Art

Jacquetta Hawkes explains how, at an unpromising period in human history, a sudden upsurge of creative power produced the earliest masterpieces of European art.

G.R. Batho

Both before and after the fall of the Republic, Roman satirists give us an extraordinarily vivid picture of the society in which they lived, with its materialism, its opportunism, its unceasing pursuit of power and wealth.

F.M. Godfrey describes how, during the fifteenth century, the courtly civilization of Ferrara gave birth to splendid works of art.

Though originally seen as ‘monstrous excrescences of nature’, Ronald Rees writes, mountains came into their own during the eighteenth century and began to inspire poetic awe and reverence.

Douglas Hilt profiles a statesman, jurist and man of letters who devoted his generous gifts to the service of Bourbon Spain.

Scholar, humanist, aristocrat, Barbaro achieved distinction in many fields, and served the Venetian Republic well, as Alan Haynes records.

R.T. Godfrey reflects on the nuances of Faithorne’s large range of prints, which were based both on his own drawings as well as the work of other artists.

John Villiers describes the rich exchange of artistic ideas between Europe and the Far East during the seventeenth, eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. 

F.E. Halliday finds that every age, from the first Elizabethan to the present one, has evolved its own methods of producing Shakespeare; sometimes with results that might have surprised the dramatist.