Seeing the Miraculous in the Everyday

Added on 29 November 2018

Former post: 14.12.2013 At Christmas I enjoy looking at Pieter Bruegel’s Flemish snow scenes. Of all the great narrative painters he has the ability to depict the key events of history in the context of the life of his own time. The painting looks down on a small village deep in snow, ruined c...

Looking at Soutine: A Poke in the Eye with a Sharp Brush

Added on 20 November 2018

Rather like the reason a pearl grows in an oyster shell isn't it strange how a first experience attaches itself so vividly to the memory, never to be experienced in quite the same way again. As I remember it the ground floor galleries of the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris are filled wi...

The Battle Of The Strait of Otranto 1917

Added on 06 August 2017

The East Neuk Lads and the Battle of the Strait of Otranto 1917 I sometimes wonder if my grandfather George Watson ever met the Austrian artist Egon Schiele as he stood guard and sometimes drew Russian prisoners of war in Prague in 1917. You never know! According to his Royal Navy Service record ...