From George Stubbs’s golden vision of the labourer’s place in society to Ford Madox Brown’s heroically monumental celebration of manual labour, artists gave individual interpretations of work, as Michael Hall reveals

Train Landscape , 1940, watercolour on paper, 17¼in ...

There is much to admire in Andrew Graham-Dixon’s study of Vermeer—but not its tendency to overinterpret the old master’s work “Johannes Vermeer is the most laconic of the Dutch old masters,” Andrew Gr

For artist Nellie Shepherd, the landscape outside her painstakingly renovated farmhouse is just as important as the colourful scene inside it

ROB POINTON IS NOT AN ARTIST who waits for inspiration to arrive. He goes out to meet it – on station platforms, street corners, rain-lashed pavements and ceremonial parade grounds – easel planted fir

Tucked away in the heart of busy west London is a tiny but enchanting garden full of hidden corners, playful elements and unusual woodland plants