Art
Give Eric Ravilious a rest
How do artists sustain a reputation? We’d like to think it’s on the basis of their work. In the case…
Why do my outfits make people so angry?
I have always cycled everywhere in London, not because I want to save the planet but because I want to…
Admirable in their awfulness – the siblings Gus and Gwen John
The self-styled Gypsy King and his reclusive sister seemed polar opposites – but both painters were selfish, obsessive monsters, according to Judith Mackrell
Real artists have nothing to fear from AI
Christie’s is making digital-art history again – or at least trying to. Between 20 February and 5 March, it is…
How art collective Remilia captured the MAGA movement
The MAGA social scene was defined on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration by the Coronation Ball – perhaps the…
The plain-speaking bloke from Warrington who painted only for himself
Born in 1932, Eric Tucker created his art not for exhibition or in pursuit of fame but simply because he felt compelled to do so
The otherworldly artist who made his name at The Spectator
There is something otherworldly about Rory McEwen’s paintings of plants, leaves and fruit. They are indisputably beautiful, often breathtakingly so,…
‘When a work lands the excitement is physical’: William Kentridge interviewed
Watching William Kentridge’s film Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot is like being submerged inside his mind, inside the coffee pot maybe.…
The curse of distraction: Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber, reviewed
A former college professor prepares to write his long-gestated book on Montaigne, but finds his mind wandering from 1970s nudism to Balzac’s coffee dependency
Wondrous treasure troves: the Jewish country houses of Europe
Among the greatest collectors was Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, whose furniture, paintings and objets at Waddesdon Manor rivalled those of many museums
Inside the mind of Vincent Van Gogh
Van Gogh only got one major review in his career, and he was mystified by it. When the critic Albert…
What are the most ‘unsettling’ artworks to hang in 10 Downing Street?
The art of politics Keir Starmer moved a portrait of Lady Thatcher from one room at 10 Downing Street to…
Why is no one marching against VAT on school fees?
How passively we respond to revelations of Labour’s real direction of travel. As millions of pensioners brace for the confiscation…
How Miss La La captured Degas’s imagination
‘Can you come Saturday morning to my studio, 19 bis rue Fontaine?’ Degas wrote to Edmond de Goncourt in 1879.…
Women on a wind-swept island: Hagstone, by Sinéad Gleeson, reviewed
Nell, an artist, lives peacefully on an island, presumably off the west coast of Ireland. But all changes when a group of women occupy a crumbling convent overlooking the sea
Why are the Japanese so obsessed with the cute?
Some see it as a way of appearing harmless after the second world war – but an infantile delight in frolicking animals dates back to at least the 12th century
The beauty of medieval bestiaries
Spiders, owls, elephants and dragons appear alongside dog-headed men and tusked women in a wealth of texts explaining the world in the most vivid terms then available
The force of nature that drove Claude Monet
A compulsion to paint en plein air would remain with the great Impressionist for life, as well as a questing need to find new ways to express what he saw and felt
Northern lights
Claudia Massie on the spectacular new galleries that showcase the best of Scottish art for the first time
Fibre optics
Trophy office blocks designed as landmarks are not welcoming to humans; their glass and steel reception areas feel more suited…
Hanging offences
Calvin Po laments the pious distortions of history at two of Britain’s best-known galleries
‘I don’t walk alone in any city’
The secretive life of China’s most controversial cartoonist
How to protest the protestors
These are bleak times in our land, and we must take our pleasures where we can. Personally I have been…
