Notes from the North 5

I loved having access to all the riches of the Louvre, the musée d’Orsay and the Pompidou while I lived in Paris and I willingly paid an annual subscription to them to be able to go any time I wanted. And I went a lot, quite often with a sketch pad and pencils too. Now I do something similar in Edinburgh, except that I don’t have to pay anything. Entrance to the permanent collections of the National Gallery (at the foot of the Mound behind the Royal Scottish Academy on Princes Street), the National Portrait Gallery (Queen Street) and the Gallery of Modern Art (Belford Road) is completely free. How often does the ordinary Edinburgh citizen take advantage of such unimpeded access to the wonderful art these places hold and how many are aware that quite soon there will be more for all of us to see as well? The project to enlarge the gallery on the Mound is well advanced and by the end of this year the main entrance on the Princes Street Gardens level will open up to new exhibition spaces and a far larger range of work by Scottish artists.

At present the upper rooms are where they display work by 19th and early 20th century artists, both Scottish and European. 

Degas, portrait of young girl
                                            
James Eckford Lauder - Baille Duncan McWheeble at breakfast


And that is also where you will find a fabulously intricate painting by John Duncan, who was involved in the Celtic Revivalist movement. 



The work shows St Bride being transported across the sea to Bethlehem to attend at the birth of Christ, (note the Celtic touches of her accompanying seal and the outline of Iona in the distance). 

 

Since I saw the painting I’ve done a bit of research on St Bride and discovered that she is one of Ireland’s three patron saints, the other two being the better-known St Patrick and St Columba. Folktale has it that she lived in the early 5th century, was the illegitimate daughter of a Christian slave, Brocca and Dubhtach, a Leinster chieftain. There are different versions of her early life but all agree that she founded Kildare Abbey, a double monastery for nuns and monks. It is said that at her blessing as an Abbess St Mel accidentally read the rites of consecration of a bishop, which once read were irrevocable. The result of this was that the Abbess ruled over the double community of women and men, the bishop being subordinate in jurisdiction to the abbess. The Catholic patriarchy seems to have tolerated this highly unusual, not to say unique, state of affairs until the Synod of Kells in 1152 when it was finally revoked. But Bride or Brigid definitely did found the abbey and Kildare still has a fine cathedral named after her. 


Elsewhere in Edinburgh, at the Stills Gallery on Cockburn Street, you can see a temporary exhibition of work by Johny Pitts 


with accompanying essays and fine poems by the great Roger Robinson (on until 10 June). 


The theme of the exhibition is ‘Home is not a Place’. 

Home is not a Place


They drove round the UK in a Mini Cooper in 2021 to search out Black history and communities. As well as the exhibition itself which has, like its creators, been travelling round the country there is a book. If you can’t get to the exhibition buy the book. Published by Harper-Collins, it is worth every penny of £25. Here’s sample poem to give you a taste of it:

 

                                                        Hiss

 

                                                        First a hiss

                                                        like the air in trees,

                                                        or the pull of waves

                                                        in nighttime seas. 

 

                                                        Radio static

                                                        of dials between stations

                                                        or steaming wands 

                                                        of coffee machines.

 

                                                        To think I could live here, 

                                                        a young Black man like me,

                                                        that upon this coast

                                                        I could live so free.

 

                                                        But as I walk in this town

                                                        I hear rather than see

                                                        the sibilance of discontent

                                                        that aims its whispers at me.

 

For me it feels as though home is definitely a place at present, currently one where I am beginning to sprout seeds and chit potatoes. Over the wall of the back garden I see signs of the new season beginning at the Willowbrae Bowling Club too. The club is just one of forty-five bowling clubs within the city boundaries according to the website of the Edinburgh Bowling League. I am not tempted to join it but I shall go to the open afternoon this coming Sunday to hear a talk by George Anderson, who is billed as a gardening expert from ‘sunny Joppa’ and TV's Beechgrove Garden. The poster says you can have a go at pétanque too, which makes me think – avec nostalgie - of the canal de l’Ourq and the games I watched on my walks.







 

 

 

 

 

Comments

  1. Martin Raim26 March 2023 at 00:45

    I really enjoyed your no. 5. Your anecdote about St Bride's accidental ascension is priceless, and I was blown away by the Johnny Pitts painting and the Roger Robinson poem. You are coming alive in Edinburgh.

    ReplyDelete

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