Art history

Simon Schama photographed in Hauteville House, Guernsey (Photo by Oxford Films, Photographer Eddie Knox)

Simon Schama on the Romantics

People gather around the Mona Lisa painting after its return in January 1914

Mona Lisa heist: how do you steal the world’s most famous painting?

Afua Hirsch with the Samburu people, Kenya

Africa’s cultural liberation

British writer Hilary Mantel photographed at home

Hilary Mantel on the secrets of successful historical fiction

York Minster's rose window features 16th-century Tudor Roses white on red (left) and Lancastrian Roses, red

A brief history of the English rose

Da Vinci's sketch 'The Vitruvian Man'. Da Vinci's talents ranged from anatomy to military engineering, and many of his innovations were not explored further for several centuries. (Photo by: Photo12/UIG via Getty Images)

Leonardo da Vinci’s genius: 7 of his visions for the future

(L to R) Isaac Newton, Henry VIII and Bal Gangadhar Tilak

How did people cope with ‘lockdowns’ of the past? And were they really all so productive?

Self portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi as a lute player (Photo by Getty Images)

The genius of Artemisia

'Self Portrait' by Vincent van Gogh, autumn 1887 (Photo by Marc DEVILLE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

Why did Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear?

Vivid experiences: a self-portrait of Artemisia Gentileschi, the Italian Baroque artist whose brilliant renderings of biblical and classical scenes earned her commissions from some of the most powerful figures in 17th century Europe. (Photo by Araldo de Luca/Corbis via Getty Images)

Artemisia: how pain powered the great 17th-century artist

Day of the God, painted by Paul Gaugin. (Image by Alamy)

A year in pictures: 1894

Podcast Mary Beard Transcript

A history of nakedness in art: Mary Beard on her new BBC series Shock of the Nude

Historian Mary Beard at the Oxford Literary Festival 2019. (Photo by David Levenson/Getty Images)

Mary Beard on the nude in western art

Actor Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster in James Whale’s classic 1931 film. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: the birth of a gothic monster

The ninth-century Alfred Jewel, adorned with the inscription:

10 ways the Anglo-Saxons changed the course of British history