ArtQuartet News – Winter 2024/2025
Winter Blog Photo ©Sally Parker
Winter 2024/2025
by Sally Parker
Welcome to my Winter Blog!
This winter blog has captured my art-inspired journey to Loch Lomond, Scotland, during the vibrant start of autumn. The breathtakingly serene and picturesque landscapes also provided the perfect backdrop for a trip brimming with magical creativity and inspiration.
- Shape-Shifting Nature Spirits
- Avante Garde Artists: The Macintosh/MacDonald Collaboration
- Glasgow’s Art Tea Rooms
- Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum
- Healing Garden
Shape-Shifting Nature Spirits
On climbing several steps within Helix Park, Falkirk, I reached a bridge crossing the Forth and Clyde Canal. In brilliant sunshine, I could see two stunning horse-head sculptures named after mystical nature spirits, namely the ‘Kelpies’.
Scottish and Irish Gaelic folklore describe kelpies as shape-shifting spirit horses which frequent rivers and streams.
‘Kelpie’ may derive from the Scottish Gaelic ‘colpach’, meaning heifer or colt.
The expressive sculptures were designed by sculptor Andy Scott and towered 30 metres high. Although they were described as ‘built as monuments to Scotland’s horse-powered industrial heritage’, according to myth, Kelpies are nature spirits, mostly beautiful creatures reflecting the light. These spirits, however, are also known for their untamed, wild energy and were often featured in cautionary tales to protect children and adults from the dangers of waterways. Furthermore, Kelpies also had shape-shifting abilities, and guardians told such stories to deter women from talking to strangers.
Scotland Sketchbook ©Sally Parker
As I walked homeward along the canal, the gentle sound of bagpipes echoed in the distance. I searched for the mysterious piper but saw no one. I began thinking ‘Could this place actually be enchanted?’ As I approached the dense woodland, the music grew louder, seeming to emanate from the depths of the trees…
Avante Garde Artists: The Macintosh/MacDonald Collaboration
I stood in a drawing room drenched with light pouring in from a large bay window. Light-coloured walls projected precisely stencilled pink roses. Furthermore, additional creative devices reflected the light, including the fireplace decorated with mirrors and mosaics. In addition, the centrepiece was a painting I recognised only too well, ‘The Sleeping Princess’ by Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh.
‘Sleeping Princess’ by Margaret MacDonald-Mackintosh, Hill House. Photo ©Sally Parker
What a surreal experience! I considered all the time I spent pouring over this painting referencing reproductions, and here was the original masterpiece: a textured gesso panel with carefully articulated gesso lines forming a complex puzzle composed of the artist’s language and symbolism. The beautiful, serene face of the princess looked calm and dreamy with fine details. Her hand floated in an eternal world; an emerald mystical watery pool with paint effects imitating metalwork and jewellery enamelling techniques. Outlined roses floated around her, moving around the picture like a circular dance.
This visionary artwork reflects Macdonald’s collaborative ideas with Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who designed Hill House in Upper Helensburgh in 1902. Now managed by the National Trust for Scotland, Hill House is a testament to the Mackintoshes’ innovative approach to modern art and design.
A Taste of History: Glasgow’s Art Tea Rooms
I enjoyed visiting one of the four original successful ‘art tea rooms’ owned by entrepreneur Miss Kate Cranston. These tea rooms offered a unique blend of art, design, and social gathering spaces.
1878: The Crown Luncheon Room in Argyle Street
1886: Ingram Street Tea Rooms
1896: Buchanan Street Tea Rooms
1903: The Sauchiehall Willow Tea Rooms
The Sauchiehall Willow Tea Rooms (215-217 Sauchiehall Street), now known as Mackintosh at the Willow, have been restored and are managed by the National Trust of Scotland. It was Cranston’s final collaboration with Mackintosh.
The name “Sauchiehall” is derived from “saugh”, the Scots word for a willow tree, and “haugh”, meadow or land alongside a river.
