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

In a John Behan bronze, collector Jacqueline O’Donovan, a child of the Irish diaspora, can sense the desperation of a starving people forced to flee their land

DECADES MAY HAVE PASSED, but Norfolk still has a claim on David Riches. Wooden sailing boats on the Broads, sunlight on the water, the quiet countryside – they still appear in his work. “If I see a tr

Works by certain artists often become symbolic of a particular era. This is an angle which has proved very popular with visitors to London’s National Gallery in recent years and, this month, welcomes

Antony Penrose is co-director of the Lee Miller ...

Tennyson’s embrace of science and catastrophe theory