The Scottish National Gallery (formerly the National Gallery of Scotland) is the national art gallery of Scotland. It is located on

The Mound The Mound is an artificial slope in central Edinburgh, Scotland, which connects Edinburgh's New and Old Towns. It was formed by dumping around 1,501,000 cartloads of earth excavated from the foundations of the New Town into Nor Loch which was ...

in central Edinburgh, close to

Princes Street Princes Street ( gd, Sràid nam Prionnsan) is one of the major thoroughfares in central Edinburgh, Scotland and the main shopping street in the capital. It is the southernmost street of Edinburgh's New Town, stretching around 1.2 km (three ...

. The building was designed in a neoclassical style by William Henry Playfair, and first opened to the public in 1859. The gallery houses Scotland's national collection of

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork. ...

, spanning

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

and international art from the beginning of the Renaissance up to the start of the 20th century. The Scottish National Gallery is run by National Galleries of Scotland, a public body that also owns the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the

Scottish National Portrait Gallery The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is an art museum on Queen Street, Edinburgh. The gallery holds the national collections of portraits, all of which are of, but not necessarily by, Scots. It also holds the Scottish National Photography Co ...

. Because of its architectural similarity, the Scottish National Gallery is frequently confused by visitors with the neighbouring Royal Scottish Academy Building (RSA), a separate institution which works closely with the Scottish National Gallery.

History

Edinburgh Castle and National Gallery (3610788685)

The origins of Scotland's national collection lie with the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland, founded in 1819. It began to acquire paintings, and in 1828 the Royal Institution building opened on The Mound. In 1826, the Scottish Academy was founded by a group of artists who, dissatisfied with its policies, seceded from the Royal Institution, and in 1838 it became the

Royal Scottish Academy The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) is the country’s national academy of art. It promotes contemporary Scottish art. The Academy was founded in 1826 by eleven artists meeting in Edinburgh. Originally named the Scottish Academy, it became the ...

(RSA). A key aim of the RSA was the founding of a national collection. It began to build up a collection and from 1835 rented exhibition space within the Royal Institution building. In the 1840s, plans were put in place for a new building to house the RSA. The noted Scottish architect William Henry Playfair was commissioned to prepare designs, and on 30 August 1850, Prince Albert laid the foundation stone. The building was originally divided along the middle, with the east half housing the exhibition galleries of the RSA, and the western half containing the new National Gallery of Scotland, formed from the collection of the Royal Institution. In 1912 the RSA moved into the Royal Institution building, which remains known as the Royal Scottish Academy Building. When it re-opened, the gallery concentrated on building its permanent collection of Scottish and European art for the nation of Scotland. In the early 21st century, the National Galleries launched the Playfair Project, a scheme to create a new basement entrance to the National Gallery in

Princes Street Gardens Princes Street Gardens are two adjacent public parks in the centre of Edinburgh, Scotland, lying in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle. The Gardens were created in the 1820s following the long draining of the Nor Loch and building of the New Town, ...

and an underground connecting space, called the Weston Link, between the Gallery and the renovated Royal Scottish Academy building. The new underground space opened in 2004. In 2012, the gallery's umbrella organisation, National Galleries of Scotland, underwent a rebranding exercise, and National Gallery of Scotland was renamed the Scottish National Gallery.

Building

William Playfair's building—like its neighbour, the Royal Scottish Academy—was designed in the form of an

Ancient Greek temple Greek temples ( grc, ναός, naós, dwelling, semantically distinct from Latin , " temple") were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in ancient Greek religion. The temple interiors did not serve as meeting places, ...

