The purpose of art...

...is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.  Pablo Picasso

And today our souls had a massive dusting :-)

Agnes and Adrian arrived at ours just before 12.30pm and we all headed to Perth Museum for lunch (two days in a row! :-) 

After lunch we headed to Perth Art Gallery.  It's the first time we've been there since it museum part of it relocated to the old Perth City Hall (now Perth Museum) so I was interested to see how they had filled the space.  I wasn't disappointed.

We started with the JD Fergusson collection previously housed in the Fergusson Gallery, which has now closed. JD Fergusson was a Scottish artist and sculptor, regarded as one of the major artists of the Scottish Colourists school of painting.  It was lovely to see the paintings close up and see how he'd put the paint down, the brush strokes and the colours.  I find it easy to get lost in the technique and sometimes have to force myself to step back and actually study the painting as a whole.  

From there we went to the Modern Scots collection, a collection of Modern Scots art featuring works by influential Scottish artists from the 20th and 21st centuries.  Two of my favourite Scottish artists are featured, John Byrne (Jock and the Tiger Cat) and Peter Howson (The Noble Dosser 1987)  

Whilst it was interesting reading the official info panels at the side of each painting, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the second info panels written by fourth year pupils at Perth High School.  Seeing the paintings through young, fresh eyes was both enlightening and at times, hilarious. And incredibly honest.  

We then went to see the GLASS exhibition, the highlight for me being Millie, Carrie Fertig's amazing glass sheep.  D popped upstairs to see the The Dark Room, featuring "the pre-digital age of photography and the Scottish photographers that paved the way"  Sadly there's no lift in the building so I had to make do with D's description of the exhibit and online info.

Finally we went to the Gallery's Lecture Theatre to see a collection of images of Bridge of Earn Hospital (closed 1992). The photos on display are from the Sandy Cowper/Louis Flood Photographic Collection and the Scottish Field Photographic Collections held by Perth Art Gallery and were taken during the late 1940s and early 1950s. So many evocative images.  I loved it! 

By then we were all cultured out and headed home for dinner, roast veg lasagne for Agnes and chicken with pesto, sun-dried tomatoes and mozzarella for D, Adrian and me.  Apple crumble for dessert.

Agnes and Adrian were staying over so we had a very relaxed evening full of chat and laughter.