ALASTAIR SMART
A Taste For Impressionism Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh Until November 13 ★★★★★
Their imagery may be hugely familiar to us today, thanks to its reproduction everywhere from tea towels to tote bags. In their early days, however, in the late 19th Century, the Impressionists were deemed too radical for mainstream taste. Certainly in this country.
A new exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy (held as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival) explores how the appetite for Impressionist art developed in the first half of the 20th Century. The focus is on the key collectors who acquired it and, in many cases, ended up donating or bequeathing it to the nation.
These included interesting characters such as Rachel Beer (1858-1927), the first female editor of a British newspaper, and Evelyn Fleming (1885-1964), the flamboyant socialite who was also the mother of James Bond creator Ian Fleming.
Given that they’re all today part of the National Galleries of Scotland’s collection, the paintings on show are pretty familiar – though no less impressive for that. They range from one of Monet’s famous depictions of haystacks to one of Degas’ of ballerinas. The organisers do play fast and loose with the term Impressionism, however, including work by several artists who came before or long after that movement – such as Gauguin. He is represented by the two masterpieces Vision Of The Sermon and Three Tahitians.
This feels like a bit of a cheat. It also would have been good to get a sense of how the reputation of the artists in question fared over the years in their native France, by comparison to the UK.
That said, there are enough top works here, once owned by enough colourful collectors, for this show still to make the right impression.