Edinburgh 2

Sunday 10th January

Today my friend R. and I decided to go to a couple of Art Galleries in the outskirts of Edinburgh. We particularly wanted to see the Samuel Peploe exhibition, at a Gallery that used to be called the Dean Gallery. I can't do better than quote Wikipedia about Samuel John Peploe (1871 – 1935), that he 'was a Scottish Post-Impressionist painter, noted for his still life works and for being one of the group of four painters that became known as the Scottish Colourists.'

We particularly enjoyed the early paintings, and a lot of the still life works - there was at least one of those we wanted to take home. Some of the landscapes were beautiful too, but with no photographs allowed I had to content myself with taking a photo of the poster advertising the exhibition. 

Peploe had a particular set of objects he liked to paint in his still life works and some of them were on the mantelpiece in one of the rooms, so I took a photo of them too. The coffee jug is the one from the poster and the two blue and white vases appear in many paintings containing roses or tulips.

We enjoyed this exhibition very much, so we crossed the road to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art for a very different experience. Some of the exhibits were quite strange, like the one of a material not unlike skin which made a tent-like structure supported on huge pillars.

The pillars were hollow and were filled with spices at the base, cloves, cumin and turmeric. The smell of cloves permeated the whole gallery, reminding me of the smell of Zanzibar.

The next room had an odd exhibit, a bright green carpet with white plaster objects which were vaguely plant-like scattered on it. 

Things deteriorated fast after that, as far as we were concerned. There were some extremely strange exhibits with very pretentious labels - R. and I are not fans of modern art, as you might gather. We were reduced to helpless giggles by one exhibit which seemed to have taken a child's cot and crossed the two long sides over one another; R. wondered if it was a cot for two triangular shaped babies! We left that room before our giggles caused too much offence to fans of modern art, who were regarding us with distaste. 

I have to say I wonder about some modern art. One set of drawings had a label, apparently devised by the artist,  which described them as '9 desperately shit-awful drawings'; R. and I could only agree.