Uncover the all-conquering Hun king whose nomadic horde terrorised Rome

Capturing the immediacy of fighting and the writhing bodies of soldiers, as well as keeping narrative clarity, proved enormously difficult for painters depicting battles before the advent of photography. Michael Hall reveals how they rose to the challenge

From rustic barns to Riviera villas, Pablo Picasso’s studios were engines of invention. Picasso: From the Studio at the National Gallery of Ireland, in partnership with Musée national Picasso-Paris, t

A tolerant Shia rival to the Sunni caliphs

After early profligate years in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, Francis Grant traded sporting scenes for portraits and climbed the ladder to become president of the Royal Academy. A forthcoming exhibition at Dickinson does justice to his drawing

Taking as many guises as his names, the Prince of Lies turned at times into a man-devouring ogre, a mutant medley of claws, horns and wings, or the brooding rebel that lit the imagination of Romantic painters, as Carla Passino discovers