The Field of Cloth of Gold: A Duel in Jewels
When Henry VIII and Francis I met 12 years after the Field of Cloth of Gold – with Henry accompanied by Anne Boleyn – both sought to outdo one another with exquisite items of display.
Art
A Painting Tells a Thousand Words
The Painted Hall at Greenwich: how it was commissioned, its narrative and its meaning.
Beyond Good and Evil
As a frontline soldier in the First World War, the German artist Otto Dix fell under the spell of the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and his assault on Christian morality.
How Venice Lost Its Art
The arrival of Napoleon’s troops in Venice in 1797 instigated one of the biggest plunders in the history of art.
The Female Gaze Made Flesh
There were many obstacles preventing women from becoming artists in the 18th century, but those who overcame them created some of the most influential art of their time.
Lubaina Himid: Naming the Un-Named
Turner Prize winner Lubaina Himid’s artworks fill in the gaps that history leaves behind.
Capturing the Cat
The arrival of big cats to 19th-century London forced a change in the image left by mythology and the Old Masters.
Fallen Women
Attitudes to female sexuality in the 19th century were rigid and unflinching and those who failed to conform were ostracised and persecuted. Victoria Leslie compares how fallen women were portrayed in the arts with the real stories of those who ‘fell’.
A History of the Harlem Renaissance
Ten key moments in the boom that changed African-American culture.
Artists and the Classical Ideal
An engrossing exhibition on the origins and development of drawing from ancient sculptures.