Weekend Life: It's 48 hours 'til Monday

There is no shortage of arty eye candy in Scotland this weekend. Perhaps the most visible event is the Glasgow Art Fair. Now in its 15th year, it is camping out as usual on George Square and selling works from more than a thousand artists.

You could pick up a piece by someone as well known as Peter Howson or you could strike lucky and fall in love with a work by a complete unknown who turns out to be a 21st-century Warhol. Even if they remain as obscure as a fourth place X Factor contestant, you will always have an original piece of art to hang on your walls rather than the Andy Goldsworthy print all your friends have.

At present, visual art tends to make the headlines on just two criteria. The first is how outrageous, controversial or bad the nominations for the Turner prize are. Manufacturing shock or a wearied tut over the Turner has become a national sport and one which the media is happy to indulge.

The second gauge of newsworthiness is how much money a work fetches. Aesthetic value, the flowering of a new artist or style, a work that gives a bold new insight into the human condition: all of these are much less important to the news agenda than the number of zeroes on the price tag.

This weekend sees the opening of a Jack Vettriano exhibition at the Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery. It seems reasonable to assume that there will be lots of zeroes on the price tags of Mr Vettriano's paintings. After its Fife run, the show, entitled "Days of Wine and Roses", will transfer to Milan and then London.

It's a coup for Kirkcaldy and a symbolic gesture from Vettriano, a native Fifer. His work might cut little mustard with the professional art world but it is wildly successful with the public from Pittenweem to Portsmouth. Launching the exhibition in Kirkcaldy is a simultaneous thank you to the background that formed Vettriano and a stiff finger to what he sees as an out of touch metropolitan elite.

New Vettriano exhibitions aren't ten a penny but their rarity value isn't quite up there with that of the lesser-spotted Garden of Heaven, a 17th-century Persian carpet in the care of the Burrell Collection. Naw Ruz, the Persian New Year, is kicking off and today the Burrell are celebrating by giving the Garden of Heaven its third outing in 30 years.

The symmetrical layout and bordered water channels of the carpet are said to be reminiscent of Safavid royal gardens in Isphahan and they also resemble descriptions of Gardens of Paradise in the Qur'an. Believed to be one of the three earliest surviving carpets in the world, this one will be the subject of talks, screenings and symposiums. General George, if he exists, must dream that his carpets will one day achieve such timeless admiration.

See www.glasgowartfair.com; www.jackvettriano.com; www.glasgowmuseums.com