Of bookstores and bewitchment

I'm living in the part of the New Town where all the art galleries are.

I don't really think of myself as an Art Guy. Painting doesn't typically engage me as readily or as deeply as music does, and I generally walk past the galleries with no more than a quick look at whatever is in the window.

But then there's this guy.

(There's a better image here.)

Every time I walked by the Fine Arts Society, where this painting was hanging in the front window, I stopped in my tracks. I had to take some time to look.

Why am I so bewitched by this portrait? I have no idea. But I have to linger.

I must go in and have a proper look at some point, I think.

More pressing, though, is the desire to check out all the major bookstores. This, of course, is a potentially ruinous exercise. There are a couple of excellent used bookstores in the Grassmarket (an area also noteworthy for the views of Edinburgh Castle from "the other side" and the best gelato in Edinburgh, which is at Mary's Milk Bar). I'm not looking for anything in particular. I know there's an old(ish) printing of the ill-fated* Scottish Prayer Book of 1637 at McNaughtan's Bookshop in the New Town for £1000, but do I really need that? I'm quite sure I don't. (Anyway, turns out it's been sold.)*How ill-fated? It caused riots at St Giles's Cathedral when it was introduced. There's a plaque there commemorating the tradition that "a brave Scotchwoman," Jenny Geddes, threw a stool at the Dean when he attempted to lead a service from that Book. The plaque characterizes this as "the first blow in the great struggle for freedom of conscience," which strikes me as a bit much.

I do love the jumble and chaos of a used bookstore.

I was sort of hoping to find reading for the retreat that I'm going on tomorrow. I've ordered a book by Reginald Somerset Ward, a famous Anglican spiritual director of the first half of the twentieth century, but it has not arrived. Well, there's a copy in the library at the monastery, so I'll just rely on that.

I had some errands to run today to get ready for the trip tomorrow, and, knowing that the exhibition at the Fine Arts Society would be ending soon, I realized I had to go.

It was an exhibition of works by Sir David Wilkie and others who followed in his tradition. I'm still bewitched by the portrait of Alexander Aitken, with which I began this post. By this point the Wilkie exhibition had been moved upstairs to make room for another exhibition, but they left Alexander Aitken downstairs, because, as the charming young lady working at the gallery said, "We love him so much and we just want to look at him."

I think she might also be a bit bewitched.

There were also lovely smaller works by Wilkie, including this preliminary study that I like very much, and even this tiny etching that seems so full of life.

Maybe, under the right circumstances, I'm more of an Art Guy than I thought.