Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
THE NATIONAL GALLERIES' COLLECTION
The
National Gallery of Scotland
is just one part of the national art collection housed
around Edinburgh. Other works of the
National Galleries' collection
are on display at the
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
(see p.78) and the
Scottish National Gallery of
Modern Art
(see p.80), housed in two neighbouring buildings, Modern One and Modern Two.
A
free bus service
connects the National Gallery of Scotland with Modern One and Two
(outbound: daily 11am-4pm, every hour on the hour except 1pm; return: 11.30am, 12.30pm,
2.30pm, 3.30pm & 5pm).
hough by no means as vast as national collections found elsewhere in Europe, it
does include a clutch of exquisite Old Masters and some superb Impressionist works.
Benefiting greatly from being a manageable size, its series of elegant octagonal rooms
are enlivened by imaginative displays and a pleasantly unrushed atmosphere.
On the ground floor the rooms have been restored to their 1850s appearance with
pictures hung closely together on claret-coloured walls, often on two levels, and
intermingled with sculptures and objets d'art to produce a deliberately cluttered effect. As
a result some lesser works, which would otherwise languish in the vaults, are on display, a
good 15ft up. he
layout
is broadly chronological, starting in the upper rooms above the
gallery's entrance on the Mound and continuing clockwise around the ground floor.
Early works
Among the Gallery's most valuable treasures are
Hugo van der Goes
'
Trinity Panels
, on a
long-term loan from the Queen. Painted in the mid-fifteenth century, they were
commissioned by Provost Edward Bonkil for the Holy Trinity Collegiate Church,
which was later demolished to make way for Edinburgh's Waverley Station. Bonkil can
be seen amid the company of organ-playing angels in the finest and best preserved of
the four panels, while on the reverse sides are portraits of James III, his son (the future
James IV) and Queen Margaret of Denmark. he panels are turned by the gallery every
half-hour.
European highlights
Poussin's
Seven Sacraments
are proudly displayed in their own room, the floor and
central octagonal bench of which repeat some of the works' motifs. he series marks
the first attempt to portray scenes from the life of Jesus realistically, rather than through
images dictated by artistic conventions.
Rubens
'
he Feast of Herod
, recently enlivened
by meticulous restoration, is an archetypal example of his sumptuously grand manner,
its gory subject matter overshadowed by the gaudy depiction of the delights of the
table. Among the canvases by
Rembrandt
are a poignant
Self-Portrait Aged 51
and the
ripely suggestive
Woman in Bed
, which is thought to represent the biblical figure of
Sarah on her wedding night, waiting for her husband Tobias to put the devil to flight.
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary
is the largest and probably the earliest of the
thirty or so surviving paintings by
Vermeer
.
Scottish and English works
On the face of it, the gallery's Scottish collection, ambitiously covering the entire
gamut from seventeenth-century portraiture to the Arts and Crafts movement, is a bit
of an anticlimax. here are, however, a few significant works displayed within a broad
European context. Both
Gavin Hamilton
's
Achilles Mourning the Death of Patroclus
,
painted in Rome, and Arts and Crafts painter
Robert Burns
's
Diana and her Nymphs
are
finer examples of arresting Scottish art.
One of the most popular portraits in the gallery is the immediately recognizable
painting of a lesser-known pastor,
Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch
,
by Henry Raeburn.
