Brantwood, Coniston Water, Lake District

Posted on 20 September 2024 by Katrina

A couple of weeks ago we drove to the Lake District which we hadn’t visited for about ten years. One of the first places we went to was Brantwood, the house which John Ruskin had built above Coniston Water.

It was a great choice of location.

It isn’t a terrifically grand house, I think it could be comfortable, which you can’t say for all such places. It’s often used for art and nature exhibitions. The rug and dress displayed in the photo below were made of nettles, something which they did during World War 2 as fabric was so scarce, These items looked like they had been made out of fine linen, I was agreeably surprised.

The dining room table below had been set using modern pottery by quite a well known potter I believe, so not in keeping with the house but good for exhibiting purposes.

Ruskin was a keen collector of ‘stuff’ beginning as many of us do with shells and stones.

But his collection is somewhat different from mine!

Ruskin’s bedroom below is very much a bachelor’s room. Originally there were paintings by Turner on the walls but they were sold off after his death, these ones are copies, but they’re really good.

The little bay window below is a tiny room just off his bedroom, there’s only really space for one armchair in it but it would be the perfect place to sit and read, if you could tear your attention away from the scenery.

There are various other buildings around the house which are used for exhibitions or for teaching. Below is a textile exhibition with nettle fabric, wool and silk.

There’s no doubt that John Ruskin was a strange man, sadly he’s probably best known nowadays for not consummating his marriage with poor Effie Gray. But he was an artist, writer, art critic, he was interested in so many things. I suppose he was either gay, just not interested in sex, but wanted to possess his lovely wife, just as he possessed other ‘things’. There’s no doubt that he was a handsome chap himself. You can read more about him here. I’ve only just realised that his parents were Scottish.

Sir John Lavery exhibition

Posted on 15 September 2024 by Katrina

A few weeks ago we travelled in to Edinburgh to visit the Sir John Lavery exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy. His painting below is of Edinburgh’s Princes Street with the Scott monument and castle rock domineering – as they do. The exhibition is strangely titled An Irish Impressionist, because Lavery has always been regarded as being Scottish as although he was born in Ireland he was orphaned very young, aged five I think, and moved to Scotland to be brought up by an uncle. Sadly the exhibition isn’t free, unless you are a ‘Friend’. It costs between £5 and £19 apparently, but we are Friends of the Galleries.

Below is his “View from the Canal” which was actually the River Kelvin. This was at the International Exhibition at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove in 1888.

Evening Tangier – below.

The painting below is called The Intruders but whether it refers to the geese or the children is anybody’s guess.

Coast defence below has a lot of reflections in it. It dates from his time as a war artist.

Below is Hendon 1917.

I realy like the one below which is of the main building at the 1888 International Exhibition. Electricity was used for public illumination in Scotland for the first time there.

As my great friend Joan remarked – his style is reminiscent of John Singer Sargent.

Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud – 20 Books of Summer 2024

Posted on 18 August 2024 by Katrina

Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud was first published in 2014, by Bloomsbury. I had meant to read this book when it first came out, not ten years later. It’s one of my 20 Books of Summer.

It’s well known I think that Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh moved from Glasgow to Suffolk when his career in architecture had ground to a halt. As World War One progressed they got into trouble with the authorities as some of the locals decided that the strange couple with the odd accent (Scottish) must be spies. Esther Freud has woven a story around them, embroidering what had happened to them there and how it impacted on them, as seen through the eyes of Thomas Maggs, a young boy with a damaged foot, something that he has in common with CRM.

Thomas lives on the Suffolk coast, his father is a publican, he’s abusive as a father and husband, and of course he has a drink problem, so Thomas doesn’t have a good relationship with him. When Mackintosh and his wife arrive in the area Thomas is attracted to the couple who show an interest in his own drawings and befriend him.

The Mackintoshes have money problems and Mac can’t even sell his exquisitely painted botanical art, never mind get architecture commissions, to make matters worse there are problems within Margaret’s family so she has to be away in Glasgow at times.

I enjoyed this one although it is tinged with sadness as the war takes its toll of the locals. There’s some lovely writing, descriptions of flowers, scenery and seascapes. But as you would expect The Glasgow School of Art also features and in the author’s acknowledgements at the end of the book she adds her own ‘heartfelt appreciation of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service for the skill, courage and determination they showed in overcoming the blaze that raged through the Glasgow School of Art just as this book was going to press.’

Of course fire came back again for a second bite of that building, such a tragedy. The remains, just a shell, are still wrapped in plastic, waiting for some sort of decision. It’s a deeply depressing sight.

