Arts feature
How the railways shaped modern culture
Cue track seven of Frank Sinatra’s 1957 album Only the Lonely and you can hear Ol’ Blue Eyes pretending to…
Rattigan’s films are as important as his plays
A campaign is under way to rename the West End’s Duchess Theatre after the playwright Terence Rattigan. Supported as it…
Edinburgh Fringe’s war on comedy
Every day my inbox fills with stories of panic, madness and despair. The Edinburgh Fringe is upon us and the…
Why has the world turned on the Waltz King?
On 17 June 1872, Johann Strauss II conducted the biggest concert of his life. The city was Boston, USA, and…
The joys of mudlarking
Imagine a London of the distant future. A mudlark combs through the Thames foreshore, looking for relics of the past.…
The greatest photography exhibition of all time
I am sitting on a neat little park bench in a tiny medieval town in rural Luxembourg, and I am…
Landscape designer Tom Stuart-Smith on mistakes, sand and weeds
If you’re looking for an early example of Tom Stuart-Smith’s work, you’d have to go to a car park to…
The French sculptors building the new Statue of Liberty
At a miserable-looking rally for the centre-left Place Publique in mid-March, its co-president, MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, made international headlines calling…
The politics of horror
Everyone forgets the actual opening scene of 28 Days Later, even though it’s deeply relatable, in that it features a…
The Renaissance master who rescued polyphonic music
Last month I watched conductor Harry Christophers blow through what sounded like an arthritic harmonica but in fact was a…
The gloriously impure world of Edward Burra
Every few years the shade of Edward Burra is treated to a Major Retrospective. The pattern is long established: Edward…
Museums: open up your vaults!
At any one time eighty per cent of the art owned by Britain’s many museums and public art galleries will…
The forgotten story of British opera
British opera was born with Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and then vanished for two-and-a-half centuries, apparently. Between the first performance…
The odd couple: Austen and Turner at 250
History is full of odd couples: famous but unrelated people who happen to have been born in the same year.…
Art deco gave veneer and frivolity a bad name
The jazz style was the blowsy filling between the noxious crusts of two world wars. More than 30 years passed…
Why is the National Portrait Gallery’s collection so poor?
The recent announcement that the National Portrait Gallery has purchased two works by Sonia Boyce and Hew Locke for its…
‘I’ve seen controllers come and go’: Radio 3’s Michael Berkeley interviewed
A few years ago I had a panic-stricken phone call from a female friend. ‘Help!’ she wailed. ‘Remind me what…
Why is the British Museum hiding its great Orthodox icons?
The long neglected art of Byzantium and early Christianity is returning to the world’s museums. Last November, the Louvre confirmed…
The unnerving world of Erik Satie’s 20-hour composition
Once Igor Levit starts playing Erik Satie at 10 a.m. on 24 April at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, he can…
The National Trust’s plans for Clandon Park are a travesty
In April 2015, a fire raged through Clandon Park, destroying much of the 18th-century Palladian mansion’s prized interiors. Contrary to…
Why we’re flocking to matinees
The Starland Vocal Band were on to something. In their 1976 hit ‘Afternoon Delight’ they sang, in gruesomely twee harmony:…
Why was this fêted Mexican painter left out of the canon?
Think of a Mexican painting, and chances are you’ll conjure up an image of an eyebrow-knitted Frida Kahlo, or a…
‘The possibilities of paint are never-ending’: Sir Frank Bowling interviewed
‘I’m full of excitement waiting for this to dry out,’ Sir Frank Bowling exclaims. We are sitting in his studio,…
The true birthplace of the Renaissance
The baby reaches out to touch his mother’s scarf: he studies her face intently, and she focuses entirely on him.…
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…
