Glasgow 2012 – Day 8

Saturday, August 4th 2012

Quiet Glasgow
The “Saturday effect”

After breakfast we made our way through streets still quiet from what we might call the “Saturday effect”, to Queen Street station. This too was quieter than we usually find it, in the absence of the weekday commuters.

Queen Street station
Calmer without commuters

We bought day return tickets to Edinburgh because, even though we have already been to Edinburgh on this trip, there remain some galleries there that we would like to visit.

Taking the garden path
East Princes Street Gardens

Arriving in Edinburgh we made first for the Scottish National Gallery. Coming from Waverly station, it is on the other side of the eastern section of Princes Street Gardens and so we walked there along the perimeter path. This is a pleasant walk, especially when there are fewer people about.

A view across East Princes Gardens

Somewhat confusingly at first sight, the Scottish National Gallery is a member of a group with the general name of National Galleries of Scotland. With that ambiguity out of the way, the fun can begin! The SNG was holding an exhibition entitled From Van Gogh to Kandinsky, Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880-1910. In collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam) and the Ateneum Museum (Helsinki), the SNG was proposing what it billed as “the first ever exhibition dedicated to Symbolist landscape painting”.

The Scottish National Gallery
The old name is visible in gold lettering

While admission to all of the galleries is free, there is an admission charge for some special exhibitions. There was a charge for this one but our National Art Pass cards reduced this to half price. Familiar story: photography is not allowed anywhere in the gallery, so I cannot show you any inside views and will make do with the above exterior view.

The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Art over the door

Our next exhibition was at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and there is a free bus service on the hour to take you there from the SNG. By now the weather had brightened and the sun was shining so the bus ride enabled us to do some sightseeing in comfort. On arrival at the SNGoMA, we were subjected to a bag search. We have experienced bag searches at other museums and galleries but none as minute as this. They even went through our handbags, apparently in search of sharp objects. Has someone been attacking the art works, I wonder?

The neon lettering you can see above the door in the photo is an art work. It is by Martin Creed and is entitled Work No 975 EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT (2008). Apart from the dodgy spelling (when will our schools start teaching grammar and spelling again?), isn’t neon lettering as art rather passé by now? (Especially when it comprises trite sayings like this.)

Landform (2002)
by Charles Jencks

There are other art works in the grounds, which is fortunate because I can show you pictures of them whereas photography is banned inside the building. The biggest piece is the above chunk of landscaping. You can get an impression of the size from the man walking across it. I rather like it, though I am not sure whether it comes under the heading of “art” or “gardening” or both.

Reclining Figure (1951)
by Henry Moore.

We had come hoping to see a special exhibition, Edvard Munch, Graphic Works from the Gundersen Collection, but this turned out to be in another building, called Modern Two (in contrast to Modern One, where we started), fortunately a only short walk away, through pleasant parkland and there was the fun of coming across works of art dotted about under the trees.

A walk through pleasant parkland

Here there was no bag search at all. Photography is not allowed there, either, so I will again show you art works and other sights seen along the way. The sculpture you see in the above view, yet another Virgin and Child, nonetheless has an interesting twist to it.

La Vierge d’Alsace (1919-21)
by Emile-Antoine Bourdelle

This piece is quite famous or, rather, the 6-metre high stone carving that stands on a hill near Niederbruck in Alsace (France), of which this is an intermediary model, is famous. The Virgin of Alsace has, to me, a rather wild look about her eyes, and is dressed in medieval Gothic style, something the sculptor liked. The figures are modelled from his wife and daughter. A female Christ child makes a rather nice change, don’t you think?

Newton (1989)
by Eduardo Paolozzi

If “Reclining Figure” shouts “Henry Moore!” at you, then this figure lurking under the trees, and showing Newton measuring out the universe (rather like Blake’s similar picture of God), shouts “Paolozzi!”. The Scottish-Italian sculptor was born in Edinburgh and donated many of his works and other possessions to the Scottish National Galleries. I do not know anything about this piece other than its date and wonder whether it was a model for the larger sculpture that presides over the courtyard of the British Library at St Pancras.

View from a bridge
Edinburgh’s River Leith

After visiting the Munch exhibition (photos not allowed – did you guess?), we went out of the gallery parkland onto Belford Road. Here there is a bridge offering pretty views of the River Leith, the river that runs through the heart of Edinburgh. We now walked back to Modern One, to have a final look around, inside and out, while waiting for the next free bus service back to the SNG.

Half-buried man (2010)
by Anthony Gormley (but you guessed!)

At the entrance to the park of Modern One, we find this iron man, sinking or buried up to his chest in the tarmac. I don’t need to tell you it is by Anthony “Angel of the North” Gormley. It proclaims its provenance loudly enough. You can tell by the discoloration that it is much handled by passers-by and sat upon by small children. Gormley does have the knack of making figures that quickly become popular and much loved and are integrated into the community. This figure is in fact the first of six. I didn’t see the other five which are apparently beside, or possibly in, the River Leith.

Anthony Caro, Foil (1978)
You have to look at this from all angles

On our return to SNGoMA, we had another bag search and, this time, my folding scissors were confiscated, though they had not been taken the first time. Why one gallery out of three belonging to the same organization is alone in making draconian bag searches, I do not know, and an explanation would be welcome.

Princes Street Gardens
and the Scott Monument

The free bus took us back to SNG and from there we went to M&S and bought a take-away late lunch which we ate sitting on a bench in Princes Street Gardens. Later we did think of paying a visit to the National Museum of Scotland but decided that as it was already 4 pm we wouldn’t have time to do it justice, so left it for another time. Instead, we made our way to Waverley Station where a train was about to depart for Glasgow. The train brought us into Glasgow Central instead of Queen Street, as is more usual. Before continuing we stopped off for coffee at Bonaparte’s cafe bar on the upper level.

Glasgow Central station
A view from Bonaparte’s cafe bar

When we tried to leave the station, we found a thunder storm in progress, accompanied by a downpour so heavy that water was running in rivers down the streets, the drains being unable to cope. Bravely, we put on our rain jackets and set out. We decided not to risk coming out later for a meal and bought food from Tesco to eat in the hotel room. There we could shuck off our wet clothes and relax.

Despite the wet end to the day, I had enjoyed our expedition. Even though we had spent another day in Edinburgh, we had seen a completely different set of exhibitions. The art was interesting and I now have a better knowledge of Munch than before – a kind of progress, no doubt.

Don’t drown in the art work!
The lifebelt stands in front of the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art in case someone falls into Landform

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