Folk, Yarn and Fancy: paintings from the RSA Collections

A word of warning: Folk, Yarn and Fancy is nearly impossible to find. After surreptitiously knocking on the back door of the RSA, which had to be unlocked, we were swept into a private corridor, eventually finding the exhibition tucked away in what appeared to be a waiting room. The upside of this is that we had the exhibition entirely to ourselves, with the exception of a woman reading a magazine and eating a complementary biscuit in the corner.

This exhibition looks at art as a vehicle for communicating folklore. Its self-professed aim is ‘liberating the inspiration behind the works’, and opening it up for different interpretations. One of the most interesting pieces in this sense is Ronald Forbes’ ‘Diana Surprised by Actaeon’. In contrast with Titian’s famous version which used to hang just a few metres away in the National Gallery, Forbes provides us with a fresh and original way of understanding this overworked story where everything – location, chronology, gender, space and mass – is ambiguous.

On the opposite wall, John Duncan’s inventive 1923 painting ‘Ivory, Ages and Peacocks’ provides plenty of food for thought by the unusual use of egg tempera and amalgamation of Classical, Egyptian, Chinese and Indian motifs. Next to it, Francis Cadell’s “The Poet”, a hugely atmospheric and heartfelt representation of a close friend, is a pleasure to view, but seems to fit into the concept of the exhibition only in that it speaks volumes about inspiration.

The other small, pre-Raphaelite canvases don’t particularly stand out and there doesn’t seem to be a greatly coherent theme connecting them all, but Folk, Yarn and Fancy is certainly an unusual exhibition experience. There are a few pieces – Forbes’ in particular – that are really worth seeing, and the complementary biscuits are a definite plus.