Contemporary Art

So we went to the next building and saw some really cool newer stuff. There was photography by Jonathan Owen.

This military figure has a pretty clear political statement.

 

 

There was a whole room of Charles Avery, who invented his own land where the natives had their own traditional dress and were colonized by another group.

This was a fun  installation that had to do with Divine and the film Female Troub;e. The piece is supposed to be a room at a particular time in the early 70s. There is a script of what the characters would do and say. The room was dirty and full of  grungy stuff from the time period.

 

Another huge piece had all these animals and Appalachian music.

 

As we were leaving we saw this video clock which had people moving the red pieces in order to keep the clock at the correct time.

When we left the museum, we were hungry so we set out to find a place to eat.

 

 

We found this place that gives its profits to charity and they had really good food!.

 

I got this yummy curried seafood salad.

This was in the newer part of town- a part wehadn't seen too much of.

 

An Afternoon in Edinburgh's National Gallery

So it was time for lunch again and we headed to the royal mile for food.

On our way we passed the writer's museum. It's cool that they have a writer's museum and it was free, so we visited it. It highlights three famous Scottish writers, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robbie Burns and Sir Walter Scott. Mostly there are prints to look at, but they had a little diorama of Robert Louis Stevenson at work. He was born in Edinburgh.

We headed toward the national Gallery, past the famous landmarks in the park.

Across a bridge...

 

and decided to stop for lunch first. We were tired and hungry.

 

We've discovered that Art Gallery Cafes are usually fairly reasonable in price and have good quality food.

 

 

This food was appropriately aesthetic in presentation and quite tasty too. (I got herring since it is a common food in Scotland).

 

Violet got squash  soup and hot cocoa.

There weremany famous painters in the gallery and I took many photos. I'll mostly let the images speak for themselves.

I adore medieval and renaissance art, so I am always thrilled to find a good collection of it.

 

 

 

The madonna of the Rock is perhaps the most famous piece in the museum.

 

They encourage the arts by having free classes. If I had had more time I would have joined in.

 

As you can see they had an actual model for the students and a teacher who went around and gave suggestions.

 

 

There was a whole room devoted to Titian (where they were holding the class).

 

 

This Rubdens painting of St. Ambrose is fairly well known. (With reason)

 

There were several Rembrandts in the museum, including this famous self-portrait and the image above.

 

 

 

These deco paintings were kind of fun!

 

 

Of course there was also furniture and other objets d'art.

 

Francois Boucher's portrait of Madame Pompadour was also here.

 

 

Van Gogh was well represented too.

This is one of many similar Renoirs of a mother and child.

 

And of course I'm a push-over for Degas, so I was happy to see a couple of his dancer paintings too.

 

 

The impressionists had a nice section of the gallery. This moody, stormy picture quite captured my fancy.

 

 

And there was Gainsborough.

 

When we had had enough art we headed back to the park, past Robert Louis Stevenson, but our adverntures of the day were not over. There was more to come.