My slow, steady progress through Donald Sassoon’s monumental but unfailingly fascinating The Culture of the Europeans continues to throw up extraordinary…
Standing on the shoulders of giants
We like to think of ourselves as living in the digital age. It’s a title that makes us feel more…
17 C
I have always been fascinated by the 17th century. I suppose initially I was entranced by the glamour of the…
American Indian Portraits
This is something I wrote after visiting the exhibition of George Catlin’s American Indian Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery.
Do I want a part in my own movie?
Why did nobody introduce me to Frank O’Hara back then, when I was a poet, or thought I was, or…
Public Art / Abandoned Art
In the pedestrian precinct outside Debenhams there is a small white hat, the sort of thing that might be made…
Icons
I’m not a great cinema-goer, but in the last few weeks I’ve been twice. Both times I saw a film…
The more it stays the same
The more literary and cultural history I read, the more I find exactly the same patterns recurring. One such pattern…
West Wing, 1865
On 31 January 2013 I went to see Lincoln, exactly 148 years after the events depicted in the climax of…