One thing rapidly becomes clear in these lavish new purpose-built galleries of Scottish art: Scotland likes itself. Or at least, Scottish curators are far fonder of their country than their opposite numbers at Tate Britain and the National Portrait Gallery are of the UK as a whole. Whereas these London museums have recently opened rehangs that call out past injustices and national guilt, Edinburgh’s new look at Scotland’s artistic story is a celebration. It’s also ravishing. The spacious new gallery has big windows that give views of the Scott Monument, Princes Street Gardens and up towards the Old Town. Before you enjoy Scotland’s art you are invited to admire the capital city itself.
A text on the wall praises the beauty of Edinburgh, in case you hadn’t noticed. And in between the picture windows hang paintings that show the same scene 200 years ago. Alexander Nasmyth’s painting, Princes Street with the Commencement of the Building of the Royal Institution, shows a view very close to the one from the windows, under a spacious Romantic sky. But Nasmyth’s view is no tourist postcard. Bleak tenements cling to the side of the Old Town, plummeting to a waste ground – or is it a giant cesspit? – in the dip between the city’s two halves. Poverty shadows the picturesque.
