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

The appearance of The Princess of Wales at last year’s Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall and the National Service of Remembrance the following day, were rare public

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

A quest to find Horace Walpole’s missing Ottoman dagger unveiled a story of 16th-century diplomacy, Victorian theatre and a notorious heist

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

The smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd, the flare of the floodlights – what enchantments they conjure! If you’d visited a regional playhouse over two centuries ago, though, a very differe