I was cutting through on a zig-zag route from Green Park Underground Station in the direction of Cork Street and came upon The Fleming Collection. The collection of Scottish paintings is an interesting deviation from the London scene. The gallery is very neatly arranged on the ground floor with a basement, quite open and spacious. My notebook came out when I came upon George Henry's 'Girl reading' from 1896, pastels on grey paper. I'm worried that I am too romantic with a capital R. In 1885 he had made a journey to Japan and this work seems to reflect some influence and interest in the details of the culture even a decade after the event. Nice marks, perhaps chopsticks in the hair, a non-descript book, a neck attracting a kiss. Such is Japanese eroticism. And they call this Scottish art.

In contrast, Philip Reeves's 'Vapour trail over the hill' from 1973 in mixed media had a satisfying straightforwardness, strong composition, texture and flatness. I could live with either or both.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh's 'Butterfly flower, bowling' has all the elements of positive and negative spaces that make floral patterns enduring as subject matter.  The Liberty effect. It stimulates the imagination to complex fretwork, to tapestry, to press flowers in that obsolete telephone directory. Sixties nostalgia.

The first painting I came upon, by Alexander Ignatius Roche, of 'Newhaven fisherwoman' reminded me of the Scottish Widows campaigns. The blurb speculated on the purpose of the black cat and the fate of the younger woman, the girl, in the composition. 'Twas a nice enough piece whatever it meant.

I've just been chastised for appreciating the War Art of Arabella Dorman who portrayed Iraq. Now here we have an almost idyllic scene with perhaps thirteen tents, an ambulance lorry, a pond, three bathers, two people relaxing on the bank. Beautiful reflections in the water of the tents and ripples in the water around the bathers. Yet this isn't a holiday camp, it is 'The eve of the Battle of the Somme' painted in 1916. It is disturbingly peaceful, relaxing, calm. So much of war is waiting, boredom, stifling heat or freezing cold and sudden, unexpected debilitating injury or simple, final death. Kaput. The artist, Sir Herbert James Gunn.

There were two pleasant still life's, Francis Campbell Boilean Cadell's 'Carnations' with a restrained jumble of seascape, flowers and glass, bowl, fan, garment, mirror, a girly pink sort of composition. But why paint it? They call it Scottish colourist.

The other was John Duncan Ferguson's 'Jonquils and silver' contrasted by a quaintly old frame, setting off a relatively plain canvas. So many paintings, so many shows are made or broken by the quality of the frames. It's a dilemma. Kuniyoshi's at the Royal Academy of Arts were near perfectly neutral. How does the work sit in the domestic or gallery environment. What is the effect of the frame!

Derrick Guild painted a curious work entitled 'Label Queen of Hungary' but it lacked the magic ingredient that would project it into stellar art. Oddly the postcard happened to be reversed, Oops!

And so to Peter Brown's show at Messums in Cork Street. His subject matter was all the picturesque corners of London, reflections on rainy pavements just so fluently rendered, splodgy passersby abstracted like Google-blurs, umbrellas. I know that London too well. There was something slightly uncomfortable about the perspective of a few works, it's all meant to be done on the spot but there was an occasional incongruency in buses disappearing down slopes at Oxford Circus that don't exist. Does the eye see even more like a camera nowadays? I know London well enough and Bath too. And the weather, rain, sun or snow. It's obviously easy to sell paintings that fit above a chimney breast, representational stuff, nice enough, accomplished yet formulaic. There are more idyllic and more spectacular places. I admired the effort but I want more, something stunning, glaringly brilliant, more variety. I was shocked by the monotony of the gallery walls, oils by the square inch or the square foot but rarely so large that they defied measurement. There's more drama in a tin of sardines or a packed underground train when the Victoria Line is on strike. Yes, more drama required. Yet they sold well.

© Brian Marsh, 21 May 2009 email initiative.cafe@btinternet.com