Decoding a painting of two sisters in a bathtub — It is hard not to be intrigued by a painting like this. It shows two women sitting unclothed in a bathtub. The one on the right is named Gabrielle d’Estrées. Beside her is another woman — thought to be her sister — who is unambiguously pinching her nipple. Given their…

Edward Hopper’s perfectly painted dilemma, yet I cannot say what it is exactly — For a few years now, I’ve had a postcard of this painting tacked to my study wall. It’s called Pennsylvania coal town and it was made by Edward Hopper in 1947. Whenever I stop my work and look up at this painting, I can’t help but feel that Hopper painted…

In defence of enjoying art — The artworks that we come to admire tend to find their way into our hearts not only by merit but also for more personal reasons. For me, I doubt I will ever forget the first time I saw Michelangelo’s David: I was 18 years old and travelling around Europe on…

A remarkable self-portrait — Described as “America’s finest woman miniaturist”, Sarah Goodridge was born in the town of Templeton, Massachusetts in 1788. Forty years later, she painted this remarkable “self-portrait” of her own breasts and fixed the image inside a small red-leather case. Then she gave it as a gift. But who was the…

How the renegade Italian artist revolutionised image making forever — Caravaggio was an artist who divided opinions during his own lifetime. His method of presenting human figures with realistic and often rugged features met with fierce criticism. Moreover, the stories we know of his life — including tales of brawling, debt and murder — have come to shape readings of…

Different perspectives on the power of the sky — The world above our heads is full of fleeting episodes. A cloud shifts, the light changes, and the impression brings new associations. A cloud spotter takes care to acknowledge the weight or lightness of congregated mist. The lapidary nature of a cloud — the extent to which it is bulbously…

Crossing the line between artist and muse — This painting shows a sculptor passionately gripping his own marble creation and kissing it. The lady statue appears to respond: she clasps the sculptor’s hand and leans into the kiss. With fragments of stone scattered on the floor and the sculptor’s hammer discarded, the statue embraces her creator. Is this…

The unexpected discovery of one of the most famous statues in history — The Venus de Milo has the incongruous distinction of being one of the most well-known objects in art and yet it remains an enigma. The story of the statue’s discovery is shrouded in romantic mystique, and historians can only speculate on how she might have looked in her original form. …

Exploring Vincent’s use of light and shade — Recently I noticed a surprising thing about Vincent van Gogh’s painting style: that he rarely painted deep shadows and when he did, the intention was very specific. This realisation was made more stark to me because of the research I was doing into the Italian artist Caravaggio, for whom deep…