Visual arts
Tom Birchenough
"After such knowledge, what forgiveness?" TS Eliot’s line could well stand as an epitaph to Jacqui and David Morris’s troublingly thoughtful film about British photographer Don McCullin, whose haunting images of conflict across the world over half a century have defined our perception of modern warfare (though his range of subjects goes far beyond that). The softly-spoken McCullin is our guide here to some of the stories behind this lifetime’s achievement, which is no less well summarized in his own words: “Seeing and looking at what others cannot bear to see is what my life is all about.”It Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The Mayan calendar recently suggested it was all over. It is now, almost. 2012 was, by anyone’s lights, an annus mirabilis for culture on these shores. The world came to the United Kingdom, and the kingdom was indeed more or less united by a genuine aura of inclusion. Clumps of funding were hurled in the general direction of the Cultural Olympiad, which became known as the London 2012 Festival, and all sorts leapt aboard. Just for a start, those opera companies who had been burning to perform a version of Vivaldi's L'Olimpiade could now finally proceed. At least three did.Not all of what Read more ...
Ismene Brown
In among the deluge of New Year Honours poured over Olympians (headed by Sir Bradley Wiggins, Sir Ben Ainslie, Dame Sarah Storey and Companion of Honour Lord Coe), there is a modest sprinkling over the arts world too. Roald Dahl's illustrator Quentin Blake becomes Sir Quentin, and another veteran entertainer, Jeremy Lloyd, co-writer of 'Allo 'Allo and Are You Being Served?, is made CBE. There are no arts Dames, but CBEs go to three well-known women, singer Kate Bush, artist Tracey Emin and choreographer Arlene Philips and to the less visible Cultural Olympiad chief, Ruth Mackenzie.Three other Read more ...
fisun.guner
It was the year that everyone got just a little hysterical about Damien Hirst. That and the art market that made him. But that didn’t keep the visitors away from his retrospective at Tate Modern. The exhibition had more crowds than Wembley Stadium, or at least more than for any other exhibition in Tate Modern’s 12-year history (and possibly for any exhibition since Tate records began). It was cleverly curated (i.e. heavily edited) so it wasn’t half as execrable as some critics claimed it was (or said it would be before seeing it). And at least it reminded us why anyone had made such a fuss Read more ...
fisun.guner
If hell doesn’t exist for us in the 21st century, at least not in the literal rather than the Sartrean sense, than how should we read the fabulous visions of 16th-century Flemish artists such as Hieronymus Bosch? As proto-Surrealism? As the outpourings of a mind unique in its insights into the torments of the soul and seeking expression in the inexpressible?Christian iconography may not mean that much to as many people today, but from hatching eggs from which miniature humans emerge to hybrids of creature, man and archaic machine, Bosch’s vision of a world turned upside-down has few Read more ...
fisun.guner
The great Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder was instrumental in developing landscape painting as a genre in its own right. Hunters in the Snow, 1565, is one of five surviving paintings (Bruegel painted six) in his cycle depicting The Labours of the Months. Populated by villagers, peasant workers, farmers, hunters and children, each painting is of a panoramic landscape at a different time of year. This chilly winter scene is a Christmas card favourite. But Bruegel is an artist whose work has also inspired art house directors, contemporary writers and modernist poets. Hunters Read more ...
Sarah Kent
I’ve always loved this painting in the National Gallery by Sandro Botticelli. The jewel-like colours and exquisite clarity of detail create a consoling sense of lucidity, as though everything has been revealed to be alright.The reason for this optimism is, of course, the birth of Christ. Framed in the triangular entrance to a cave with a thatched portico, an extremely tall Madonna kneels at the feet of a similarly large infant (their size indicates their status). Mother and child, the sleeping Joseph and the ox and ass form the still centre of a dynamic composition filled with angels dressed Read more ...
mark.hudson
Christmas might not seem the most appropriate time to ask you, dear reader, if you’ve ever suffered a nervous breakdown. Yet for many this festival of conviviality amid the darkest hours of the year exacerbates a sense of loneliness and desperation. The break in routine, so welcome for most of us, can become a swift passage to the mental abyss. Snow, that magical, muffling coating of the damp, dark everyday world can appear – particularly in the northern countries – relentless and oppressive, yet another manifestation of a visual world that is veering out of control.Every mark conveys a Read more ...