William Packer
Noticing Beauty
A Picture of Britain
(Tate Britain until 4 September)
A Picture of Britain
By David Dimbleby, with contributions from David Blayney Brown, Richard Humphreys and Christine Riding
(Tate Publishing 224pp £19.99)
Graham Sutherland
(Dulwich Picture Gallery until 25 September; Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, 8 October – 11 December)
A Picture of Britain must have seemed like a good idea at the time: the pick of three hundred years’ worth of landscape painting in Britain; a tie-in with a major series of television programmes on the BBC; a celebrity presenter, the elder Dimbleby no less, to lend it all his genial authority. Could it go wrong? Yes, it could, and did.
The problem lies not with the paintings, drawings, prints and photographs, old and new, that form the actual substance of the exhibition now at Tate Britain, many of which are familiar enough and normally on show in any case (Turners, Wrights, Constables and the like), but rather with the curatorial
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Though Jean-Michel Basquiat was a sensation in his lifetime, it was thirty years after his death that one of his pieces fetched a record price of $110.5 million.
Stephen Smith explores the artist's starry afterlife.
Stephen Smith - Paint Fast, Die Young
Stephen Smith: Paint Fast, Die Young - Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon by Doug Woodham
literaryreview.co.uk
15th-century news transmission was a slow business, reliant on horses and ships. As the centuries passed, though, mass newspapers and faster transport sped things up.
John Adamson examines how this evolution changed Europe.
John Adamson - Hold the Front Page
John Adamson: Hold the Front Page - The Great Exchange: Making the News in Early Modern Europe by Joad Raymond Wren
literaryreview.co.uk
"Every page of "Killing the Dead" bursts with fresh insights and deliciously gory details. And, like all the best vampires, it’ll come back to haunt you long after you think you’re done."
✍️My review of John Blair's new book for @Lit_Review
Alexander Lee - Dead Men Walking
Alexander Lee: Dead Men Walking - Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World by John Blair
literaryreview.co.uk