awfulness I couldn’t bear to inflict it on myself or you.

This portrait is of Lorimer’s architect brother Robert Stodart Lorimer, who designed over 300 War Memorials including the Scottish National War Memorial which lies in Edinburgh Castle:-

Typical of Lorimer’s painting of light and very like Spring Moonlight (see first link above) in its use of candlelight is Grandmother’s Birthday:-

Maternal Instinct by contrast contains very Victorian subject matter. Unfortunately reflections in the glass spoil this a little:-

The window in this one features in many of Lorimer’s paintings. I think this is The Birthday Party:-

Despite no overt lighting depiction this domestic subject is unmistakably Lorimer:-

Another fine portrait – of a lady. Unfortunately I forget whom:-

A well as oils Lorimer was very good with watercolour. This, The Gyles House, Pittenweem, is the house in Pittenweem to which the artist retired:-

Housework’s Aureole. In real life this treatment of light falling through a window onto a wall is superb. The photo is nothing by comparison:-

The exhibition’s poster image was Flight of the Swallows:-

Many more Paintings by Lorimer can be found at Art UK.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been watching Andrew Graham-Dixon’s BBC 4 TV series The Art of Scandinavia. It’s over now but you can still catch it on the iPlayer.

I hadn’t heard of a lot of the artists but there were some great landscapes in the Norway episode.

The painting which struck me most however was by a Danish artist, Vilhelm Hammershøi. It’s called Dust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams. I found an illustration on the net on this page and I reproduce it below.

A stunning depiction of light, I hope you’ll agree.

In its use of the qualities of light I was immediately reminded of John Henry Lorimer’s Spring Moonlight, which I blogged about here.

As well as Spring Moonlight, which I forgot to mention in the previous post about it is a huge canvas, Kirkcaldy Art Gallery also has on display at the moment two further Lorimer pieces of more normal dimensions, Sundown in Spring, Kellie Castle:-

and View of Kellie Castle:-

both of which exemplify Lorimer’s distinctive style. The pictures are taken from Art UK which is the successor site to BBC’s Your Paintings.

Kellie Castle was the home of the Lorimer family and is worth a visit if you’re ever over in the East of Fife.

I posted about my favourite painting in Kirkcaldy Art Gallery, Spring Moonlight by John Henry Lorimer, a while back. One of the things that makes it so effective is the way that light seems to shine out of the two table lamps depicted.

Well, I was in Edinburgh last week and to kill some time visited the Scottish National Gallery and in their Scottish section (for some reason tucked away in a basement at the back) and saw another painting that captures light wonderfully well, Wandering Shadows by Peter Graham.

Once again the reproduction here (from BBC Your Paintings) doesn’t do the painting justice but in the gallery the patches of light on the hill on the left were incredibly realistic.

Wandering Shadows by Peter Graham:-

Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery has a very good collection of paintings, many of them donated by Michael Portillo’s grandfather on his mother’s side, John W Blyth (his father was a Republican refugee from the Spanish Civil War.)

The Gallery’s pictures include quite a few by the Scottish Colourists particularly S J Peploe but also J D Fergusson, the wonderfully named Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell and Leslie Hunter. These counterpart earlier paintings by William MacTaggart and later ones including some by the mysteriously popular Jack Vettriano (sub-Hopper cartoonish efforts though they may be.)

My favourite however has always been Spring Moonlight by John Henry Lorimer, painted in 1896.

The above is not a very good reproduction; it doesn’t reflect the quality of his depiction of light. Lorimer’s faces aren’t the best but he captures the swirl of the woman’s gown very well and in the flesh so to speak you could swear that the canvas contains two yellow sources of illumination emanating from the table lamps. It is a startling effect and the artist’s style is distinctive – even if it doesn’t come through so strongly in his portraits. On visiting Kellie Castle last summer I immediately recognised the painting below as being by the same hand.

Both pictures from BBC Your Paintings

The Museum and Art Gallery reopened in June after refurbishment. Its first exhibition was The People’s Pick – paintings from the collection as voted for by readers of the local newspaper The Fife Free Press.

When I was going round I was dreading the revelation of the most popular painting fearing it might be a Vettriano.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered No. 1. was….

Spring Moonlight by John Henry Lorimer!

My taste in art is obviously less highbrow than I might have hoped.