Arts
Class of ’73
The death of Christopher Hogwood has deprived the world of the most successful exponent of early music there has ever…
Tate Britain’s Turner show reveals an old master - though the Spectator didn’t think so at the time
Juvenilia is the work produced during an artist’s youth. It would seem logical to think, therefore, that an artist’s output…
Is John Hoyland the new Turner?
What happens to an artist’s reputation when he dies? Traditionally, there was a period of cooling off when the reputation,…
Robo-Tell hits Welsh National Opera
Is there a fundamental, insuperable problem with staging Rossini’s Guillaume Tell on a budget, without the resources to conjure up…
Outnumbered: The Movie (But Crap)
What We Did On Our Holiday is written and directed by Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton, the pair who created…
Culture Buff
It all began in the mid-1960s for the Brilliant Creatures: Germaine, Clive, Barry & Bob, now given de luxe treatment…
‘Likes’, lacquered cherry pies and Anselm Kiefer: the weird world of post-internet art
In the mid-1990s the art world got excited about internet art (or ‘net.art’, as those involved styled it). This new…
Why everyone loves Rembrandt
Talking of Rembrandt’s ‘The Jewish Bride’ to a friend, Vincent van Gogh went — characteristically — over the top. ‘I…
Charles III is made for numbskulls by numbskulls
Suppose Charles were to reign as a meddlesome, self-pitying, indecisive plonker. It’s a thought. It’s now a play, too, by…
Marriage and foreplay Sharia-style
Needless to say, it’s not uncommon to hear single British women in their thirties and forties saying that all the…
'I like vanished things': Anselm Kiefer on art, alchemy and his childhood
Martin Gayford talks to a surprisingly jolly Anselm Kiefer about art and metamorphosis
The man who brought Cubism to New York
The American Jewish artist Max Weber (1881–1961) was born in Belostok in Russia (now Bialystok in Poland), and although he…
Wedding music lives or dies at the hands of the organist
A few weeks ago I was at the perfect wedding. My young friend Will Heaven, a comment editor at the…
If you have teenage boys who loathe the very idea of theatre, send them to The Play That Goes Wrong
It’s taken a while but here it is. The Play That Goes Wrong is like Noises Off, but simpler. Michael…
Is Anna Nicole’s absurd life worth our while? Not as much as Otello’s
So how did London’s two big opera companies launch their new seasons last week? Not perhaps in the way you…
20,000 Days On Earth: is Nick Cave the missing link? Or the next stage in evolution?
Inspired by Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never (2011), Katy Perry’s Part of Me (2012) and One Direction’s This Is Us…
The sofa that became a work of art
Last week on Front Row (Radio 4) the singer Joyce DiDonato recalled the advice she gave the new graduates of…
I love that people assume I’m gay
At a birthday dinner over the weekend I was introduced to this delightful party girl of a certain age whose…
Culture Buff
It’s chamber orchestras at 20 paces. Both the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra have recently announced their…
Bach triumphant
A few weeks ago I was at the perfect wedding. My young friend Will Heaven, a comment editor at the…
Bach triumphant
A few weeks ago I was at the perfect wedding. My young friend Will Heaven, a comment editor at the…
Michelangelo’s vision was greater even than Shakespeare’s
Alasdair Palmer reveals the monstrous egomaniac behind Michelangelo’s artistic genius
How independence will impoverish Scottish culture
Daniel Jackson foresees an impoverished cultural landscape for an independentScotland, with artists forced to do Salmond’s bidding
The Imperial War Museum finds a deadly place to display first world war masterpieces
The Imperial War Museum has reopened after a major refit and looks pretty dapper, even though it was overrun by…
