Features

‘Ideas about nation, territory and identity are thrown into disarray’

At the Steirischer Herbst festival in Graz, the spectre of nationalism and anxiety about borders haunted this year’s programme

23 Oct 2023

Is Uzbekistan poised to become a major cultural player?

The country is keen to rebrand by promoting its art and architecture – and the modernist buildings of its capital Tashkent are part of the plan

23 Oct 2023

Unscrolling China’s historic urban fabric

A 30m-long painting presents the Kiangxi Emperor touring southern China, says Clarissa von Spee of the Cleveland Museum of Art

23 Oct 2023

Grapes of froth – making the thinking man’s ‘champagne’

A vineyard-meets-sculpture park in Franciacorta makes wine truly a multisensory affair

20 Oct 2023

Money matters – the problem museums have with philanthropy

As museums face rising costs and lower grants, fundraising is more important than ever – but they have to be very careful where the money comes from

20 Oct 2023

Is Denmark Street really London’s Tin Pan Alley?

Once famous as the home of music publishers and recording studios, Denmark Street has adapted to a changing city but never lost its soul

18 Oct 2023

Crowning glories – a new home for the Spanish royal collection

After 17 years of construction, the Gallery of the Royal Collections in Madrid is open at last – and ready to tell a triumphalist tale

18 Oct 2023

How Frans Hals made up for his slow start

The painter was no prodigy but, as Bart Cornelis of the National Gallery in London tells Apollo, he was soon making up for lost time with his bold brushwork

6 Oct 2023

Acquisitions of the Month: September 2023

A Regency torchère and a recently rediscovered work by Francisco de Zurbarán are among the most remarkable works to enter public collections

5 Oct 2023

In Edinburgh, the National Gallery now gives Scottish art the space it deserves

The opening of a whole new suite of galleries means that Scottish artists now have the same status as the museum’s Old Masters

Studying abroad: what Mark Rothko learned in Europe

The painter was often forthright in his rejection of the old world – but it’s time to reconsider his European influences

4 Oct 2023

Soul mates – the story of Yusuf and Zuleikha

Sameer Rahim is impressed by a 16th-century Iranian manuscript illustrating a Sufi poem of seduction and spiritualism

3 Oct 2023

Brave new world – how Glenn Spiro breathes new life into old materials

The London-based jewellery artist uses antique forms to challenge received notions of preciousness

2 Oct 2023

The South African winemakers who are cultivating the arts

A new initiative combines adventurous winemaking with an unusual form of art philanthropy

2 Oct 2023

For not-so-humble pies – a short history of the tureen dish

Pastries topped with taxidermy and lavish decoration were the inspiration for elaborate tureen dishes, masterpieces of the goldsmith’s craft

2 Oct 2023

The women who keep reappearing in Rubens’s paintings

The adjective ‘Rubenesque’ was coined in the 19th century, but there’s rather more to the female figures in his paintings than acres of flesh

2 Oct 2023

Collectors are falling for the British Neo-Romantics

The market for paintings by the likes of John Craxton and John Minton – and Paul Nash in pastoral mode – is having an idyllic time

22 Sep 2023

Wrestling with Michelangelo

Achim Gnann of the Albertina Museum gets to grips with sketches that show the artist embracing a dynamic new style

18 Sep 2023

Tourist for a day – who’s watching who at London Zoo?

The Regent’s Park attraction offers plenty of opportunities for people-watching when the animals decide to make themselves scarce

15 Sep 2023

Tourist for a day – the spectacular Paris park that needs a helping hand

The parc des Buttes-Chaumont was meant to be a ’Tuileries of the people’, but the crowning glory of Haussman’s Paris has fallen on hard times

15 Sep 2023

A seriously good trip – the Dreamachine at Hackney Downs Studios

The psychedelic artwork-meets-wellbeing experience is still in its pilot stages but it deserves to be a mainstream hit

8 Sep 2023

‘There’s no denying the power of this museum to move’

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is as powerful as you would expect, but the Hiroshima Museum of Art may catch you unawares

1 Sep 2023

The most spectacular floor in Italy

With its combination of visual splendour and complex allegory, the marble pavement of Siena Cathedral is one of the most enticing of all Renaissance masterpieces

1 Sep 2023

How a leopard stool from Cameroon got its spots

This beaded seat represents the might of a monarch – and his global reach, says Kristen Windmuller-Luna of the Cleveland Museum of Art

1 Sep 2023