Art
Rise early to see the Vatican at its best
The sun has only just risen in Rome and we are standing bleary-eyed in a short queue outside the Vatican.…
Seeing Paris through Impressionist eyes
The spectre of the Charlie Hebdo killings still hangs over Paris. Outside the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, opposite the…
Patrick George: painting some of his best work at 91
‘If I see something I like I wish to tell someone else; this… is why I paint.’ Patrick George is…
Dallas, city of culture
Dallas has reinvented itself as a major arts destination, says Hugh Graham
How the smile came to Paris (briefly)
In 1787 critics of the Paris Salon were scandalised by a painting exhibited by Mme Vigée Le Brun. The subject…
To call this offering a book is an abuse of language
I picked up this book with real enthusiasm. Who cannot be entranced by those 20 years after the second world…
Frieze Art Fair: where great refinement meets harrowing vulgarity
If you wanted to find a middle-aged man in a bright orange suit, matching tie and sneakers, Frieze is a…
Tate Modern’s latest show feels like it’s from another planet
‘Some day we shall no longer need pictures: we shall just be happy.’ — Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter, 1966…
Effie Gray can effie off
Effie Gray, which has been written by Emma Thompson and recounts the doomed marriage of Victorian art critic John Ruskin…
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,…
‘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…
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…
Agitprop, love trucks and leaflet bombs: the art of protest
Titles can be misleading, and in case you have visions of microwave ovens running amok or washing machines crunching up…
The gentle intoxications of Laurie Lee
On Laurie Lee’s centenary, Jeremy Treglown wonders how the writer’s legacy stands up
Why the BBC will never match Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation
No modern critic would dare match Kenneth Clark’s fearless way with sweeping statements
The mathematical revolution behind ‘the greatest picture in the world’
The Indian inspiration with which Piero della Francesca created ‘the greatest picture in the world’
This beautiful new history of Kew Gardens needs a bit of weeding
Edward Bawden’s Kew Gardens is a beautiful book. Lovers of early 20th-century British art will find it hard to stop…
Caught between a New Age rock and a theory junkie hard place
Siri Hustvedt’s new novel isn’t exactly an easy read — but the casual bookshop browser should be reassured that it’s…
A spirit to warm Bruegel’s ‘Hunters in the Snow’
The ostensible subject matter is misleading, as is any conflation with his lesser relatives’ wassailing peasants and roistering village squares.…
Clarissa Tan's Notebook: Why I stopped drinking petrol
Florence was in fog the day I arrived. Its buildings were bathed in white cloud, its people moved as though…
Saving Italy, by Robert M. Edsel - a review
During the civil war, the Puritan iconoclast William Dowsing recorded with satisfaction his destructive visit in 1644 to the parish…
When a smartphone gallery is better than the real thing
Michael Prodger finds that new technology is transforming how we experience art – in galleries, on computers and on smartphones too
Christopher Sykes’s diary: David Hockney, Bridlington lobster, and the risks of a third martini
I began my week with a trip to Bridlington, the closest seaside town to my childhood home. ‘Brid’, as it’s…