landscape
In the Age of Giorgione, Royal AcademySaturday, 12 March 2016Much is made of the mystery surrounding Giorgione, a painter of pivotal influence, about whom, paradoxically, we know almost nothing beyond the manner of his death. He died in a Venetian plague colony in 1510 aged about 33, and was as elusive in the... Read more... |
Nikolai Astrup: Painting Norway, Dulwich Picture GallerySunday, 14 February 2016Dulwich Picture Gallery, the oldest public painting gallery anywhere with one of the world’s finest collections of Old Masters, has in recent years built up a deserved reputation for bringing to the British audience unfamiliar aspects of well known... Read more... |
Frank Auerbach, Tate BritainSaturday, 10 October 2015A finely honed and spacious selection dating from the 1950s to now, looks in acute focus at the work – a scatter of drawings, a print, but almost entirely paintings – of Frank Auerbach, (b 1931). An only child, he came without his family, from... Read more... |
Linneaus Tripe, Victoria & Albert MuseumThursday, 02 July 2015Linnaeus Tripe? Shades of a minor character in Dickens or Trollope, but in fact the resoundingly named Tripe (1822-1902) was an army officer and photographer, the sixth son and ninth child of a professional middle-class family from Devonport, his... Read more... |
Constable: A Country Rebel, BBC FourSunday, 07 September 2014Presenter Alastair Sooke looked alarmingly fit, careering round the British countryside and the streets of Paris on his bicycle, talking all the while (and never out of breath) as he described the artistic trajectory of John Constable. In the... Read more... |
Yuletide Scenes 5: WinterMonday, 23 December 2013Russia is the largest country on earth, unimaginably vast. Its people naturally have a great attachment to their country – and its landscape – in spite of their turbulent history, and in the late 19th century painters portrayed with deep feeling... Read more... |
Yuletide Scenes 3: Winter SeaSaturday, 21 December 2013There’s movement towards a walk after lunch, but by the time everyone’s hummed and hawed about where they might go, rubbed their bellies after one too many forcemeat balls and argued about who put the Guardian Quiz where, it’s already dark and there... Read more... |
Through American Eyes: Frederic Church and the Landscape Oil Sketch, National GalleryFriday, 08 February 2013Pre-Raphaelites, eat your heart out; and wherever he is, John Ruskin, once so dismissive of the artist, must be beaming with pleasure. The American landscape painter Frederic Church (1826-1900) was indeed seen as the heir to Turner, and his distinct... Read more... |
Prunella Clough, Annely JudaThursday, 17 May 2012Prunella Clough, 1919–1999, was one of the most idiosyncratic and original British artists of the postwar period. Her art is reticent, shy, subtle - yet in both life and aesthetics she was a free and generous spirit. Now there is a fine selection of... Read more... |
Graham Sutherland: An Unfinished World, Modern Art OxfordTuesday, 20 December 2011Graham Sutherland and George Shaw have two things in common. They are both painters and both are associated with Coventry: Sutherland made his famous altarpiece work – a tapestry – for the city’s rebuilt cathedral, while Shaw grew up in... Read more... |
Art of America, BBC FourTuesday, 15 November 2011For dull reasons to do with a dodgy digital box and a very old analogue telly, I can’t tune in to BBC Four during live transmissions, so I either catch up on iPlayer, or (lucky me as a journalist) get to see programmes early. But I’m very glad I can... Read more... |
Gainsborough's Landscapes: Themes and Variations, Holburne MuseumMonday, 03 October 2011Dogs, horses, cows, sheep, goats and pigs are the creatures that, however minuscule in stature, take pride of place in the fascinating exhibition of Thomas Gainsborough’s imaginary landscapes at the Holburne in Bath, an ideal complement to the nine... Read more... |