National Gallery
Are you a creative or a destructive?
There is a stage direction in The Glass Menagerie in which Tennessee Williams describes a tune that will recur through…
Why is Frans Hals still not considered the equal of Rembrandt?
Why is Frans Hals still not considered the equal of Rembrandt, asks Craig Raine
Do we need another Lucian Freud exhibition?
Do we need another Lucian Freud exhibition? After years of exposure to his paintings of naked bodies posed like casualties…
There's much more to Winslow Homer than his dramatic seascapes
Winslow Homer may be too all-American for British tastes but a forthcoming retrospective could change all that, says Laura Gascoigne
Raphael – saint or hustler?
Laura Gascoigne dishes the dirt on Raphael
Perfection: The Duke reviewed
The Duke is an old-fashioned British comedy caper that is plainly lovely and a joy. Based on a true story,…
Albrecht Dürer was a 16th-century Andy Warhol
Gossipy, amusing, a little vain, Albrecht Dürer was a 16th-century Andy Warhol, says Martin Gayford
The frisky side of a classical master: National Gallery's Poussin and the Dance reviewed
In the winter of 1861, visitors to the Louvre might have seen a young artist painstakingly copying one of the…
Glorious: Bernardo Bellotto at the National Gallery reviewed
What is the National Gallery playing at? Why, in this summer of stop-start tropical storms, is the NG making visitors…
An immensely rich show – though it consists of only two paintings: Rubens at the Wallace Collection reviewed
‘When pictures painted as companions are separated,’ John Constable wisely observed, ‘the purchaser of one, without being aware of it,…
Entertaining – but there's one abomination: National Gallery's Sin reviewed
Obviously, we’re living through an era of censorious puritanism. Granted, the contemporary creeds are different from those of the 16th…
The guileful, soulful art of Khadija Saye
Gwyneth Paltrow has a new neighbour. On the same block in Notting Hill as Gwynie’s Goop store, with its This…
The joy of socially distanced gallery-going
Not long after the pubs, big galleries have all started to reopen, like flowers unfolding, one by one. The timing…
The life of Artemisia Gentileschi is made for Netflix, but it’s the art that really excites
The life of Artemisia Gentileschi is made for Netflix, says Laura Freeman, but it’s her art that really excites
The art of the hermit
Holed up in her sixth-floor London flat, Laura Freeman finds solace in the art of the hermit
Every bit as well observed as Rembrandt – and often funnier: Nicolaes Maes reviewed
Nicolaes Maes (1634–93) relished the simple moments of daily life during the Dutch Golden Age. A woman peeling parsnips over…
Why did David Bomberg disappear?
David Bomberg was only 23 when his first solo exhibition opened in July 1914 at the Chenil Gallery in Chelsea.…
Pilferer, paedophile and true great: Gauguin Portraits at the National Gallery reviewed
On 25 November 1895, Camille Pissarro wrote to his son Lucien. He described how he had bumped into his erstwhile…
A beautiful exhibition of a magnificent painter: Sean Scully at the National Gallery reviewed
Sean Scully once told me about his early days as a plasterer’s mate. At the age of 17 he was…
Enjoy a blast of Spanish sun from Joaquin Sorolla
Artists can be trained, but they are formed by their earliest impressions: a child of five may not be able…
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…
Lorenzo Lotto’s 16th century portraits come startlingly close to photography
You can, perhaps, glimpse Lorenzo Lotto himself in the National Gallery’s marvellous exhibition, Lorenzo Lotto: Portraits. At the base of…
Bellini vs Mantegna – whose side are you on?
Sometimes Andrea Mantegna was just showing off. For the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, he painted a false ceiling above the…
The public are quite right to love Monet
Think of the work of Claude Monet and water lilies come to mind, so do reflections in rippling rivers, and…
