Bartimaeus

The day after the alpaca walk Jude left us to see other friends, and have other adventures. We had ordered curries the night before to further celebrate Peter’s birthday (a few days early but he made alpaca day his new official birthday) and as usual we over ordered so we were feeding off them for a couple more meals, left over lunches then spicy fritters I made for tea, with the last of the chickpea and potato curries, using up some of the starter dips to accompany them. Thanks to Jude for her generosity in buying so much.

Shane wasn’t enjoying feeling lacklustre over the next couple of days and the weather wasn’t particularly appealing. I had the bright idea that in January the Turner paintings get their annual outing in Edinburgh. The gift to the gallery included the stipulation that they only be shown in January when the light is lowest, to preserve the colours. Shane likes the tradition and was enticed out by the walk into town and the Turner limited time offer. He remarked that a friend had recently gone to see them but went to the wrong gallery. There are two close together on the Mound. It didn’t matter as they enjoyed what they saw where they were.

We went into one without really checking which one has the Turner exhibition. It looked familiar, we have been before but some items were new to me and some familiar, but not in the same place. We enjoyed he reverend skating on Duddingston Loch. The Three Graces had been moved to a new space and nearby was a painting of three genteel ladies, seated at a table. One was making a delicate hat and the other two were assisting. It was thought the artist aimed to compliment the ladies by comparing them to the Three Graces, though they were better dressed and the Graces were not doing needlework.

I was reminded of my own needlework as I saw a painting with a man wearing a hat in the style of the one I had knitted for Peter. The man in the painting was wearing a more traditional white cloth nightcap, with the obligatory tassel.

Another painting in this section of Scottish paintings included the subject of a hunter. He had brought the unusual gift of a dead heron. Large as they are they don’t look very meaty. I han’t heard of eating them and imagine they might taste a little fishy. It doesn’t have the haughty look that the ones alongside the canal do.

I thought we had seen the Turner pictures in a lower level so we went down into the underground gallery. In stead of Turner we found another rare delight, pictures by Phoebe Anna Traquair. We had seen her painting in a church near the canal in the summer. Here were some large embroidered panels. She loved to do illuminated lettering and to use gold in her paintings. Here she used golden threads too, to  illustrate in four panels “the progress of the soul”

The first panel is full of the optimism of youth while the middle panels show trials and struggles and despair.The final panel was the ascension to heaven as seen by the red wings and golden halo and I assume the rainbow signifies mercy. I loved the brightness and sheen of the threads. There was no sign of them fading.

We still hadn’t found the Turners so thought we had picked the wrong gallery too. We were directed to the right building by a member of staff but found that the wait to get in was over an hour and then we would have only a short while left to see them, so we decided to give that a miss. We had enjoyed our illuminating outing nonetheless, and if we headed back now we would get home while it was still light.