Paris
Gaudy! Bright! Loud! Fun!
Best of postmodernism: is that an oxymoron? Jonathan Meades thinks not
Surreal, strange and scatological
Why do we put one work of art beside another? For the most part museums and galleries tend to stick…
Polly’s pleb adventure
Down and Out in Paris and London is a brilliant specimen from a disreputable branch of writing: the chav safari,…
Bitter sweet
The French master film-maker Jacques Audiard has never been anywhere near Hollywood plot school. His films contain gathering menace —…
What’s love got to do with it?
The setting for Il tabarro, the first drama in Puccini’s 1918 triptych of one-act operas, is not the Paris of…
Hollande’s own emergency
His response to the Paris terror attacks has left the French president increasingly isolated and unpopular
Wild at heart
Delacroix’s frigid self-control concealed an emotional volcano. Martin Gayford explores the paradoxes that define the apostle of modernism
The painter as poser
Bernard Buffet was no one’s idea of a great painter. Except, that is, Pierre Bergé and Nick Foulkes. Bergé was…
Moving statues
Sculptural topplings provide an index of changing times, says Martin Gayford
Diary
Disappointingly, the recent film about Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, does not include the thing about him which most struck…
France: #ToutsAuBistrot!
Julie Burchill hymns the joys of post-attack Paris
Portrait of the week
Home The House of Commons voted on air strikes in Syria. Labour MPs had been allowed a free vote by…
It is political correctness, not maniacal bigots, that will end civilisation
What does one do, attend or refuse a party after a tragic event such as the recent Paris outrage? My…
The pretend war: bombing Isil won’t solve the problem
Britain, France and America are in a protracted fight against Islamic radicalism. Pity our leaders have no idea how to win it
Get ready: these climate change talks might actually do something
The Prince of Wales is right, and I appreciate that this isn’t something people say very often. Now and again,…
Death watch
At the beginning of the summer of 1715 Louis XIV complained of a pain in the leg. In mid-August gangrene…
The London ear
It’s easy to tag the city’s terrain by writer. But what, wonders Philip Clark, might a map of its music look like?
Long life
The 1960s were already more than halfway over when I realised that I was living through what was supposed to…
Long life
The Eurostar train descended gently into the Channel Tunnel, went halfway along it, and then stopped. There it remained for…
A cemetery with cocktails
La Coupole, Montparnasse, is the grandest and most famous of the old pre-war Parisian brasseries; that is, if you have…
Low life
For the Cheltenham Festival I received the customary tipster circular from my pal Soapy Joe. Soapy’s most convincing credential as…
Impressionist Paris
The spectre of the Charlie Hebdo killings still hangs over Paris. Outside the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, opposite the…
Portrait of the week
Home The man seen in several Islamic State videos of hostages being beheaded, nicknamed Jihadi John by the British press,…
Letter from Paris
Like many journalists, I’m a bit of a know-it-all — when information is touted as ‘new’, especially in government reports,…
Addicted to trouble
Few first novels are as successful as S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep, which married a startling and unusual…
