The French dealer and restless champion of post-modern art Ambroise Vollard suggested that Derain visit London in 1906 following Monet’s earlier and successful example at the turn of the century, and this painting is one of a series of Fauvist views of the city’s river and skyline produced as a result. It’s a particular favourite of mine, partly because it depicts London, and a specific part of it that I know well and so I feel a personal connection to it because of the sense

I was recently enjoying reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow  by Gabrielle Zevin  when I came across a reference to this artwork. The novel is set in the 1990s world of pioneering computer game design and manages to appeal even to non-gamers like me, largely because it paints such a compelling picture of the central characters’ personalities, their brilliant minds, their motivations, their loves and losses and ultimately their more important friendships. It helps of cou

Giorgione, The Adoration of the Shepherds , c. 1505, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Advent approaches (it’s the advent of advent) as I write this piece, so thoughts inevitably turn to Christmas and the subject of The Nativity. The barrage of ‘seasonally themed’ product advertising that we all endure at this time of year is the kind of onslaught which can easily distract us from the significance of Christ’s birth, even for non-practising Christians. The

Chaïm Soutine, View of Cagnes  (c.1924), oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York There is a phantasmagorical quality to this landscape that is both kookily enchanting and at the same time unsettling. It shows houses perched on a hillside which writhe away from the viewer as if our perception of their solidity and durability has become unfixed and their physical integrity suddenly called into question. There is an echo in it of the swirling psychic intensity of Mun

Hans Holbein the Younger, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb , 1521, oil on wood, Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel Holbein obliges viewers of this painting to confront the graphically shocking reality of death. It shows the body of the recently tortured and crucified Christ now interred, seemingly many days after expiration if we are to judge by its discolouration. Despite the fact that the corpse clearly no longer breathes, the narrow confines of the casket