Nice show

After a couple of fairly miserable weekends, today was officially a nice crisp autumn day. Just the occasion for a spontaneous cross-town walk to the Dean gallery, there to see Consider the Lilies, a selection of paintings from the McManus galleries in Dundee. The galleries are getting a makeover at the moment, and Edinburgh (and later, London) are the beneficiaries.

For once, I get the timing right and have a pleasant experience, as it's not too busy and I can have scones and coffee first without screaming children who are being dragged round by their earnest parents. The show itself is excellent and makes me ashamed never to have visited the McManus. After it re-opens, I should go. The work does play to my personal likes, having a lot of strong figurative work from 1910 to 1940, with none of that suspect continental what-do-you-call-it?, cubo-futurism or something. Whatever that bloke Picasso does, anyway. Many artists are unknown, or half known, and as so often, the lesson is that there are many more good painters around that our collective canon of "good art" can contain. David Foggie and John Maclauclan Milne are entirely new to me. Hugely impressive too is James Gunn's portrait of his wife, as flashy as a Sargent, but painted with genuine affection and observation - her gorgeous Paris clothes a study in themselves.

Also a fine selection of etchings by Ian Fleming (no, not that one) on display downstairs.

All in all, a suitable prelude to my own efforts this afternoon.