Edinburgh Exhibits

Farewell Aberdeen and hello Edinburgh. I'm finally back in the capital and can't wait to get back into the swing of things. Prior to starting the second year of my course, I spent a day visiting the new exhibits at the Modern and National galleries.

Modern One was showing a fantastic exhibit on Picasso and the British artists he influenced- David Hockney, Henry Moore and Francis Bacon are but a few. The body of work on display was vast and varied and the Picasso works had been selected carefully to clearly show their connection to the British works.

Unfortunately I was not prepared for the scale of the exhibition so didn't make it upstairs (too much time spent eating scones in the gallery's brilliant cafe). So if you do go be sure to leave yourself plenty of time to view all the rooms. I will definitely be making a return trip!

I then rushed across town to the symbolist landscape exhibition "Van Gogh to Kandinsky" at the National. I had been to a similar exhibit a few years ago and was disappointed after discovering only one work by the named artist was on display and the rest was fairly mediocre. This exhibit however was a pleasant surprise. Again it was vast and varied- Gauguin, Mondrian, Munch and Whistler along with some lesser known Scandinavian artists.

For me the highlights were a Mondrian "Woods Near Oele" simply because it was so free -displaying elements of fauvism as opposed to the more regimented de Stijl more commonly associated with the artist- and a Whistler cityscape that was both abstract yet precise and instantly recognisable as the Thames.

So if you happen to be in Edinburgh in the next month I would highly recommend devoting a day to these two exhibits. It's not often that Picasso, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Munch, Hockney and Kandinsky all come to town at the same time.

Plus, the chief curator of the National Gallery is currently my lecturer so it may even get me some extra credit. If only.