Art reviews: RSW Annual Exhibition | Gary Fabian Miller | The Archive of Modern Conflict

Nobody today would comment on an artist’s choice of medium, no matter how outlandish. So it is a little quaint that we still have a society, the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, the RSW for short, devoted exclusively to the practice of one particular medium. But the RSW soldiers on, nevertheless, as it has done for nearly a century and a half. The current exhibition is its 137th. When the society began, oil painting was regarded as the only respectable medium. Watercolour was for sketching only. The painters who favoured its luminosity, versatility and informality fought back by creating their own society. And the distinctive qualities they valued still tell.