Friday Follow-up

 

Since my first visit to the Modern Art Galleries in 2017, I had known there was a "back gate" that went through Dean Village Cemetery.  In fact, that's how I was directed to get there at that time, but I never did make the connection and in subsequent visits never had either.  It's something I had been wanting to see.  The main event Friday (May 27) was the visit to Burntisland to learn more about the life of mathematician Mary Somerville; the rest of the day was an unplanned afterthought, but it turned out to be a pretty cool afterthought.  The day started out a bit fraught, as Toby found his tyre flat when he came to pick me up.  He was hoping it was a slow puncture, so he aired it up before picking me up, while picking me up, just before we crossed the bridge (EEK!), and then again before we left Burntisland.  Phew!  No blow-out on the bridge!  Oh, and he also took me to the airport on the way back to Edinburgh, so we were really pushing it.  But once we hit the edge of town, Toby dropped me off somewhere on Queensferry Road, which is a major road northwest of Edinburgh so he could go straight to a tyre place at that point and get things genuinely taken care of; that was totally fine with me!  And it ended up being another "treasure find."  I had been planning to go to Scotland's National Library downtown, but it was a little late for that.  Everything closes so early in the UK that I didn't dare try. I set my phone GPS for "Modern 2," which I knew was close by.  The route I was given took me right through Dean Cemetery, which for years I had not managed to find!  I like to explore cemeteries and kirkyards, so though I only had time to walk through quickly on my journey I found it to be beautiful, and now I know exactly where it is for my next trip here, at which point I'll spend more time exploring.

In the picture below I'm looking over the wall of Modern 2 and back down at the cemetery.  How could I have missed this for years?!

The art installation on the grounds of Modern 2 always catches my eye.  I've written about it in blogs at least twice before.  When I first saw it I was taken aback and a bit offended as a Christian -- especially given the placement with the spires of St. Mary's in the background, but then I read the description inside the entrance of the museum, and I've come to really like this piece.  The artist took inspiration from a royal pronouncement that was made by a French king in the 17th century relating to a town that had such a reputation for miracles that pilgrims were flocking to it.  He became tired of the number of pilgrims (the mess and disruption it caused, I imagine), and the king erected a sign that read, "There will be no miracles here, by order of the king."  As if a king could dictate such a thing!

I find myself always drawn to my same favorites over and over.  The Paolozzi sculpture below evokes William Blake and Isaac Newton.  Another, much, much larger, version of it stands in the plaza in front of the British Museum in London.  The two pictures below this are of that one for comparison.  I had always thought they were identical, but by doing a comparison like this I see that they are somewhat different.

Looking back at Modern 2 and crossing the street to Modern 1, which is where they've moved my favorite works -- surrealist.

Water feature and sculpture on the grounds of Modern 1.

I found my Magrittes, so I'm happy!

And there was a Picasso I hadn't seen before.  In case you can't tell what it is, it is titled Nude Woman lying on the beach in the sun.  Of this piece Picasso's friend and biographer Roger Penrose writes, "With an anchor in the foreground, lying on a great expanse of beach, the rising sun as her head, a black female form was bathed in the greenish light of dawn like a shadow cast from outer space.  There was a strange unity between symbol and reality and the vast dimensions of sea and sun married to the female image were miraculously contain in a pocket-size canvas."

And I had to visit this painting again that I had seen before because I find it so whimsical and somehow hopeful.  It is by Raqib Shaw (2016) and it titled Self-Portrait with Fireflies and Faces.

I hadn't had lunch, so I headed down to the cafe, and, well, you know me  .  .  .

Modern 1 was formerly a school.  My friend Toby went to school here.  A couple of days after I visited he and I stopped in for lunch (a real lunch), and I said to him, "I bet the sign that 'everything is going to be alright' wasn't on the school when you attended here, especially not on test days!"  He agreed that it had not been and shared a few stories with me.

And then it was time to walk home to Stockbridge through Dean Village, which I think is one of the most quaint and beautiful areas in/near Edinburgh.

I had never noticed before the weird angles in which some buildings come together.

The pictures above and below are taken from the same bridge - one looking one way and one in the opposite direction.

So often I look up and see inscriptions like the following:

And then onward, toward and beneath Dean Bridge -

I cannot get enough of the Water of Leith Walkway.  If I lived here, I would walk this path every day.

This is my favorite spot, and I sat here for quite a long time just watching the water before heading back to my flat.

Pictures really don't do this place justice.  I love how the rocks stack up on each other in layers, but I just can't capture with my camera exactly what I'm seeing with my eyes.

Just above where I was sitting is St. Bernard's Well, seen below.

Later in the evening I did my search for the Edinburgh home of the Fairfax Family, but I covered that in my previous post, so that rounds out the day.