Genius Fan

Most people have real friends, y’know, the kind that have skin and bones and blood in their veins. (Pffff, weird!) A few have imaginary friends, characters that exist in their minds and nowhere else. (Also weird.) And many, like me, have historical friends who they spend time with in their minds and imaginations. (NOT weird, but completely normal.) So, going to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery is a chance for me to sprint up the stairs and into the Eighteenth century gallery to see some old pals.

There’s the gang: Always, always, always whispers with David Hume (1711-1776), an ribald chat with James Macpherson (1736-1796), financial advice from Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo (1739-1806), hum a tune with Neil Gow (1727-1807), a gossip with Rabbie Burns (1759-1796) and so many more…but who do I call on first? Why, James Boswell (1740-1795), of course. He’s my hero! I think about him and his life constantly, day in and day out, and I try to see the world through his eye. That day, I also popped by to mock John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713-1792) and his body-building style leg posing, and introduce myself to Henry Raeburn (1756-18230, not yet part of the gang, but a straight up kind of guy.

So, if you have favourite portraits…get in there, see them again and again and again. Chat to them. It doesn’t mean you’re a mental case. It’s a way of ‘giving back’, and that’s part of the legacy of artists and explorers and statesmen and writers and all sorts of people. No-one know you’re doing it. So, do it.