. While Playfair designed the RSA in the Doric order, the National Gallery building is in the Ionic order. The main east and west elevations have plain pilastrading with the higher central transverse block having hexastyle Ionic porticoes. Paired Ionic columns in antis are flanked by tetrastyle Ionic porticoes at north and south. The design reflects the building's original dual purpose being divided longitudinally with the exhibition galleries of the RSA to the east and the National Gallery to the west. Playfair worked to a much more limited budget than the RSA project, and this is reflected in his comparatively austere architectural style. He may have drawn inspiration from an 1829 scheme for an arcade of shops by Archibald Elliot II, son of

Archibald Elliot Archibald Elliot (August 1761 – 16 June 1823) was a Scottish architect based in Edinburgh. He had a very distinctive style, typified by square plans, concealed roofs, crenellated walls and square corner towers. All may be said to derive from ...

. Playfair's National Gallery was laid out in a

cruciform Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly described ...

plan; he originally planned to build towers at the corners of the transverse central block, but these were abandoned during the project. When the RSA moved into the former Royal Institution building in 1912, the Office of Works Architect for Scotland, William Thomas Oldrieve remodelled the NGS interior to house the National Gallery collection exclusively. In the 1970s, when the gallery was under the direction of the

Department of the Environment An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment, ...

, the internal accommodation was extended. An upper floor was added at the south end in 1972, creating five new small galleries, and in 1978 a new gallery was opened in the basement to house the Gallery's Scottish Collection. The new Princes Street Gardens entrance and underground space opened in 2004 was designed by John Miller and Partners. Construction took five years and cost £32 million. The area contains a lecture theatre, education area, shop, restaurant, an interactive gallery, and a link to the RSA building. In January 2019, construction work began on a project to alter the lower level areas and to create extended exhibition space. It is planned that the Princes Street Gardens entrance will become the main entrance of the gallery; to facilitate access, East Princes Street Gardens is being re-landscaped with sloping paths and 52 trees have been felled, to be replaced with 22 newly planted saplings. The redevelopment is delayed until at least late 2022, as a result of asbestos being found in part of the structure and due to the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. File:Scottish National Gallery.jpg, Twin porticoes at the main entrance with the original name inscribed on the frieze. File:Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. - geograph.org.uk - 1475030.jpg, Playfair's ionic columns File:SNGInt.jpg, Interior of the ground floor main galleries File:National Gallery of Scotland - geograph.org.uk - 428845.jpg, The Princes Street Gardens entrance (opened 2004)

Research

The research facilities at the Scottish National Gallery include the Prints and Drawings Collection of over 30,000 works on paper, from the early Renaissance to the late nineteenth century; and the reference-only Research Library. The Research Library covers the period from 1300 to 1900 and holds approximately 50,000 volumes of books, journals, slides, and microfiches, as well as some archival material relating to the collections, exhibitions and history of the National Gallery. The Print Room or Research Library can be accessed by appointment.

Collection

At the heart of the National Gallery's collection is a group of paintings transferred from the

. This includes masterpieces by

Jacopo Bassano Jacopo Bassano (c. 1510 – 14 February 1592), known also as Jacopo dal Ponte, was an Italian painter who was born and died in Bassano del Grappa near Venice, and took the village as his surname. Trained in the workshop of his father, Francesco t ...

Van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy. The seventh ...

and

Giambattista Tiepolo Giovanni Battista Tiepolo ( , ; March 5, 1696 – March 27, 1770), also known as Giambattista (or Gianbattista) Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice who painted in the Rococo style, considered an import ...

. The National Gallery did not receive its own purchase grant until 1903. In the Gallery's main ground floor rooms are displayed a number of major large-scale canvases such as

Benjamin West Benjamin West, (October 10, 1738 – March 11, 1820) was a British-American artist who painted famous historical scenes such as '' The Death of Nelson'', ''The Death of General Wolfe'', the '' Treaty of Paris'', and '' Benjamin Franklin Drawin ...

