Edinburgh day 2

This morning I went to the magnificent modern art galleries – which were originally built to benefit orphans and fatherless children. You can’t help wondering who really benefited from the grandeur (as opposed to the charitable provision).

There was an exhibition of works – “I want to be a machine” –  by Andy Warhol and Eduardo Paolozzi (whom I now realise I have confused for years with Edward Ardizzone; it always mildly surprised me that the sculptor of the Isaac Newton statue outside the British Library and the designer of the bright tiles of Tottenham Court Road tube station had a sideline as a children’s book illustrator). It was quite interesting, bringing comparisons and contrasts to mind as I wandered through the rooms. Warhol’s drawings were – unsurprisingly for a commercial artist – pleasant and forgettable. Many of them – the most forgettable – were produced by tracing photographs from magazines. Some of his silk screen prints were on display – Jacqueline Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe – and they did make you think about the ubiquity of images on the modern world. Unlike Raphael yesterday, Warhol and Paolozzi were working in a period saturated with images and innovation. I don’t think Warhol had anything profound to impart in his visual work, but it does encourage you to ask yourself a few questions. Paolozzi, in contrast, seemed to encompass all of western art in his creations. The half-human-half machine images made me think of all those ancient metamorphic myths (Daphne, Philomena, Narcissus) and the early 20th-century ambiguity about the mingling/mangling of man and machine that I saw in the Aftermath exhibition last year. Paolozzi at times also echoed Ferdand Léger (the Cleish Castle ceiling panels) and Searle’s Molesworth (Automobile Head).

After a reviving cup of coffee, I headed over the road to the sibling gallery. There are sculptures displayed in the grounds of both buildings*: Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Rachel Whiteread (“Untitled – Pair”. They looked like bathtub sarcophagi. She is much admired so I feel that I should try, but [sigh] . . . her shapes don’t have the tactile grace that attracts me to the others.) Also some neon banalities from Martin Creed (although I like the marble steps by the side of The Scotsman on North Bridge.  I’m sure he polished and laid each one himself, and I doubt that they are ever slippery up here in dry, warm Scotland).

But back to the paintings:

Mädchenkopf, sich umwendend, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, terracotta, 1913-14

144 Titanium Square, Carl Andre, 2011

Frauenkopf, Alexej von Jawlensky, 1911, oil on millboard laid on plywood

Das Schlimme Jahr 1937, Ernst Barlach, Oak, 1936

A Young Nun, Gwen John, oil on canvas, 1915-25

Portrait of Anne Estelle Rice, John Fergusson, oil on board, 1908

The Lustre Bowl, William Nicholson, oil on canvas, 1911

Mädchen auf Fell, Otto Dix, tempera and oil on canvas, 1932

• I think I “get” Andre’s minimalism, but I prefer Nicholson’s version of it.
• Jawlensky’s female face (similar to the one I’d seen in Düren) made Warhol and his garish Marilyn Monroe prints look like Expressionism.
• Lehmbruck and Barlach I had seen at the Aftermath exhibition.
• Otto Dix just couldn’t help himself from combining exquisite technique with grotesqueness.
• Gwen John’s palette is straight out of modern bobo women’s wear.

* Actually, the cemetery alongside is a formidable sculpture park itself. Plenty to occupy your thoughts here.