Glasgow

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Alexander "Greek" Thomson`s Caledonia Road Church
 -taken from Gavin Stamp`s book (Lawrence King 1999)

Glasgow

Places to visit this time...

I`m pleased to be going to the south side. I see that I can walk along White Cart Water from Pollock House passing Holmwood House to Snuff Mill Bridge in Cathcart. The distance is just under 8 miles so it is best to do it over a whole day with lunch on the middle, or even over two days, as there are the buildings themselves to explore. Polock House has some an El Greco.

I cannot quite"get" the scale of Glasgow. It is very grandly planned, with some huge buildings, and it doesn`t seem suited for idly strolling. The areas outside the listed Victorian centre can be spectacularly bleak. London seems more human-scaled, and New York seems to invite wandering more too. 

I tried working from the buildings of Thomson`s buildings before, believing their deeply sculptural forms would translate well into painting, but if the sun isn`t strong their sculptural qualities lose out to the patchy effect where clean stones break up the sootiness on their facades. It can also be challenging to find an easy place to work from, but perhaps I`ll be more fortunate this time.

I have always found Glasgow to be an extremely mysterious place, perhaps partly because so much of it was demolished and because it`s economic purpose was lost. So one can feel when wandering about Glasgow that one is  looking at a faded photograph, with some parts lost to time. That`s one reason why I love A Very Quiet Street, by Frank Kuppner- it deals with the past, with architecture and equivocation. 

Holmwood House (Alexander "Greek" Thomson)
Pollock House (Art Collection and park)
Caledonia Road Church (Alexander "Greek" Thomson).

I am also looking at walking along the River Kelvin.

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April in Britain and France: Part Three: Glasgow

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 Shop fronts, West End, Glasgow, oil on card, 14 x 15.5 cm  SOLD

 A close, Glasgow, oil on card, 14 x 16 cm

 A view from the Necropolis, Glasgow, oil on card, 13 x 18 cm  SOLD

A bridge near Glasgow Green, oil on card, 16 x 13 cm  -   available

Factory along the Clyde, Glasgow, oil on card, 15 x 16 cm -  -unavailable

I spent five days in Glasgow, mostly in the West End. I'd always felt very ignorant about Glasgow, having grown up and studied in Aberdeen and Edinburgh and there being a strangely exaggerated antipathy between East and West coast in Scotland, despite, or perhaps because of, their proximity.

Most of my thoughts about Glasgow were formed by a few childhood visits, by Frank Kuppner's A Very Quiet Street, and books about architects Alexander "Greek" Thomson and Charles Rennie  Mackintosh and my notions were somewhat romantic. 

I wasn't disappointed. it's a fine painting city: spaciously laid out with great views. There are few tourists. It doesn't feel like a huge museum, and yet it has a clear identity.The weather was delightful. People left me in peace to work, or were friendly without being overbearing. There are lovely little cafes and places to eat.

It's a  schizophrenic city: the West End and centre is genteel, with magnificent 19th century apartment blocks, museums and charming cafes, while the rest of the city appears to be in a post Imperial, post-industrial condition, with empty land free for construction and a sense of incompletion. This makes it a marvelous subject, and I enjoyed painting from the Necropolis, and along the Clyde.

The first picture is one of the best of this year: economical and cool.

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