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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

Ferdinand Hodler, The Kien Valley with the Bluemlisalp Massif , 1902, oil on canvas, The National Gallery, London My first thought on looking at a photo of this painting was that its aspect ratio felt out of kilter, like the reverse of those changes that you sometimes see on a TV set-up when old film or TV shows are made to fit the modern screen size. But this landscape seems, after a proper look at it in the flesh at The National Gallery, to glory in its ‘aspect’; its portra

George Dunlop Leslie, Alice in Wonderland  (c. 1879), oil on canvas, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery The title of this painting tells us both the name of the book being read aloud and also the place to which the mind of the little girl listening has travelled. It shows the artist’s wife Lydia, and their daughter Alice, who seems lost in the world of her own wonderment. Her receptive imagination is represented by the blankness of the wall behind, a space demarcated by the hori

Cy Twombly – Leda and the Swan (1962), oil, lead pencil and wax crayon on canvas,   MOMA, Museum of Modern Art in New York In the original Greek legend of this work’s title, the beautiful Leda,  wife of King Tyndareus of Sparta, was impregnated by Zeus who had disguised himself as a swan in order to captivate her. Leda went on to give birth to two sets of twins, including both Helen and Clytemnestra, women who would figure so tragically in the inception and unfolding of the T

Willaim Nicholson, The Lustre Bowl with Green Peas  (1911), oil on canvas, National Galleries of Scotland This work was painted in 1911...

Andrew Wyeth – Wind from the Sea  (1947), tempera on masonite, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC Andrew Wyeth, Christina’s World ,...

The figure of Jesus in this painting has always seemed to me to be oddly pudgy and feminised, even though he also appears suitably...

George Grosz - Schönheit, dich will ich preisen (Beauty, Thee I Praise), 1919, watercolour and India ink on wove paper, private...

Sorolla has often been described as the ‘master of light’ and like the French Impressionists, and Monet in particular, he was captivated...

Probably best known for his narrative triptych Past and Present , a work which narrates, as Hogarth had done in the century before, the...

Whenever I look at one of Howard Hodgkin’s paintings, I confront his often-repeated insistence that he was not an abstract painter. And...

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Self Portrait in a Straw Hat, c 1782, oil on canvas, National Gallery London A recent rave review by Jonathan...

Jean Siméon Chardin,   Still-Life with Jar of Olives , 1760, oil on canvas, Louvre Museum, Paris The still life paintings of Chardin’s...

The Wilton Diptych, c 1395-99, tempera on panel, National Gallery, London This sumptuous altarpiece is remarkable both for the detail of...

Vilhelm Hammershøi, I nterior. With Piano and Woman in Black. Strandgade 30 , 1901, oil on canvas, Ordrupgaard, Charlottenlund Like many...

Tamara de Lempicka, Les Jeunes Filles, c 1930, oil on panel, private collection The paintings made by Tamara de Lempicka, particularly...

Stanley Spencer, The Betrayal (1922-23), oil on canvas, Ulster Museum, Belfast The thing I most like about Stanley Spencer (1891-1955) is...

Piero della Francesca, The Baptism of Christ (c 1440), egg tempera on wood, National Gallery, London Last year’s exhibition at The...

Gabriele Münter, Sinnende (Woman in Thought), 1917, oil on canvas, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, München The model for...