Glasgow -- Edinburgh; Sept. 7-11

9/7 

We took and all day trip to Inverness and back.  350 miles.  

9/8 Monday

   Burrell Collection Museum.

   William Burrell was a shipping and trading tycoon who collected eclectically.  He left his stuff to Glasgow in 1944 with funding for a museum building.  Bad timing.  It was finally opened in the 80s. The architects were Barry Gasson and Brit Anderson. They designed a space open to the outside with natural light.

Under the terms if the donation, the museum was required to replicate several rooms from Burrell's home.

Reflecting Burrell's good taste, this Ming cabinet:

Tang Dynasty horse with unusal pose:

An ichneumon (pharonic weasel):

The "Warwick Vase", from ancient Rome:

Next we went to the Tenement House

No photos inside. Tenement has a different meaning to our usage. It is merely an apartment building with no necessary connotation of slums. In fact, this one was middle class. It consisted of a parlor, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. Of interest were the closet beds, just what they sound like spaces the size of beds with beds. I compare the American Murphy bed.

More Charles Rennie Mcintosh:

Macintosh’s career took off when he won an anonymous contest to design a new school of art building.  The building suffered very bad fire damage in April...

... so you cannot visit the library, which is considered the main attraction.  We had a student take us around the neighborhood for an hour. Details from the school building:

Macintosh left us several tea rooms. We had tea at this one, of which he and his wife designed all aspects.

These chairs were more comfortable than the others we tried the other day.

Sept 9, Tues.

We spent the first part of the day at the Kelvingrove Museum.  It’s is a pompous, but still beautiful Victorian Building.

The museum’s painting collection has one masterpiece, Dali’s Chirst of St. John on the Cross.   They've made a separate room for it.

After the painting was badly damaged by a madman in then 60s, the Museum has added protective glass or plastic.  The reflections seriously detract from the impact of the work. There was an informative film about the restoration.

We caught a train to Edinburgh, about an hour away. Edinburgh has been warm and sunny for almost the entire time we have been here.

We had dinner at Ghurka, an excellent Indian restaurant: momo, dal, butter chicken.

Sept 10  Wed.

Today we went to the Scottish National Gallery.  It if fairly small, but full of many marvelous works: 

Bruce liked this Pissaro a lot more than Leslie:

She preferred Cezanne's Big Trees

Orchard in Blossom, van Gogh:

The knock you over Van Gogh Olive Trees:

A really early Seascape by Monet (1864)

Young Viola Player, Gerrit Dou:

We learned about the UK "acceptance in lieu scheme"' whereby the Government accepts artwork in lieu of inheritance taxes.  The artwork is then allocated to museums by some sort of bidding process anmongst the public museums.

We learned a new art term today:  "bodycolor" is any type of opaque watercolor.  Today the term gouache is often used.  

Sept. 11.  Thurs.

After leaving our ailing computer at the shop, we went to the Castle.  ( of course, the camera chip stayed in the computer, so no pictures today, perhaps none needed.)  In addition to being a castle, there are three war museums.  There we learned that the Scots fought and are proud of it.  They fought each other. They fought the English.  Then they joined with the English and fought the rest of the world.  In the two world wars, the Scots lost a disproportionate number of men.

We are reminded that this this is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I.  Both here and in England, we see many poppy wreaths.  We associate poppies with World War I.  Here they seem to be for veterans of all wars.

Perhaps this was a good day to be honoring veterans.

We stopped at St Giles Cathedral.  We were not so impressed with the cathedral. It is in origin, of course, Roman Catholic, but now serves as the main Presbyterian church of Edinburgh and is considered the "mother church" of that form of Protestantism.   Unlike in Holland, this cathedral was not stripped, but remains visually a Catholic cathedral (except, of course, no crucifix).  St Giles was a 7th century hermit in France.  He was hit by an arrow intended for a stag.  Hospitals for the poor and lepers are dedicated to him.  

Dinner at the Abbottsford, a good pub. Three kinds of sausage (pork, beef, lamb) and mash, cheese plate.