Exhibitions
A lot of art is trickery - and all the better for it
One day, in the autumn of 1960, a young Frenchman launched himself off a garden wall in a suburban street…
V&A's Botticelli Reimagined has too many desperate pretenders
When Tom Birkin, hero of J.L. Carr’s novel A Month in the Country, wakes from sleeping in the sun, it…
Hell made fun – the joy of Hieronymus Bosch
The 20th-century painter who called himself Balthus once proposed that a monograph about him should begin with the words ‘Balthus…
Twee, treacly and tearful: Pre-Raphaelites at the Walker Art Gallery reviewed
Dear, good, kind, sacrificing Little Nell. Here she is kneeling by a wayside pond, bonnet pushed back, shoes and stockings…
Part bijou Kiefer, part woozy Vuillard: the paintings of Andrew Cranston
The ten vignettes that punctuate the white walls of the Ingleby Gallery invite us to step into the many-chambered mind…
Renaissance master? Rascal? Thief? In search of Giorgione
Question-marks over attribution are at the heart of a forthcoming Giorgione exhibition. Martin Gayford sifts through the evidence
Warhol the traditionalist: the Ashmolean Museum show reviewed
When asked the question ‘What is art?’, Andy Warhol gave a characteristically flip answer (‘Isn’t that a guy’s name?’). On…
Nikolai Astrup - Norway’s other great painter
The Norwegian artist Nikolai Astrup has been unjustly overshadowed by Edvard Munch. But that is about to change, says Claudia Massie
The link between herbaceous borders and the avant-garde
Philip Larkin once remarked that Art Tatum, a jazz musician given to ornate, multi-noted flourishes on the keyboard, reminded him…
John Dee thought he could talk to angels using medieval computer technology
John Dee liked to talk to spirits but he was no loony witch, says Christopher Howse
Even Corbyn would find Thomas More’s Utopia too leftwing
Thomas More’s 1516 classic is a textbook for our troubled times, says William Cook
Why would a dissolute rebel like Paul Gauguin paint a nativity?
Martin Gayford investigates how this splendid Tahitian Madonna came about and why religion was ever-present in Gauguin's art
How pop is Peter Blake?
Painters and sculptors are highly averse to being labelled. So much so that it seems fairly certain that, if asked,…
Artistic taste is inversely proportional to political nous
‘Wherever the British settle, wherever they colonize,’ observed the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon, ‘they carry and will ever carry trial…
The work of Elisabeth Frink is ripe for a renaissance
In a converted barn in Dorset, not far from the rural studio where she made many of her greatest sculptures,…
Britain's abstract painters deserve more attention than America's abstract expressionists
Fifteen million pounds and a hefty slice of architectural vision have transformed the Whitworth from a fusty Victorian art temple…
Alexander Calder: the man who made abstract art fly
One day, in October 1930, Alexander Calder visited the great abstract painter Piet Mondrian in his apartment in Paris. The…
Egypt: where gods are born and go to die
Tom Holland on Egypt, where the deities were born and history itself began
Why I find women-only exhibitions depressing
Modern Scottish Men, a new exhibition celebrating the achievements of male artists in the 20th century, opens next month in…
How the pixel became a key feature of drone warfare
I hadn’t really thought much about pixels before, despite spending a large portion of my day looking at them. After…
Repetitive but compelling: Giacometti at the National Portrait Gallery reviewed
One day in 1938 Alberto Giacometti saw a marvellous sight on his bedroom ceiling. It was ‘a thread like a…
What is it about Bill Viola’s films that reduce grown-ups to tears?
What is it about Bill Viola's films that reduce grown-ups to tears? William Cook dries his eyes and talks to the video artist about Zen, loss and nearly drowning
Why did Goya’s sitters put up with his brutal honesty?
Sometimes, contrary to a widespread suspicion, critics do get it right. On 17 August, 1798 an anonymous contributor to the…