Adam Bruce Thomson at The City Art Centre, Edinburgh

Posted on 3 August 2024 by Katrina

We went to the Adam Bruce Thomson exhibition at The City Art Centre in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago. The exhibition is titled The Quiet Path.

Below is his painting of Dean Bridge, a part of Edinburgh which looks very much the same now as it does in his painting.

Below is his painting of the North Bridge with the Salisbury Crags in the background, Edinburgh.

With a very different style he painted the village of New Galloway, below.

In Bringing in the Hay below he has documented a part of social history, before everything on farms was mechanised.

In another style Adam Bruce Thomson portrays The Royal Engineers Building a Bridge, below, a scene he would have witnessed in his time in the Royal Engineers in World War I. If you want to see more of his works have a look here.

This is a great exhibition which is in a gallery just off the main streets of Edinburgh, at the back of Waverley Station, it’s well worth a visit if you are in Edinburgh. As the Edinburgh Festival started yesterday when we happened to be in the city, it felt like the hordes had descended on the place, apparently the population doubles in August.

Petronella Oortman’s dollhouse, The Rijksmuseum

Posted on 13 May 2024 by Katrina

Last year we visited the Rjksmuseum in Amsterdam for the first time, it was amazingly busy, despite having to pay quite a lot to get in when such places are free in the UK.

The photos below are of a dollhouse which was never meant to be a toy. It was owned by a woman, Petronella Oortman. She was a wealthy woman and she spent a large amount of money on her miniature house, which is actually quite large. It’s fitted out beautifully. Having a house like this was the equivalent of a man having a cabinet of curiosities.

The doll’s house is huge. I couldn’t fit it all in one picture so the one below is a stitch of two

Such was the Doll’s House’s fame that someone painted it. The painting hangs on a wall nearby

It’s a very popular exhibit so I wasn’t able to spend as much time looking at its nine rooms as I would have liked, mind you I could have looked at it all day.

Another fairly large doll’s house belonged to another Petronella! Petronella Dunois

A closer view of upper portion

Bannockburn

Posted on 7 May 2024 by Katrina

We visited Bannockburn recently, a place we had never been before, it’s not far from Stirling. The famous battle was fought there in 1314 although there’s no actual archeological evidence of the battle now, the geography of the battle was known as it was the bogginess of the terrain and Bruce’s knowledge of it which led to the Scottish victory. There’s now a visitor centre there, but the statue in the photo below of Robert the Bruce by Pilkington Jackson was placed there in 1964. I have to say that modern day sculptors seem to have lost the art of sculpting, this one is really good.

There’s also a rotunda below, with a massive flagpole which dates from Victorian times although the rotunda is much more modern.

Inside the actual visitor centre we enjoyed a really informative talk by Callum, who certainly knows his subject. He used cards to explain where each army was and pushed them around as they moved around the battlefield. There were also animated films which Jack thought were a bit amateurish looking, but I really liked them, there were two dimensional figures which had a feeling of puppets the way they moved, I thought it was quite artistic.

The articles on display are all reproductions as there are no archaeological finds in the area at all. As the soldiers in the Scottish army weren’t actually paid they were given permission to pick over the battlefield and take anything away that they wanted, it would have been picked clean, anything which had been missed would have sunk into the bog over the centuries.

This is the view down to the area where the battle took place.

If you happen to be interested in the battle there’s a good You Tube animation of it below. The narrator is somewhat strange, there are some mistakes in pronunciation of basic words such as Scone which should not be pronounced like the baked scone, but should rhyme with ‘boon’ and incursion doesn’t have two ‘s’ sounds, plus the spelling is all American, but I suppose that’s me nit-picking.

The Willow Tea Rooms, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow

Posted on 5 May 2024 by Katrina

Last week we had a couple of days away over in the west of Scotland, and on one of the days we took the train to Glasgow, something that Jack used to do on a daily basis and I did at least once a week, it was a bit of a nostalgia trip, despite the trains being completely different. Anyway, we were aiming for The Willow Tea Rooms in Sauchiehall Street. They were designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, they had been fairly recently refurbished, and have now been taken over by the National Trust for Scotland.

As you can see from the photo below, the pedestrianised area of the street is having work done on it at the moment, the whole place is a mess and as usual there didn’t seem to be any actual work going on, you have to be quite determined to reach the tea room!

We were sitting right at the window but as you can see from the photo below they have it screened by curtains so you don’t see people going past, and they can’t see in. It was a very busy Friday lunchtime so the place was packed downstairs, but the food was good.

