Scotland Gallery’s Pioneering Technology for a Van Gogh Pioneer Collection
An innovative way to appreciate art has been introduced at the National Galleries of Scotland which is currently exhibiting ‘Van Gogh and Britain: Pioneer Collectors’. This is the first time in forty years that a major Van Gogh show is being held in the UK. A free video/audio file known as the PodCurator that can be watched online or downloaded to your iPod or other MP3 player has been made available at Scotland’s premier Art Gallery in Edinburgh by the generous support of Scottish Enterprise’s Tourism Innovation Development Award.
Van Gogh had an important connection with Scotland through the Glasgow dealer Alexander Reid with whom he shared an apartment in Paris. His portrait is part of the exhibition and one can see from the two portraits on show why Van Gogh and Reid were often mistaken for twins. The PodCurator can help you be prepared in advance for what is in store at the show so that you can appreciate it better.
Using the Van Gogh PodCurator at the gallery one can follow the exhibits, using it like a personal guide. Not just that, you can learn about the life and works of this brilliant but temperamental artist and even discover his link to James Bond. There are several interesting snippets and one can meet the Aberdeenshire collector who is believed to have purchased one of the first fake Van Gogh’s. The PodCurator can actually help you learn about the artists’ changing styles over the years and the commentary has been recorded by actress and TV presenter Hannah Gordon.
Van Gogh’s works were not appreciated during his lifetime, particularly during his early years. Many of the works on show were purchased by pioneer Scottish, Welsh and English collectors often for unbelievably small sums as early as 1893, just three years after his death until the beginning of the Second World War.They are now highlights of major art collections around the world. The exhibition is a rare opportunity to view, learn about and appreciate the early works of one of our greatest artists and thanks to the forward thinking of the National Galleries of Scotland the 21st Century technology can help us learn about 19th Century art.
