Stultifying – now there is a word we do not hear very often but it is the effect a hot July day might have on you, down by the river, just passing the time away unenthusiastically. My friend Geoffrey Smith uses it when describing my choice of painting of the month for July. In a…
Category: Painting of the Month
June Painting of the Month – The Spark is You
When the Venice Biennale opened a year ago who would have foreseen the events to come in the subsequent twelve months. St Marks Square empty, a world in lockdown. And of course we in Britain still have Brexit to resolve. One day all these will be History and we will be back to some of…
Botticelli – Pentecost
Pentecost – it seems so strange celebrating Pentecost and the giving of the Holy Spirit with all our churches closed. Anyway we enjoyed a beautiful service filmed in our local church of St Mary Magdalene, in Adlestrop, complete with a special appearance from Buster the Adlestrop cat. It was a triumph for those who produced…
May Painting of the Month
VE Day (Victory in Europe) celebrates the day, seventy five years ago, that Europe crawled out of the Second World War, as Germany unconditionally surrendered, following Adolf Hitler’s suicide in a Berlin bunker days earlier. We will celebrate the occasion, May 8th, this Friday with a bank holiday. Will it feel any different to Thursday…
Easter Day – St Giles Oxford
Welcome everyone to a very sunny Easter in lockdown. I thought a modern painting might be appropriate. I have always recommended to people to see The Menorah if they are visiting Oxford. Roger Wagner, like Giotto seven hundred years earlier, chose to represent this most Christian of images using contemporary language. The cooling towers, which…
White Box Art Channel 