The willow tree motif appeared throughout its design, creating a serene atmosphere for visitors seeking refuge from industrial Glasgow. Today, the restaurant/tea room is part of a must-see museum offering tours to explore its unique interior and artistic legacy.
‘Mackintosh at the Willow’ restaurant, tearooms and museum Photo ©Sally Parker
I also enjoyed visiting an independent business, ‘Willow Tea Rooms’, which today is located a short distance from the original location of Miss Cranston’s tea room at 91 Buchanan Street, designed by George Walton (1896). Buchanan Street in the 1900s was a popular, fashionable shopping street, therefore, a perfect location for an art tea room. During this project Charles Rennie Mackintosh was actually first invited to design some murals for its interior. Today, in a more contemporary setting at 97 Buchanan Street, the ‘Willow Tea rooms’ are inspired by the Mackintosh collaboration and celebrate their artistic vision.
Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum
The ‘Palace of Fine Arts’ was opened in 1901 for the Glasgow International Exhibition in Kelvingrove Park. After extensive refurbishment, it was renamed the Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum and re-opened in 2006. Designed in a Spanish Baroque style, using red sandstone Locharbriggs in the Glaswegian tradition, it is a most impressive building housing 22 galleries! The Mackintosh and Glasgow Style Gallery was devoted to the Mackintosh/MacDonald collaboration: It included restored elements from Miss Cranston’s tea room, ‘The Crown Luncheon Rooms,’, once located in the adjacent Argyle Street. The tea rooms were renovated from 1898 to include furniture, lighting and a Dutch Kitchen design by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The gallery also included other items from the four tea rooms and other commissions by the MacDonald/Mackintosh collaboration such as furniture, paintings, hangings, metalwork and other artworks that inspired their work.
To my surprise, there was a gallery devoted to the Glasgow Boys and other wonderful paintings by artists such as Joan Eardley, Annie Swynnerton, Sir Edward Burne Jones, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti to name a few.
HEALING GARDEN
ROSES
I have chosen a rose as the plant of the season for my winter blog. Roses have been an ever-present motif in my art and journey. They are known for their timeless beauty and symbolic meanings of love, friendship, and passion, as well as their incredible healing properties.
Rose oil, made from flower petals, has been used for thousands of years for its healing properties and full-bodied floral fragrance. It is antiseptic, astringent, anti-inflammatory, and cell-rejuvenating. However, please note that you should never apply rose oil directly to your skin but you should dilute it with a carrier oil first. Rose water was a staple in mediaeval apothecaries, used to treat everything from skin complaints to digestive disorders.
“The rose and the myrtle are sacred to Aphrodite and connected with the story of Adonis.”
(Pausanias, C2ndAD)
The connection between roses and mythology is equally fascinating. Poets associated the ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite with roses, which, in turn, symbolized love, beauty, and all the senses. Because the vibrant blooms reinforce a sacred status, they have been a constant motif in my paintings. The language of flowers associates roses with love, friendship, devotion, beauty, passion, wisdom, sensuality, and timelessness.
‘Sleeping Beauty’ ©Sally Parker
‘She [Aphrodite] clothed herself with garments which the Kharites (Graces) and Horai (Seasons) had made for her and dyed in flowers of spring–such flowers as the Horai wear–in crocus and hyacinth and flourishing violet and the rose’s lovely bloom, so sweet and delicious, and heavenly buds, the flowers of the narcissus and lily. In such perfumed garments is Aphrodite clothed at all seasons. (Cypria Fragment 6, 6thBC)
Thank You for Joining Me!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this Winter Blog, which offers a glimpse into my journey through some of Scotland’s art, culture, and natural beauty. I wish you a happy and healthy season filled with inspiration and warmth!
Best wishes
Sally
www.artquartet.co.uk
Sources:
Historic UK (Magazine)
Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum
National Trust for Scotland (Hill House) (Macintosh at the Willow)
theoi.com: Pausanias, Description of Greece 6. 24. 7 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.)
Stasinus of Cyprus or Hegesias of Aegina, Cypria Fragment 6 (from Athenaeus 15. 682) (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C7th or 6th B.C.)