Here's a shot of the National Gallery from the Edinburgh Festival site -- I tried to take a similar image but the sun was right behind the Gallery and -- it was a dreadful pic. So I turned to the web. Thanks!! The rest of the pics are mine, the good, the bad, and the crooked!
If you enter and turn left, you will begin at the chronological start of the collection, with altarpieces and paintings from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. I was particularly taken with the Titian (below) "Diana and Callisto" from 1556-59, which so clearly recalled my visit to Venice a year before.
I hastened on to visit some of my favorite Scottish and English painters from the 18th and 19th centuries. Always a favorite is Sir Henry Raeburn (1756-1823). Below, his painting c. 1795 "The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddington Loch," definitely a crowd-pleaser.
Below, Raeburn's portrait of Margaritta Macdonald, Mrs. Robert Scott Moncrieff (died 1824), painted in 1814. The Gallery says its "heightened romanticism, sensibility, and sensuality have endowed its iconic status" in the collection.
Below, portraits. Left, The Ladies Waldegrave, 1780, by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792); center, The Honorable Mrs. Graham, 1777, by Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788); right, Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, 1892, by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). Click on the pictures for larger versions.
Below, Sir William Allan's 1833 painting of The Murder of David Rizzio, showing Mary Queen of Scots at the assassination of her Italian secretary in 1566. Mary's tragic life is a frequent subject of Scottish artists.
This glorious 1867 view of 'Niagara Falls from the American Side' is said to be the only painting in Europe by American artist Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), famed as one of the original members of the Hudson River School of American landscape painters.
Two charming portraits of Scottish boys with their dogs by Sir Henry Raeburn were recently acquired by the Gallery. Below, left, is William Stuart Forbes (1802-26) in 1809; right, his younger brother John Stuart Hepburn Forbes (1804-1866) in 1812; John inherited the family title and fortune after William died at age 24.
Prominent Scottish artist Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841) portrayed 'General Sir David Baird Discovering the Body of Sultan Tippoo Sahib after Having Captured Seringapatam in the 4th May, 1799.'
Though I am leaving out many excellent paintings I loved, I will close with the great work that perfectly depicts Scotland in the mind of many of us: 'The Monarch of the Glen' painted by Sir Edwin Landseer about 1851.
Next, heading north...
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