Arts feature
Swanky, stale and sullen
The summer music festival has had its day, says Norman Lebrecht
Human soup
The earliest depictions of the Americas were eye-popping, and shaped European art, says Laura Gascoigne
Candid camera
William Boyd on the miraculous snaps of boy genius Jacques Henri Lartigue
Mourning glory
Alexandra Coghlan on the enduring appeal of requiems
On the contrary
The Spectator arts and books pages have spent 10,000 issues identifying the dominant cultural phenomena of the day and being difficult about them, says Richard Bratby
Public enemy
Many performers hated playing live. But freed from the stage they often made their best and wildest work, argues Graeme Thomson
Great Scot
William Cook talks to Billy Connolly – welder, banjo player, comedian, actor, and now artist – about growing up in Glasgow, ditching the mike stand and living with Parkinson’s
A world apart
Holed up in her sixth-floor London flat, Laura Freeman finds solace in the art of the hermit
Closing time
War and plague have menaced theatres before, but rarely on this scale, says Lloyd Evans
The rise and fall of Peter Bogdanovich
David Thomson talks to the director about Buster Keaton, falling out of favour with Hollywood, and his mentor Orson Welles
Earthly powers
Exhibitions about fungi, bugs and trees illustrate the depth, range and vitality of a growing field of art, says Mark Cocker
Naughty boy
In seven short years, Aubrey Beardsley mastered the art of outrage. Laura Gascoigne on the gloriously indecent illustrations of a singular genius
‘I feel compelled to be disgraceful’
Miriam Margolyes chews the fat with Tanya Gold about mother love, anti-Zionism and too much shagging
‘Opera is something you come to later’
After a record 18 years – and counting – as music director, Antonio Pappano talks to Norman Lebrecht about life after Covent Garden and how opera is beyond younger audiences
On the offensive
Mark Mason talks to Clive Anderson about mistaken identity, Macbeth and making a career out of being a bit of a smartarse
Lost in translation
You won’t find much Jane Austen in the myriad adaptations of her novels, says Claire Harman
Warts and all
Jan van Eyck changed the art of picture-making more fundamentally than anyone who has ever lived, says Martin Gayford
Things that go bump
Pregnancy has always been a public spectacle – and as the Foundling Museum’s new exhibition shows, a dangerous one
Putting us in the picture
on the history, power and beauty of infographics
TikTok is the world’s fastest-growing – and goofiest – digital platform, but should we fear it?
In November last year, an internet video made by a 17-year-old American went viral. The video was less than a…
Beethoven wasn’t just history’s greatest composer but also one of its greatest human beings
Ludwig van Beethoven isn’t just my favourite composer: he’s my household god. There’s a bust of him on my mantelpiece.…
Martin Gayford visits the greatest one-artist show on Earth
For a good deal of this autumn, I was living in Venice. This wasn’t exactly a holiday, I’d like to…
Meet Congo, the Leonardo of chimps, whose paintings sell for £14,500
Three million years ago one of our ancestors, Australopithecus africanus, picked up a pebble and took it home to its…
Don’t tell me model railways aren’t art. My little engine is a thing of spirit and beauty
It’s a summer day at Llangenydd station, and the afternoon train is already late, not that anyone seems to mind.…
How capitalism killed sleep
What can you make a joke about these days? All the old butts of humour are off limits. No wonder…
