So, the only parts of my UK visit I haven't gone into here are the short trips within Scotland to Glasgow and Edinburgh. I've been meaning to say that in Glasgow I went to the Burrell Collection twice, and once to Kelvingrove; and in Edinburgh I went thrice, though briefly, to the National Museum of Scotland, and twice to the National Gallery. The reason I mention these is just to point out that entry to all of these museums and galleries is free. It seems such a wonderful and civilized thing.
My trips to the National Gallery were to look at my favourite picture, and to drag other people along and point at it. If you go in to the Gallery by the old entrance just opposite the back of the Royal Scottish Academy, and not the beautiful new entrance that has joined the two together, walk straight in (dodging carefully around the collection box, of course, because you wouldn't want to be asked to leave before you have even got your foot properly in the door) and up the first oval flight of stairs you meet, then from the top of the stairs move towards the right hand side of the facing wall, you will find now rather too high up on the wall a small painting which is a fragment cut from a much larger work. It is entitled "The Burial of St. Ephraim." Actually, I could have sworn that when it was in its better position on the wall on the left at the top of the stairs it was called "The Death of St. Ephraim," which makes more sense to me since there's no sign of anyone digging a hole, and the ground looks too frozen for it to be possible anyway. Yes, St. Ephraim will have to lie there through the long and desolate winter, with that hooded woman draped like a drift of snow at his feet. Except that St. Ephraim is St. Ephraim the Syrian, and the setting is desert, not snow.
The woman too may not be a woman. I've always assumed that she is, but she is dressed in the same flowing robes as the small gathering of men who stand behind the bier, many of them talking or disputing in an unexpectedly animated fashion. In front of them St. Ephraim lies with his head towards the right, and with his feet in the direction of a hut of sorts. In the background is a mountain range with three figures following a path over it, one of whom appears to be the Saint himself - arriving there in earlier days? - crossing now to the afterlife? If you look toward the bottom foreground the land suddenly ends as if the funeral crowd is standing on a fragment of the earth's crust which has broken off and floated away, something which is oddly appropriate for a piece of painting cut from a larger work.
When you get back to your house after a long trip you can find that everything looks subtly different, somehow strangely dimensioned, or as if someone has knocked the house down while you were away and built an exact reproduction. Whenever I come back to this painting it's like that too. Even now, I can't be sure if much of the above is true, or whether it is a description of a picture which exists only in my imagination. I don't know, for instance, which way those three figures (three figures?) crossing the mountains are walking. If to the left, the direction in which the dead man's feet are pointing, which will take them up and behind the hut, then I'd say they have to be leaving. If to the right, in the direction indicated by the dead man's head, they could curve down and arrive at the space which holds the crowd. Sadly (or perhaps not so sadly, since it gives me ample opportunity to wander in a picture of my own making) this isn't one of the works that the National Gallery has seen fit to put into their online collection, though they do have another St. Ephraim picture there.
They do, however, have there a picture which I hadn't seen (hadn't noticed?) before this visit, "Scenes from the Lives of the Hermits and from the Passion of Christ," which if I remember rightly from reading the notice in the gallery, is also a representation of the burial of St. Ephraim - see the right foreground. Around the rest of the picture are strange little scenes of people behaving in all kinds of suspect ways you wouldn't expect of hermits - see the haloed man in a robe chasing the naked haloed man near the top left, for instance - as well as a selection of odd animals and demons. It's a shame that they haven't made it possible to zoom much closer for this painting - there could be hours of fun in looking at the bizarre goings-on.
My trips to the National Gallery were to look at my favourite picture, and to drag other people along and point at it. If you go in to the Gallery by the old entrance just opposite the back of the Royal Scottish Academy, and not the beautiful new entrance that has joined the two together, walk straight in (dodging carefully around the collection box, of course, because you wouldn't want to be asked to leave before you have even got your foot properly in the door) and up the first oval flight of stairs you meet, then from the top of the stairs move towards the right hand side of the facing wall, you will find now rather too high up on the wall a small painting which is a fragment cut from a much larger work. It is entitled "The Burial of St. Ephraim." Actually, I could have sworn that when it was in its better position on the wall on the left at the top of the stairs it was called "The Death of St. Ephraim," which makes more sense to me since there's no sign of anyone digging a hole, and the ground looks too frozen for it to be possible anyway. Yes, St. Ephraim will have to lie there through the long and desolate winter, with that hooded woman draped like a drift of snow at his feet. Except that St. Ephraim is St. Ephraim the Syrian, and the setting is desert, not snow.
The woman too may not be a woman. I've always assumed that she is, but she is dressed in the same flowing robes as the small gathering of men who stand behind the bier, many of them talking or disputing in an unexpectedly animated fashion. In front of them St. Ephraim lies with his head towards the right, and with his feet in the direction of a hut of sorts. In the background is a mountain range with three figures following a path over it, one of whom appears to be the Saint himself - arriving there in earlier days? - crossing now to the afterlife? If you look toward the bottom foreground the land suddenly ends as if the funeral crowd is standing on a fragment of the earth's crust which has broken off and floated away, something which is oddly appropriate for a piece of painting cut from a larger work.
When you get back to your house after a long trip you can find that everything looks subtly different, somehow strangely dimensioned, or as if someone has knocked the house down while you were away and built an exact reproduction. Whenever I come back to this painting it's like that too. Even now, I can't be sure if much of the above is true, or whether it is a description of a picture which exists only in my imagination. I don't know, for instance, which way those three figures (three figures?) crossing the mountains are walking. If to the left, the direction in which the dead man's feet are pointing, which will take them up and behind the hut, then I'd say they have to be leaving. If to the right, in the direction indicated by the dead man's head, they could curve down and arrive at the space which holds the crowd. Sadly (or perhaps not so sadly, since it gives me ample opportunity to wander in a picture of my own making) this isn't one of the works that the National Gallery has seen fit to put into their online collection, though they do have another St. Ephraim picture there.
They do, however, have there a picture which I hadn't seen (hadn't noticed?) before this visit, "Scenes from the Lives of the Hermits and from the Passion of Christ," which if I remember rightly from reading the notice in the gallery, is also a representation of the burial of St. Ephraim - see the right foreground. Around the rest of the picture are strange little scenes of people behaving in all kinds of suspect ways you wouldn't expect of hermits - see the haloed man in a robe chasing the naked haloed man near the top left, for instance - as well as a selection of odd animals and demons. It's a shame that they haven't made it possible to zoom much closer for this painting - there could be hours of fun in looking at the bizarre goings-on.
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