Millet: Life on the Land. Review by Graham Buchan. If you have read the classic book on English rural life, Ronald Blythe’s Akenfield, you will know that such a life, particularly before farming was mechanised, was one of unremitting hardship and poverty, and definitely not to be romanticised. The French painter Jean-François Millet rendered that sort of life in paint.
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HOUSE OF HABERDASH: Ben Philipps visits a multi-media – text and textiles – at the Torriano Meeting House
Birdsong. Review by Barbara Lewis. Flanders, one of the most densely populated areas of Europe, is the birthplace of artist David Claerbout, whose reaction to an excess of human frenzy is a quest to redefine time.
Kiefer – Van Gogh. Review by Graham Buchan. If you see here echoes of Van Gogh’s last acknowledged, doom-laden masterpiece Wheatfield with Crows (1890), then you will likely find this exhibition at the Royal Academy highly satisfying.
The Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry. Review by Barbara Lewis. The dazzling Gothic beauty of these miniatures and calendars foreshadowed the work of Jan van Eyck and other outstanding 15th-century Flemish painters.
Hiroshige, artist of the open road. Review by Barbara Lewis. Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) lived as Japan shifted from the isolationism that characterised the shogun-dominated Edo period towards opening up to the world.
Poetry review – THE ICONOSTASIS OF ANXIETY: Pam Thompson engages with a dense and complex short collection by W N Herbert
Nocturnal Journey. Review by Barbara Lewis. Detachment from time and space are the hallmarks of Hans Op de Beeck’s meticulously crafted art, which arguably make it fitting that he has never had a complete exhibition of his work in his native Belgium – until now.
Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur. Review by Barbara Lewis. One of the joys of Grayson Perry’s exhibition is that it is he who provides the explanatory notes. A standout peg is: “An artist’s job is to bite the hand that feeds him, but not too hard”
Impressionist Paris. Review by Barbara Lewis. Impressionist Paris, A Panoramic View of Paris in French Impressionism. Published by Hannibal Books to coincide with the exhibition New Paris: From Monet to Morisot at the Kunstmuseum in the Hague until June 9
Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour. Review by Jenny Vuglar. To be a woman artist in the mid twentieth century was not uncommon but to be one that was taken seriously was. The question for women artists was: how did you step out of the strait jacket of ‘lady artist’ into the world of serious collectors, galleries; out of the here and now into eternity?
Poetry review – A CERTAIN PENANCE OF LIGHT: Julian Stannard discusses Debasish Lahiri’s unusual approach to ekphrastic poetry
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • art, books, poetry reviews, year 2025 0 • Tags: art, books, Julian Stannard, poetry