's ''Alexander III of Scotland Rescued from the Fury of a Stag'' (1786), Rubens's ''The Feast of Herod'' (1633 or c.1637-38) and a pair of paintings by Titian, ''Diana and Actaeon'' and ''Diana and Callisto'' (purchased jointly with the National Gallery, London). The Scottish National Gallery has also jointly acquired one of Canova's sculptures of The Three Graces with the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Scottish National Gallery has a notable collection of works by

Scottish art Scottish art is the body of visual art made in what is now Scotland, or about Scottish subjects, since prehistoric times. It forms a distinctive tradition within European art, but the political union with England has led its partial subsumation ...

ists, including several landscapes by

Alexander Nasmyth Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

, and several works by Sir

Henry Raeburn Sir Henry Raeburn (; 4 March 1756 – 8 July 1823) was a Scottish portrait painter. He served as Portrait Painter to King George IV in Scotland. Biography Raeburn was born the son of a manufacturer in Stockbridge, on the Water of Leith: a fo ...

— of particular note his portraits of

Alexander Ranaldson Macdonell Colonel Alexander Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry (15 September 1773 – 17 January 1828), sometimes called by the Gaelic version of his name, Alastair or Alasdair, was clan chief of Clan MacDonell of Glengarry. As was customary for a laird (l ...

and Sir Walter Scott), and his celebrated painting, '' The Skating Minister''. There are also a number of works by artists of the

Glasgow School The Glasgow School was a circle of influential artists and designers that began to coalesce in Glasgow, Scotland in the 1870s, and flourished from the 1890s to around 1910. Representative groups included The Four (also known as the Spook School ...

such as James Guthrie. The Gallery also holds a collection of works by English painters, such as

Constable A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...

's '' The Vale of Dedham'' and a sizeable collection of water colours by Turner which are traditionally displayed in January. '' The Monarch of the Glen'', a painting considered to depict the grandeur of the wildlife and scenery of the Scottish Highlands, is also held in the gallery, the work of the English painter

Sir Edwin Landseer Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (7 March 1802 – 1 October 1873) was an English painter and sculptor, well known for his paintings of animals – particularly horses, dogs, and stags. However, his best-known works are the lion sculptures at the bas ...

Notable works

Key works of art displayed at the National Gallery include: File:Raphael The Holy Family with a Palm Tree.jpg, ''Holy Family with a Palm Tree''
(Raphael, 1506) File:Tizian 015.jpg, ''

Diana and Callisto ''Diana and Callisto'' is a painting completed between 1556 and 1559 by the Italian late Renaissance artist Titian. It portrays the moment in which the goddess Diana discovers that her maid Callisto has become pregnant by Jupiter. The paint ...

''
( Titian, 1559) File:Thomas Gainsborough - The Honourable Mrs Graham (1757 - 1792) - Google Art Project.jpg, '' Portrait of Mrs Mary Graham''
( Thomas Gainsborough, 1775) File:Sir Joshua Reynolds - The Ladies Waldegrave - Google Art Project.jpg, '' The Ladies Waldegrave''
( Joshua Reynolds, 1780) File:The Skating Minister.jpg, '' The Rev Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch''
(Sir

, 1790s) File:John Constable 012.jpg, '' The Vale of Dedham''
( John Constable, 1828) File:The Monarch of the Glen, Edwin Landseer, 1851.png, '' The Monarch of the Glen''
(

Edwin Landseer Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (7 March 1802 – 1 October 1873) was an English painter and sculptor, well known for his paintings of animals – particularly horses, dogs, and stags. However, his best-known works are the lion sculptures at the bas ...

, 1851) File:Frederic Edwin Church - Niagara Falls, from the American Side - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Niagara Falls, from the American Side''
( Frederic Edwin Church, 1867) Image:Haystacks, Snow Effect 1891 Claude Monet NGScotland.jpg, '' Haystacks''
(

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

, 1891) Image:La vision après le sermon (Paul Gauguin).jpg, '' Vision après le Sermon''
( Paul Gauguin, 1888) Other artists represented in the collection include:

References

External links

NationalGalleries.org
– homepage
BBC News – Report on the completion of the Playfair ProjectNationalGalleries.org
collections {{Authority control Art museums and galleries in Edinburgh Art museums established in 1859 Category A listed buildings in Edinburgh National galleries New Town, Edinburgh Neoclassical architecture in Scotland Scottish art 1859 establishments in Scotland