It might be nothing, or it might be everything.
Earlier in the week Alison, Duncan and I went to the Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow with friends who had driven up from the South of England just to see us for a day – a 3 day trip for them, with a solid day of driving at each end.
We were really impressed with most of the exhibits, although I do find most museums and their superficial, uncritical presentation of squillions of years of evolution quite tedious. They really should apply the same critical scientific method to their own theories that they insist we apply to any theory of creationism or intelligent design.
Anyway, that’s not my reason for writing this post. What struck me as most disappointing was that the Christian faith was utterly absent from a rather large room of “Scotish Identity in Art”. It was supposed to be a presentation of the history and culture of what makes Scotland Scotland and the images that present Scotland both seriously and humorously to the rest of the world.
Lots of tartan and bagpipes and self deprecating humour; the Scottish enlightenment; the inventiveness of the Scots (steam engine, penecilin, television, telephone, etc); highland estates and game shooting (deer and grouse); the clearances (when your forebears were banished to Australia!); etc; etc; etc. But not a mention of the Reformation and the Presbyterian church, exported around the world together with its provision of health, education and social welfare in every community where the missionaries went.
St Andrew’s Nairobi or Scots’ Church Melbourne are but drops in the ocean of Scotland’s worldwide influence through its religion both local and exported, but not a peep in our own national gallery / museum. It’s a disgrace. No matter what one believes Scotland has become now, such an exhibition is a revisionist and hypocritical view of history. Just as scientists should apply their own scientific rationale to their theories, historians should be a bit more objective and accurate in their portayal of history.
What made it worse was that the next section of the gallery, entitled “Every Picture Tells a Story” began with an ancient Islamic shield with an interactive computerised book underneath it, telling (in brief) the story of Mohamed as an oppressed hero, forced out of Mecca and forced to defend himself in Medina from the ravages of evil men who were jealous of him.
Of course there were Christian religious works of art elsewhere in the gallery – Salvador Dali’s “Christ of St John of the Cross” has been for thirty years the most famous work held there – but nowhere could I find such a sympathetic or extensive presentation of the life of Jesus nor any description of how that faith has shaped and moulded the current character of Scotland.
