Cleanness by Garth Greenwell, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020 The question of whether to regard Garth Greenwell's second book as a novel or...

In photography’s early decades, photographs were expected to be idealized images. This is still the aim of most amateur photographers,...

A selection of my personal preferred recordings. Sonata No. 3 in A major, Op. 69 for cello and piano - Jacqueline du Pré and Daniel...

The idea of bricolage - of what I would call "purposed appropriation" - can be summarised as follows: "All systems fall on a continuum...

Reflections on the three final piano sonatas of Franz Schubert. Sonata no. 19 in C minor, D. 958 Sonata no. 20 in A major, D. 959 Sonata...

Les Quatre Cents Coups, dir. François Truffaut, 1959 The 400 Blows - an odd and misleading English translation - is regarded as one of...

Le souffle au cœur, dir. Louis Malle, 1971 I came across this film as part of a retrospective of the French New Wave - a movement this...

He - Antoine-Henri Becquerel - noted that when uranium salts were left on a photographic plate sealed in paper, an energy from the salts...

The Man Who Saw Everything, by Deborah Levy, Hamish Hamilton, 2019 It's 1988. Young protagonist Saul Adler gets bashed down by a car as...

Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op 16, composed by Sergei Prokofiev - a personal survey of select recordings and performances Seong-Jin...

El hoyo, dir. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, 2019 The "allegory of the long spoons" is a thought experiment which contextualises effortlessly...

Lucian Freud: The Self-Portraits, Museum of Fine Art, Boston (March - May 2020) This week has presented one of contrasting perspectives...

Portrait de la jeune fille en feu, dir. Céline Sciamma, 2019. Much has been made of the concept of the "male gaze" in the arts,...

Venus Mourning the Death of Adonis Oil on panel, 1646, by Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598 – 1657) Reclining Male Nude Oiled charcoal and...

Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz, dir. Dennis Zacek, The Studios of Key West Helmerich Theater, February 2020 Theatre etiquette! There is...

Saint Jerome Oil on canvas, 1640, by Jusepe de Ribera (1591 – 1652) Saint Jerome in the Desert with Saints John the Baptist and Ansanus...

Hanging scroll, ink, colour and gold on silk, 1768, by Maruyama Ōkyo, 1733 – 1795 In my last year of teaching at a school in Zimbabwe, a...

Gloria - A Life, by Emily Mann, dir. Diane Paulus, American Repertory Theater, Cambridge, February 2020. First: a confession. Along with...

Oil on canvas, 1915, by Edvard Munch (1863 - 1944) As both Marc and Corinth were associated with German Expressionism and because he was...

Jacquot et Nantes, dir. Agnès Varda, 1991 The legendary French auteur, Agnès Varda, passed away in March 2019, aged 90, and what has...