Painting
Geometry in the 20th and 21st centuries was adventurous - and apocalyptic
Almost a decade ago, David Cameron informed Tony Blair, unkindly but accurately, ‘You were the future once.’ A visitor to…
The tragic tale of the Two Roberts is a story of two artists cut off in their prime
In 1933, two new students met on their first day at Glasgow School of Art. From then on they were…
2015 in exhibitions - painting still rules
The art on show over the coming year demonstrates that we still live in an age of mighty painters, says Martin Gayford
Climate change, Bruegel-style
The world depicted by the Flemish master is not so different from our own, says Martin Gayford
Snow - art’s biggest challenge
In owning a flock of artificial sheep, Joseph Farquharson must have been unusual among Highland lairds a century ago. His…
We must never again let this 19th century Norwegian master slip into oblivion
You won’t have heard of Peder Balke. Yet this long-neglected painter from 19th-century Norway is now the subject of a…
Does Allen Jones deserve a retrospective at the Royal Academy?
It has been a vintage season for mannequins. At the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, an exhibition called Silent Partners looks…
David Hockney interview: ‘The avant-garde have lost their authority’
David Hockney talks to Martin Gayford about 60 years of ignoring art fashion
Without a model, Moroni could be stunningly dull. With one, he was peerless...
Giovanni Battista Moroni, wrote Bernard Berenson, was ‘the only mere portrait painter that Italy has ever produced’. Indeed, Berenson continued,…
Egon Schiele at the Courtauld: a one-note samba of spindly limbs, nipples and pudenda
One day, as a student — or so the story goes — Egon Schiele called on Gustav Klimt, a celebrated…
The pop artist whose transgressions went too far – for the PC art world
After years of being effectively banned from exhibiting in his own country, Allen Jones finally reaches the RA with his first major UK retrospective. Andrew Lambirth meets him
Mr Turner: the gruntiest, snortiest, huffiest film of the year - and the most beautiful too
Mr Turner may be the gruntiest film of the year, possibly the gruntiest film ever. ‘Grunt, grunt, grunt,’ goes Mr…
How Rothko become the mythic superman of mystical abstraction
Mark Rothko was an abstract artist who didn’t see himself as an abstract artist — or at least not in…
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…
All my doubts about Anselm Kiefer are blown away by his Royal Academy show
In the Royal Academy’s courtyard are two large glass cases or vitrines containing model submarines. In one the sea has…
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…
Why everyone loves Rembrandt
Talking of Rembrandt’s ‘The Jewish Bride’ to a friend, Vincent van Gogh went — characteristically — over the top. ‘I…
'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
Futurism’s escape to the country
Futurism, with its populist mix of explosive rhetoric (burn all the museums!) and resolutely urban experience and emphasis on speed,…
The age of the starving artist
Philip Hensher on the precarious fortunes of even the most gifted 19th-century artists
Dear Mary: How can I tame my brother’s savage table manners?
Q. I live far away from my brother and his family, but went to stay with them recently for the…
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’
Do critics make good artists? Come and judge ours
Artists make good critics, but do critics make good artists? It’s hard to tell, when most are too chicken to…
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.…