The staff must be well used to people going around taking photos of the decor, as nobody batted an eyelid when Jack did that. I love the details, Mackintosh was quick to give his wife Margaret Macdonald the credit for designing and working many of the textiles that feature in ‘his’ work

In the 1970s and 80s the tea rooom was shut and it was being used by Carrick the jewellery shop. They specialised in silver jewellery which was inspired by Mackintosh’s designs. It was more successful than many others and nowadays you can still buy some of the jewellery on Ebay and in ‘antique’ shops. There is an awful lot of ‘Mockintosh’ stuff around though which isn’t so pleasing to the eye – or my eye anyway.

Have you ever been in a tea room which actually had a bell on the table to summon assistance? Everyone was very attentive so they weren’t really necessary. Mind you I didn’t hear one actually being used!

The photos above and below are of the second floor room which wasn’t being used at the time, it’s a sort of gallery and you can look down to the ground floor from there. There is another floor above that one which I suspect is used for special occasions like weddings – maybe.

Anyway, this visit was something that we had been planning to do for ages, then along came Covid and it was postponed yet again. We’ll go back for another visit sometime, the desserts were delicious!

The McManus Museum and Art Gallery, Dundee. Impressed Exhibition

Posted on 4 April 2024 by Katrina

In March we visited several art galleries, mainly in Edinburgh but we also visited the McManus Art Gallery and Museum in Dundee. They have an exhibition on called Impressed. It features limited edition prints by fairly well known artists.

The print below is by William McTaggart and is called Roses Against a Night Sky.

The print below is called Houses Hampstead and it’s by Winifred McKenzie.

Below is Homage to Modern Art by Ian Hamilton Finlay. As you can see the glass is very reflective so I’m featuring in it too! I just like boats, especially if they have sails they always look elegant.

Not to everyone’s taste, below is one by Eduard Paolozzi, I suppose it comes under the heading of Pop Art.

Below is just a view of part of the exhibition, there’s quite a lot to see.

There’s even a Picasso print, but I just realised after we left that I hadn’t bothered to take a photo of it, I wasn’t too impressed! But generally the exhibition is well worth going to see, especially as it’s free.

Shifting Vistas, City Art Centre, Edinburgh

Posted on 29 March 2024 by Katrina

Last month we visted the City Art Centre in Edinburgh to see their Shifting Vistas exhibition, 250 years of Scottish landscape. It’s on until the 2nd of June 2024.

The painting above is called Threatening Storm, it’s by the Scottish artist Sir William Gillies. I took just a few photos of some of my favourites.

A Late Snowfall, Galloway by Charles Oppenheimer.

A Corrie in Argyllshire

When I saw Street in Temple (a village in Midlothian, near Edinburgh) I at first felt that it was a place that I know, but I’ve never been to Temple, it’s just so typically Scottish, it could be in almost any old town or village.

The City Art Centre is situated behind Waverley Station, it’s usually well worth a visit, whatever is on. Entry is free. And it has a good cafe.

Do Ho Suh, Tracing Time, Modern One, Edinburgh

Posted on 23 March 2024 by Katrina

I hadn’t even heard of the Korean artist Do Ho Suh when I saw the posters advertising his Tracing Time exhibition at Modern One in Edinburgh, and I must admit that the artwork on the poster didn’t really enthrall me, so I was agreeably surprised when we went along to view the exhibition – and I was quite impressed.

He obviously has a thing about homes/houses. He grew up in an old house, unlike his schoolmates.

The gallery’s website says, ‘The exhibition presents the artist’s complex and compelling thread drawings – in which cotton thread is embedded in handmade paper – alongside architectural rubbings, paper sculptures, cyanotypes, printmaking and watercolours.’

However, I think that the artist draws his designs and the sends them to someone else to transfer the drawing into a much bigger artwork,, and they embed the cotton thread into special paper, although looking closely I thought some of the thread had been machine stitched on. It all looks very delicate.

I know I’m too nit-picking about artists as even hundreds of years ago the famous ones were employing apprentices to do a lot of the work which was then passed off as Rembrandt’s or whoever. Damien Hirst seems to do very little of the dirty work himself if any. I can’t say that I really understand it because if I were them I would want to feel that sense of achievement from creating something myself.

The photo below is of the ‘house’ which appeared on the promotional poster which I saw, you can walk through the structure which has been created from what looks like knitted/woven nylon mesh, complete with the door, 3-D door handle shapes and including other fixtures in a home such as an electrical socket and a fire alarm. You have to leave any bags you might be carrying outside the structure, so that there is no danger of you snagging anything on the fabric. I think it would be just like a pair of tights if you did do that, but then most homes do have a ladder in them somewhere!

The exhibition is on until 1st September.

Pining for the West

Meanderings about recipes, books, craft and more

Category Archives: Art