Art
The delights of Hieronymus Bosch
If you hope to inspire an appreciation of Renaissance art in your children, look to Hieronymus Bosch. Ideally, your children…
The Spectator’s notes
However wicked tax evasion is and however distasteful some tax avoidance may be, people should imagine a world without tax…
Easy to swallow
Pharmacy 2 is the reanimated child of Damien Hirst; it lives inside the Newport Street Gallery in a forsaken patch of…
Viewing the view
It’s not all picnics and cowslips. You need sense as well as sensibility to appreciate a landscape, says Mary Keen
Roaming in the gloaming
One of the epigraphs to Peter Davidson’s nocturne on Europe’s arts of twilight is from Hegel: ‘The owl of Minerva…
Samuel Palmer: from long-haired mystic to High Church Tory
In his youth, Samuel Palmer (1805–1881) painted like a Romantic poet. The moonlit field of ‘The Harvest Moon’ (1831–32) glows…
Hitler’s émigrés
German-speaking refugees dragged British culture into the 20th century. But that didn’t go down well in Stepney or Stevenage, says William Cook
High life
If cheating is the cancer of sport, losing has to be its halitosis. I stunk out the joint in Amsterdam…
Special effects
Maybe what we love about radio is the way that most of its programming allows us the luxury of staying…
Come rain or shine
‘Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr Worthing,’ pleads Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest. ‘Whenever people…
See no evil
Harry Mount once idolised the Kray twins. He’s since seen the error of his ways
The bitterness of Bacon
When Michael Peppiatt met Francis Bacon in 1963 to interview him for a student magazine, the artist was already well-established,…
The only art is Essex
When I went to visit Edward Bawden he vigorously denied that there were any modern painters in Essex. That may…
The lives of the artists — and other mysteries
Benjamin Wood’s first novel, The Bellwether Revivals, was published in 2012, picked up good reviews, was shortlisted for the Costa…
Dizzying swirls of impasto
With a career of more than 60 years so far, Frank Auerbach is undoubtedly one of the big beasts of…
My part in a masterpiece of political correctness
Damien Hirst, Grayson Perry, James Delingpole: all winners of major art prizes. I was awarded mine last week by Anglia…
‘Paint goes on living’
Maggi Hambling on Rembrandt, Twombly and the power of art
Møn
The sky over the island of Møn, which is at the bottom right of Denmark, was cobalt and the whitewashed…
Diary
So far, what an infuriating election campaign. We have the most extraordinary array of digital, paper and broadcasting media at…
The Vatican
The sun has only just risen in Rome and we are standing bleary-eyed in a short queue outside the Vatican.…
Impressionist Paris
The spectre of the Charlie Hebdo killings still hangs over Paris. Outside the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, opposite the…
A master of plein-airism
‘If I see something I like I wish to tell someone else; this… is why I paint.’ Patrick George is…
Texas: From cowboys to culture
Dallas has reinvented itself as a major arts destination, says Hugh Graham
Daring a fleeting smile
In 1787 critics of the Paris Salon were scandalised by a painting exhibited by Mme Vigée Le Brun. The subject…
It was a wonderful town
I picked up this book with real enthusiasm. Who cannot be entranced by those 20 years after the second world…
