Exhibitions
The genius of Zurbaran – and why he vanished
A pious Caravaggio JASPREET SINGH BOPARAI The Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbaran is sometimes thought of as a pious equivalent…
Tracey Emin at her most operatic
I feared this summing-up of Tracey Emin’s career might be self-congratulatory – biennale here, damehood there. But it’s Emin at…
A Tate show with dreamy, elusive power
One of the miracles of art history is how painting, so often written off, keeps on coming back. Right now…
The truth about artists’ optical aids
The first thing you see on entering this major new Viennese exhibition is not one of Canaletto and his nephew…
The man who rescued the Notre-Dame
The Notre-Dame de Paris has had several close shaves down the years – even before the 2019 fire that nearly…
How sure are we that all the Michaelina Wautiers at the RA are by her?
Roll up, there’s a new old master in town. Or a new old mistress, if you prefer. Michaelina Wautier (1614-89)…
This Hockney show is disorientatingly enjoyable
When so much contemporary art is riven with obscurity and angst, it is disorientating, at first, to encounter something as…
A Ramses show that has little to do with Ramses
Ramses and the Pharaohs’ Gold is, let’s not shy away from it, a profit-seeking exhibition mounted by an entertainment business.…
I miss post-internet art
I got my first paid writing gig back in the early 2010s, for an online magazine fixated on the then-current…
The art of ageing
More than 30 contemporary artists have contributed to the Wellcome Collection’s latest exhibition, which asks what it’s like to age…
Marvellous but repetitious: Gwen John – Strange Beauties reviewed
A pilgrimage to Cardiff Central, sorry, Caerdydd Canolog (according to the signage in the station, which also had my return…
Dazzling: Hawaii, at the British Museum, reviewed
Climb the Reading Room steps to reach the British Museum’s dazzling Hawaii exhibition, and you perform an obeisance. At the…
Cadavers will always captivate. Museums need to chill out
Is it right to put human remains on show? It’s a question that museum curators and the public have been…
Constable, not Turner, changed the course of painting
Flanders and Swann; Tom and Jerry. Some things come in pairs. Like Turner and Constable, even though our two most…
The thrill of Stanley Spencer
‘Places in Cookham seem to me possessed by a sacred presence of which the inhabitants are unaware,’ wrote Stanley Spencer.…
A Spectator poll: What is the greatest artwork of the century so far?
Slavoj Zizek Hegel thought that, in the movement of history, the world spirit passes from one country to another, from…
This exhibition made my companion gasp
Numerous research academics have contributed to this highly cogent show celebrating the craftspeople of Ancient Egypt. My pre-teen companion, though…
The Two Roberts drank, danced, fought – but how good was their art?
The Two Roberts, Robert MacBryde (1913-66) and Robert Colquhoun (1914-62), are figures of a lost British bohemia. Both born in…
Lice combs, vaginal syringes and cesspits: at home in 17th century Holland
The room is dark, the lighting deliberately low. At its centre stands a solitary object: a yellow and green earthenware…
The melancholy genius of Joseph Wright of Derby
If you lived in the 1760s and were affluent enough – and curious enough – science could be a family…
There is little sadder than the death of a language
The last Yana-speaker in the world died in 1916. When Ishi was born, the Yana were still a small but…
Unesco are idiots
Of all the moronic decisions made by cultural organisations over the past 50 years, probably the most insulting and retrograde…
A remarkable insight into Le Carré’s working methods
When Richard Ovenden of the Bodleian Library wrote to John le Carré asking if the writer would leave it his…
The dying art of costume design
At the receptionist’s desk in Cosprop’s studio and costume warehouse, a former Kwik Fit garage, the sloping bleakness of Holloway…
The best Turner Prize in years
So, the Turner Prize: where do we start? It’s Britain’s most prestigious art award, one that used to mean something…
