Art

David Starkey explores one of his favourite museum galleries, in south London.

Much Tudor art may not have been 'home-grown' but its form and subject matter tells us a great deal about England's 'natural rulers'.

'Art for art's sake' – but not for many historians. The fine and decorative arts, their styles and iconography, have been mined for insight into the politics, religion and social obsessions of the past. Placing key images alongside the views of six contributors we continue the search.

David Low, the cartoonist, met Horatio Blimp, a retired Colonel, in a Turkish bath near Charing Cross in the early 1930s. Many agree with C.S. Lewis that Colonel Blimp was 'the most characteristic expression of the English temper in the period between the two wars.'

Mildred Budny gauges the scale and achievement of 11th-century art.

'The Genius of Venice' at the Royal Academy, Winter 1983/4

Gillian Williams on the promise of watercolourist and engraver, Wenceslaus Hollar, when he petitioned Charles II to allow him to accompany the British Ambassador on an expedition to Morocco, that he 'would examine all and take designs, and give his Majesty much better satisfaction'.

F.M.L. Thompson looks at the public reception of the artist George Elgar Hicks.