Sculpture
The jewel-bright, mesmerisingly detailed pictures by Raqib Shaw are a revelation
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
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
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
Stuart Jeffries on Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning art scene
Part-gothic horror, part-Acorn Antiques: Louise Bourgeois, at the Hayward Gallery, reviewed
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
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
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
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
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
‘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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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)
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
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
Like Elton John, though less ravaged, Tutankhamun’s treasures are on their final world tour. Soon these 150 artefacts will return…
The man who built Britain’s first skyscraper
In 2011 Britain’s first skyscraper was finally given Grade I listing. The citation for 55 Broadway — the Gotham City-ish…
You’ll be blubbing over a wooden boulder at David Nash’s show at Towner Art Gallery
Call me soppy, but when the credits rolled on ‘Wooden Boulder’, a film made by earth artist David Nash over…
A cast of Antony Gormley? Or a pair of giant conkers? Gormley’s new show reviewed
While Sir Joshua Reynolds, on his plinth, was looking the other way, a little girl last Saturday morning was trying…
On photography, shrines and Maradona: Geoff Dyer’s Neapolitan pilgrimage
At the Villa Pignatelli in Naples there is an exhibition by Elisa Sighicelli: photographs of bits and pieces of antiquity…
Why was Sigmund Freud so obsessed with Egypt?
Twenty years ago, I visited the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna with a party of American journalists. Even in those…
