Bellany

At lunchtime I attended John Bellany's funeral in St Giles and I would have loved to have blipped the bundle of paintbrushes tied together with string and placed on top of the Saltire which covered his coffin. They were a visually affecting part of a colourful and moving event

Walking back down the Royal Mile it was suddenly obvious however that what I should blip was the wonderful picture he gave to the Scottish Parliament in 2004 and which hangs at the entrance to the cafeteria just off the Garden Lobby.

Called "Fishers in the Snow" it dates from 1966 and always draws my eye. As the information on the small caption board next to it notes it's central group of figures is reminiscent of Courbet's "A Burial at Ornans" but the flavour is pure Bellany, rooted in the fishing community of East Lothian and in Scotland, with a touch of cold and hardship underlying the scene as well as the ever present question of mortality