Botticelli is Just the Beginning

Scotland, the country that gave us tartans, bagpipes, warring clans, and actor James McAvoy's blue-green-eyed beauty, has another side: A high-culture heritage that's on bonny display in "Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland," a new exhibition at the de Young Museum that's in town briefly and shouldn't be missed.

Yes, it's a little bit of this, a little bit of that kind of affair, where the carefully chosen 55 paintings on view aren't connected by discernible themes, but in so many instances, FAMSF director Colin Bailey has plucked the juiciest peaches from collections held by the trio of institutions that comprise the National Galleries of Scotland: the Scottish National Gallery, founded in 1850; the Scottish National Portrait Gallery; and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Not to be outdone by their heavyweight rivals in London, the Scots have amassed impressive holdings spanning 400 years of artistic achievement.

A walking tour through art history that opens with an exquisite late-career work done in the hand of 15th-century Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli is certainly worth taking. You'll want to allot time to leisurely amble through the show, and for the sake of discussion, consider it an exceptional highlight reel, starting with that major coup, Botticelli's "The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child" (ca. 1485), a tempera, oil and gold devotional painting that depicts the Virgin Mary, whose golden halo hovers above her head as she tenderly regards the Christ child. This is the first time it's being exhibited on these shores.

Perhaps once a part of an altarpiece, it now hangs on the wall alone, occupying center stage at the entrance to the show. Unusual for being painted on canvas as opposed to panel, it's extraordinarily well-preserved, which accounts for the vibrancy of the blue of Mary's cape; though the intensity of the lapis hue in pigment usually falls victim to age and fades over time, thankfully, it hasn't done so here. The structure of this loving maternal garden scene, thought to foreshadow Christ's death, is framed by pink roses, symbols of the Virgin's purity.

The first gallery of old masters is a show-stopper; one could go no further than this splendid room, encounter Johannes Vermeer's "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" (ca.1654-55), and be content. The largest and earliest of the 36 known surviving Vermeers, it's the only one based on a Biblical theme, in this case the story of Luke. The canvas, made at the time of his marriage and conversion to Catholicism, has a distinctive triangular composition capturing an exchange between Jesus, Mary and Martha, and a tranquil atmosphere that envelops the three figures. But the defining feature, as always with Vermeer, is the ecstatic, luminous light that could persuade the most secular among us of the possibility of divinity.

The subject of Rembrandt's lustrous "A Woman in Bed" (1647), thought to represent several pivotal female figures in the Dutch master's life, peers out from behind heavy red bed-curtains, expectantly awaiting the return of her husband, who has left their conjugal bed to chase away the devil on their wedding night. According to the Biblical story of Sarah, her seven previous husbands were killed by the devil, and she worried about the disappearance of yet another. Bare-shouldered, a breast exposed, light dances off the gold detail of her hair ornament, proving once again that a day with a Rembrandt is better than a day without.

No offense to the mighty mights of Scottish history, but the least interesting paintings, despite their artistic pedigree, are the grandiose portraits of Scottish notables in their kilts and tartans leaning on a staff or a shotgun depending on the circumstances. That said, mention must be made of Sir Henry Raeburn's "Reverend Robert Walker, Skating on Duddingston Loch" (1795), an iconic image that permeates Scottish consciousness and postage stamps. When not delivering sermons, Walker was a charter member of the Edinburgh Skating Society. Immortalized in dashing black attire and matching hat, he cuts quite an elegant figure as he glides across the ice. One can almost hear the hush of a snowy evening and the slice of his skate blades whose grooves are cut into the canvas with the heel of the artist's paintbrush. The work marked a departure for Raeburn, considered the preeminent Scottish portraitist of the Enlightenment.

Moving right along to the 20th century, Gauguin's "Three Tahitians" (1899), a beguiling paradise in living tropical color, possibly alludes to Hercules' choice between Vice and Virtue, the former embodied by a woman in a one-shouldered red dress tantalizing the man in the middle of this triad with a ripe mango, and the latter by a demure virginal figure holding a modest bouquet - not too subtle. A group of paintings by Monet, Bonnard and friends, while lovely, is unexceptional; we've seen stronger examples of Impressionism in previous shows at this museum and elsewhere. The same can't be said of "The Painting Session" (1919), a transfixing meditation on art and beauty. Painted by Henri Matisse in his hotel room on the Cote d'Azur, the subject is familiar, but the color palette is somewhat muted and remarkably modern. A charming young French schoolgirl, one of the artist's favorite teenage models, pores earnestly over a book at a table covered by a winter-white cloth, accented by two random, improbably yellow lemons and a spray of springtime flowers in a glass vase. The view of the Mediterranean outside is reflected in a graceful gilded mirror sitting on the table, as an artist, presumably Matisse, seen from the back, toils at his maize-colored easel; an earthy-brown background anchors the sweet scene. It's sublime.

Through May 31