The London Art Discerner
News, opinions and reviews since circa 879 AD
Does the British Crown Still Have a Claim to France?
And if so, should an invasion be imminent? It is one of those questions that...
Was Napoleon Actually an Englishman?
by Constance Addle Abstract: Traditional consensus places Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) as a Corsican-born French emperor...
Jakob Reinhardt (1829–1892): The Painter of Ashes
From the Handbook of Lesser-known Artists Among the labyrinth of forgotten 19th-century artists, Jakob Reinhardt...
The Life and Work of Élodie Marchand (1817–1879)
From the Handbook of Lesser-known Artists. In the grand pantheon of 19th-century European art, names...
Film Review: The Chrysanthemum Variations
★★★★½ (4.5/5) With The Chrysanthemum Variations, director Aurelio Draegert has created a work so audacious...
Weston-super-Mare: Melancholy Theatre of the Seaside
Weston-super-Mare occupies a curious place in the English imagination. At first glance, it is the...
Faces of Now: Jordan Ellery and the Pop Digital Vanguard
On the 422nd floor of a glass tower in Hong Kong’s Central district, the elevator...
Shakespeare’s Debt to Caravaggio: A Meditation on Theatrical Light and Human Darkness
The notion that Shakespeare, the playwright of Stratford, might owe a debt to Caravaggio, the...
The Negative Frame: Shadows, Margins, and the Hidden Logic of Renaissance Composition
Art history has long been governed by what it chooses to see. From Vasari onward...