(Photo taken with my dumb phone, apologies.)

I can’t get over how good the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Scotland is. It’s to die for. Velazquez! Rembrandt! Poussin! Raphael! They have a Vermeer. (There are only 34 in existence, after all.) There’s a great Frederic Church of Niagara Falls which made me feel homesick. I don’t understand why all of the Gallery’s publicity focusses so much on the Raeburn of the minister skating and Sargent’s Lady Agnew of Lockhart (which is all right, not even my favourite Sargent) when they have so many better paintings.  (I do know why, it’s called nationalism, but come on, Raeburn is not the equal of Raphael. Or Velazquez.)

Anyway, they have an excellent collection of Baroque and Italian Renaissance paintings, including two rather spectacular Titians. Andrea Del Sarto, Botticelli, and El Greco get a look in as well. There’s a great Claude (“Landscape with Apollo”), and an equally great portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds (“The Ladies Waldegrave.”)  The Rubens is of the Feast of Herod, which is totally a lost opportunity to paint Salome’s Dance of the Seven Veils, instead of everyone sitting at a table. I’ve already gushed over Poussin. Zuburan is another fave who is there. Oh, and Gauguin’s Vision after the Sermon, which is one of my favourite paintings ever. (I think the National of Museum of Wales has actually has the edge when it comes to Cezanne.) I’m beginning to feel that during the 5 years I lived in Edinburgh, every moment I spent somewhere other than in the National Gallery of Scotland was wasted.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to squeeze in a trip to the modern and contemporary collection on this trip because the gallery isn’t in the city centre.

Serious question: why was the Baroque period so much better than any other period? In music, Bach, Purcell (Dido and Aeneas is a work of genius), Monteverdi, Handel. In architecture, Sir Christopher Wren. In poetry, John Donne and Andrew Marvell.  In painting, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Poussin, Claude, Caravaggio, Rubens, Vermeer, Tiepolo, Ruisdael, Albert Cuyp. All you need right there. Let’s add Zuburan, Ribera, Guercino, Salvator Rosa and de la Tour, who maybe aren’t quite first rate, maybe not quite as tasteful, but almost. And let’s not forget Artemisia Gentileschi.

Rembrandt’s Woman in Bed, c. 1645, National Gallery of Scotland