In a recent survey conducted by a Scottish Sunday paper, Ian Hamilton
Finlay's renowned garden of sculpture and conceptual art, 'Little
Sparta', came top. A UK-wide poll, taken in the aftermath of the
run-up to this year's Turner Prize, had nominated Marcel Duchamp's
'Fountain' (1917), as the all-time winner. The Scottish survey saw
'Little Sparta' receive three times the number of points as the
second-placed 'work', Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow School
of Art. The famous work attributed to Henry Raeburn, 'The Skating
Minister', was in third place (although it is now thought that this
painting is not in fact by Raeburn). Eighty-year-old master sculptor
Sir Eduardo Paolozzi came sixth overall, with John Bellany seventh.
It was perhaps a relief that Jack Vettriano did not seem to figure.