Art history
Ships of heaven
In his new book on Europe’s cathedrals, Simon Jenkins begins with the claim that the greatest among them are our…
The bourgeois surrealist
René Magritte’s life, so outwardly respectable, was as full of surprises as his art, says Philip Hensher
Double vision
Charlotte Hobson describes the complicated relationship of two artists who championed simplicity
Driven to abstraction
If Modernism is a jungle, how do you navigate a path through its thickets? Some explorers — Peter Gay and…
Anything goes
When the internationally acclaimed abstract painter John Hoyland died in 2011 at the age of 76, a large chunk of…
Painted out
Sixty years ago, women were still excluded from the art history canon, says Laura Freeman
Apostle of modernism
Clive Bell is the perennial supporting character in the biographies of the Bloomsbury group. The husband of Vanessa Bell, brother-in-law…
New-found freedom
In 2018 David Hockney went to Normandy to look at the Bayeux Tapestry, which he had not seen for more…
A passion for pots
The use of ‘Ceramic’ rather than ‘Ceramics’ in the title of this book indicates Paul Greenhalgh’s passionate belief that ‘ceramic…
Bright and beautiful
When he was a student, the celebrated American modernist master Robert Rauschenberg once told me that his ‘greatest teacher’ —…
From light into darkness
The great Spanish artist Francisco Goya was born in Zaragoza in 1746, the son of a gilder whose livelihood was…
Let us pray
Will churches ever fully reopen?
Slavic adoration
If you want to see the very best of Gauguin and Matisse, go east. That was the case in 1914…
Gnarly men and pretty boys
If you study History of Art, people generally assume you’re a nice, conscientious, plummy-voiced girl. Sometimes, people are right. It…
A mad social whirl
The name Arthur Jeffress may not conjure many associations for those not familiar with the London post-war art world, but…
The worm in the bud
The Mediterranean-centred era spanning a century or so either side of 1492 is filled to the brim with stories. There…
Homage to Pieter the great
There is a vogue at the moment for books which use art as a vehicle for examining the writer’s wider…
John Ruskin: the making of a modern prophet
At the time of his death in 1900, John Ruskin was, according to Andrew Hill, ‘perhaps the most famous living…
The fascinating story behind one of the best-loved depictions of the Nativity
In the early 1370s an elderly Scandinavian woman living in Rome had a vision of the Nativity. Her name was…
Unfolding mysteries: the drama of drapery in Italian art
The striking yet subtle jacket image from Donatello’s ‘Madonna of the Clouds’ announces this book’s quality from the outset. Its…
Josef Albers: the Bauhaus artist whose pupil designed Auschwitz
The German-born artist, Josef Albers, was a contrary so-and-so. Late in life, he was asked why — in the early…
A violent ultimatum ended Giacometti’s brief flirtation with Marlene Dietrich
Those with long enough memories may remember Desmond Morris as the presenter of the hit ITV children’s programme of Zoo…
August Auguste
In 1959 the formidable interviewer John Freeman took the Face to Face crew to the 81-year-old Augustus John’s studio. The…
A dazzling vision
There are a number of reports by his contemporaries of Thomas Gainsborough at work. They make you realise what a…
Finders keepers
Isis’s blowing up of the Roman theatre at Palmyra should concentrate our minds: our world heritage is vulnerable. Not that…
