Sculpture

How Philip Guston became a hero to a new generation of figurative painters

21 October 2023 9:00 am

Why do painters represent things? There was a time when the answers seemed obvious. Art glorified power, earthly and divine,…

Biomorphic forms that tempt the viewer to cop a feel: Maria Bartuszova, at Tate Modern, reviewed

1 October 2022 9:00 am

Art is a fundamentally childish activity: painters dream up images and sculptors play with stuff. It was while playing with…

The uncomfortable lessons of the new Fourth Plinth statues

10 September 2022 9:00 am

Alexander Chula on the uncomfortable lessons of the new Fourth Plinth statues

A mess: British Museum's Feminine Power – the Divine to the Demonic reviewed

4 June 2022 9:00 am

The point at which the heart sinks in this exhibition is, unfortunately, right at the outset. That’s where we meet…

The jewel-bright, mesmerisingly detailed pictures by Raqib Shaw are a revelation

21 May 2022 9:00 am

Describing the Venice Biennale, like pinning down the city itself, is a practical impossibility. There is just too much of…

Valuable reassessment of British art: Barbican's Postwar Modern reviewed

19 March 2022 9:00 am

Notoriously, the past is another country: what’s more, it’s a terrain for which the guidebooks need constantly to be rewritten.…

Beautiful and revealing: The Three Pietàs of Michelangelo, at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence, reviewed

5 March 2022 9:00 am

The room is immersed in semi-darkness. Light filters down from above, glistening on polished marble as if it were flesh.…

Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning art scene

5 March 2022 9:00 am

Stuart Jeffries on Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning art scene

Part-gothic horror, part-Acorn Antiques: Louise Bourgeois, at the Hayward Gallery, reviewed

19 February 2022 9:00 am

Louise Bourgeois was 62 and recently widowed when she first used soft materials in her installation ‘The Destruction of the…

Only time will tell if there’ll be a Great Pandemic Novel

9 October 2021 9:00 am

We had been dreading it like (forgive me) the plague: the inevitable onslaught of corona-lit. Fortunately, the first few titles…

Glorious: Bernardo Bellotto at the National Gallery reviewed

14 August 2021 9:00 am

What is the National Gallery playing at? Why, in this summer of stop-start tropical storms, is the NG making visitors…

Rodin was as modern as Magritte and Dali, but more touching and troubling than either

29 May 2021 9:00 am

Rodin’s studio at Meudon in the suburbs of Paris is huge and filled with light — a sort of combined…

Why Thomas Becket still divides opinion

22 May 2021 9:00 am

The verdict is still out on Thomas Becket, says Dan Hitchens, but there’s no doubting the brilliance of the art he inspired

How St Ives became Barbara Hepworth’s spiritual home

15 May 2021 9:00 am

‘To see a world in a grain of sand’, to attain the mystical perception that Blake advocated, requires a concentrated,…

The art of storing and unveiling

24 April 2021 9:00 am

The way an object is stored can magnify its beauty and enhance expectation. Joanna Rossiter wonders whether the opening up of galleries will have the same effect on an art-starved public

Maggi Hambling's Wollstonecraft statue is hideous but fitting

28 November 2020 9:00 am

Frankly, it is rather hideous — but also quite wonderful, shimmering against the weak blue of a late November sky.…

Antony Gormley on why sculpture is far superior to painting

7 November 2020 9:00 am

In an extract from their book, Antony Gormley tells Martin Gayford that the 3-D will always trump the 2-D

A high-end car-boot sale of the unconscious: Colnaghi’s Dreamsongs reviewed

17 October 2020 9:00 am

In 1772 the 15-year-old Mozart wrote a one-act opera set, like The Magic Flute, in a dream world. Il sogno…

Why the Royal Academy is wrong to consider selling their precious Michelangelo

10 October 2020 9:00 am

Martin Gayford explains why the Royal Academy would be wrong to sell Michelangelo’s ‘Taddei Tondo’

Spectacular and mind-expanding: Tantra at the British Museum reviewed

3 October 2020 9:00 am

A great temple of the goddess Tara can be found at Tarapith in West Bengal. But her true abode, in…

I wish John Chamberlain was still around to crush this hideous toothpaste-blue Ferrari

4 July 2020 9:00 am

For three months art lovers have had nothing but screens to look at. As one New York dealer complained to…

How to succeed in sculpture (without being a man)

18 April 2020 9:00 am

Whee-ooh-whee ya-ya-yang skrittle-skrittle skreeeek… Is it a space pod bearing aliens from Mars? No, it’s a podcast featuring aliens from…

Mother nature is finally getting the art she deserves

14 March 2020 9:00 am

Exhibitions about fungi, bugs and trees illustrate the depth, range and vitality of a growing field of art, says Mark Cocker

Enchanting – but don’t fall for the mummified rubber duck in the gift shop: Tutankhamun reviewed

18 January 2020 9:00 am

Like Elton John, though less ravaged, Tutankhamun’s treasures are on their final world tour. Soon these 150 artefacts will return…