The Scottish National Gallery is absolutely beautiful. We came to Edinburgh a day before the University Open Day (due to my insistence/ to get a ‘feel’ of the place) and we packed it full of retail therapy and cultural learning.

According to a very lovely shop assistant in Kiehl’s Skincare, the restaurant there has the best scones, and naturally, we sampled the cheese scone with smoked salmon and cream cheese!

But now on to the important stuff, the art. There are a variety of paintings housed in the gallery from Vermeer to Constable, but many are not the typical ‘traditional’ portraits or landscapes. Some examples of this would be the pieces below.

This stag is very majestic but seems very uncommon, as the animal is in the middle of the painting instead of a person. It seems like a portrait of the stag as the background uses more muted tones and the stag consists of rich shades of brown.

I  really liked the above piece due to the amount of detail in this painting.