A study of the masters Rembrandt van Rijn and JMW Turner exhibited at Tate Britain and the National Gallery London. The point is that Rembrandt and Turner (plus, with perhaps more reason,Titian and Michelangelo, who both lived to be much older than Rembrandt ) are regularly cited as artists who developed 'late styles', which have since been regarded as proof of superior genius. The idea evolved in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. It was at that time that the term 'Alterstil' - 'old age style' was coined in German. There is an excellent discussion of this in the first chapter of...

London has been having symbolically enough in 2014 a sustained examination of not only art historically northern Europe in general with the National Gallery having looked at the northern renaissance but perhaps far more pertinently contemporary German art of the post war period, enhanced by an original examination of German history at the British Museum. The medium of painting is the prism, with significant showings of Anselm Kiefer, a West German b 1945, and Gerhard Richter b 1932, and Sigmar Polke, 1941-2010, both originally East Germans, who once showed together, and with others invented...

Figure to Ground publishes a collection of studies from the nodel made between 2010 and 2014. These include works in pencil and watercolour, and oil on canvas of positions taken between five and fifteen minutes. They come to represent a conversation between artist and sitter, confirming the easy and natural grace of the human figure in focus.

In his fascinating study of the pervasive theme of 'The Dance of Death' 'Edward Lucie-Smith traces its lineage in art from mosaiics of Pompeii and early Medieval frescos. He cites the celebrated engraving by Albrecht Durer: The Knight, Death and the Devil' and an extensive series of woodcuts,'The Dance of Death' by Hans Holbein the Younger. He explores 'Les Grand Miseres de Guerre', by Jaques Callot, the nightmares of Henri Fuseli and bitter social studies of Goya. The story takes in harsh anti-war prints by Louis Raemaeker and iconic works by Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele.The monograph is...

Facsimile edition of Cv Journal of Art and Crafts reproduces number 3/1 1990 to 4/2 1991. Includes artist interviews, features and showcases of the fine and applied art of the time. The survey began in April 1988 as interviews with jewellers, fashion designers and furniture restorers, based at Old Loom House in Whitechapel, launching a quarterly review "Cv Journal of Art and Crafts". Cv Journal was published to 1991 and the collection of interviews, features and reviews provided the foundation of the Cv/Visual Arts Research archive and subsequent publications. Cv addresses the fields of...

In this book Edward Lucie-Smith considers the achievement of John Singer Sargent in response to a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. This exhibition features Sargent's more private works - images of friends, rather than portraits painted on commission. In many ways Sargent is an ambiguous figure. The child of wealthy expatriate American parents, he was brought up in Europe, at first made his career in France, then settled in Britain. Totally cosmopolitan, he kept his American nationality, painted many American sitters, but never lived for any extended period of time in...

Goya - the Witches and Old Women Album', now on view at the Courtauld Gallery in London, is fascinating for many reasons. It is a brilliant example of painstaking detective work. The long separated drawings of this album, which dates from 1819-23, have been brought together in their original sequence. Only one sheet, out of 23, now appears to be missing. It also represents a bridge between once traditional ideas about art and those we have now. Some of its roots are in the long-established tradition of personal caricature, and the related tradition of grotesque genre portraits of the poor and...

Sets of penel paintings of landscape in Cornwall, Oxfordshire, Lincolnshire, Dartmoor and abroad in California, Spain and Greece. Includes large recent diptychs by the artist.The Landscape Series was developed in two phases: sixteen sets were made from February 2002 to June '03 and a further fourteen in February 2006 totalling some 1,500 panel paintings. The uniform size of a30cm square panel grew from the idea of one painting being all painting, or one landscape becoming all landscapes. With gesso and emulsion, mounds and hollows were formed by sweeping and dividing poured paint, using...

Celebrated children's book illustrator Fritz Wegner (b.Vienna 15th September 1924, d. London 15th March 2015,). Early work included assignments for Lilliput, Dorothy L.Sayers and Enid Blyton, with book covers for Raymond Chandler and J.D.Salinger. In the late 1950s he moved away from advertising and commercial art to focus on children's literature. Significant titles include The Hamish Hamilton Book of Princes and Princesses (1963), The Marvellous Adventures and Travels of Baron Munchausen (1967), Fatipuffs and Thinifers (Andre Maurois), to books by Alan Ahlberg, Michael Rosen and Brian...

A collection of essays, articles and reviews of photography by Marina Vaizey published in the past decade.Photography is the one art form in which we all participate.We all take photographs, are photographed, and look at photographs. A striking phenomenon of the post war period, the last half century or so, has been the proliferation of collections of photography in museums and galleries of all kinds, the integration of photography with the other fine arts, and the complementary increase of scholarship, publications and the attention of universities. Thus the expansion of photography in the...