Turner

The beauty of pollution

13 July 2024 9:00 am

On the back of the British £20 note, J.M.W. Turner appears against the backdrop of his most iconic image. Voted…

The most original sea painter since Turner? Lowry

22 June 2024 9:00 am

In 1958 an elderly gentleman staying at the Castle Hotel in Berwick-upon-Tweed gave the receptionist a doodle he had made…

Stories of the Sussex Downs

30 March 2024 9:00 am

Focusing on a 20-mile square of West Sussex, Alexandra Harris explores its rich history, from the wreck of a Viking longboat to a refuge for French Resistance agents

Watcher of the skies: John Constable, painter and meteorologist

12 February 2022 9:00 am

Philip Hensher describes how John Constable’s energy and imagination freed British art from the constraints of the past

Tsunami of piffle: Rockets and Blue Lights at the Dorfman Theatre reviewed

11 September 2021 9:00 am

Deep breath. Here goes. Winsome Pinnock’s new play about Turner opens with one of the most confusing and illogical scenes…

From Middlemarch to Mickey Mouse: a short history of The Spectator’s books and arts pages

24 April 2020 11:00 pm

The Spectator arts and books pages have spent 10,000 issues identifying the dominant cultural phenomena of the day and being difficult about them, says Richard Bratby

Vanessa Redgrave and Timothy Spall as Mrs Lowry and her son

Why did Mrs Lowry hate her son’s paintings?

31 August 2019 9:00 am

‘I often wonder what artists are for nowadays, what with photography and a thousand and one processes by which you…

Why has British art had such a fascination with fire?

15 June 2019 9:00 am

‘Playing God is indeed playing with fire,’ observed Ronald Dworkin. ‘But that is what we mortals have done since Prometheus,…

The eyes have it: ‘The Zebra’, 1763, by George Stubbs

What makes British art British?

27 April 2019 9:00 am

There’s no avoiding the Britishness of British art. It hits me every time I walk outside and see dappled trees…

‘Horizons II, (Allhallows towards London Gateway Port), England’, 2015, by Nadav Kander

The glorious history of Chatham Dockyard, as told through the eyes of artists

31 March 2018 9:00 am

‘Ding, Clash, Dong, BANG, Boom, Rattle, Clash, BANG, Clink, BANG, Dong, BANG, Clatter, BANG BANG BANG!’ is how Charles Dickens…

Whole worlds are conjured up in a few strokes: Watercolour at the Fitzwilliam Museum reviewed

1 August 2015 9:00 am

I learnt to splash about in watercolour at my grandmother’s knee. Or rather, sitting beside her crouched over a pad…

James Turrell interview: ‘I sell blue sky and coloured air’

13 June 2015 9:00 am

Martin Gayford talks to the artist James Turrell, who has lit up Houghton Hall like a baroque firework display

‘North Cape’, probably 1840s, by Peder Balke

We must never again let this 19th century Norwegian master slip into oblivion

6 December 2014 9:00 am

You won’t have heard of Peder Balke. Yet this long-neglected painter from 19th-century Norway is now the subject of a…

Mr Turner: the gruntiest, snortiest, huffiest film of the year - and the most beautiful too

1 November 2014 9:00 am

Mr Turner may be the gruntiest film of the year, possibly the gruntiest film ever. ‘Grunt, grunt, grunt,’ goes Mr…

Timothy Spall as the eponymous painter in Mike Leigh’s new film ‘Mr Turner’

Mike Leigh interview: ‘A guy in the Guardian wants to sue me for defamation of Ruskin!’

18 October 2014 9:00 am

Hermione Eyre talks to filmmaker Mike Leigh about Mr Turner, Hollywood, and making films his own way

‘Water-meadows near Salisbury’, 1829/30, by John Constable

Curator-driven ambitions mar this Constable show at the V&A

4 October 2014 9:00 am

The V&A has an unparalleled collection of hundreds of works by John Constable (1776–1837), but hardly anyone seems to know…

‘Rain, Steam and Speed — The Great Western Railway’, 1844, by J.M.W. Turner

Tate Britain’s Turner show reveals an old master - though the Spectator didn’t think so at the time

27 September 2014 9:00 am

Juvenilia is the work produced during an artist’s youth. It would seem logical to think, therefore, that an artist’s output…

Who’s in, who’s out: George Bernard O’Neill’s ‘Public Opinion’ depicts a private view of the annual exhibition at the Royal Academy

The age of the starving artist

26 July 2014 9:00 am

Philip Hensher on the precarious fortunes of even the most gifted 19th-century artists

‘Storm on Yarmouth Beach’, 1831, by Cotman

There are too few masterpieces in Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia

4 January 2014 9:00 am

Andrew Lambirth on the Sainsbury Centre’s latest exhibition

'Squiggle, squiggle, ooh, good...' Tate St Ives shows how sexy the octopus can be

23 November 2013 9:00 am

One of the more exotic attractions at the 1939–40 World’s Fair in New York was Salvador Dalí’s ‘Dream of Venus…