“... Graveyard of St Peter-in-the-East, St Edmund HallFor E.M.Snowdrop, snowdrop, tell:what news of the underground,the weather in Hell?Your toes are tickledby the beards of the dead, theirslanted stones deckledand foxed with lichen-rings of shaggy galaxies.In flocks you beckonme to read shallow-graven names on time-thumbed tomes ...”

“... Paris figures in the titles of both James Campbell’s and Peter Lennon’s books, but this is a restricted, specialised Paris. Campbell takes us into something called the ‘Interzone’ (the term is odd, and troublesome), inhabited by assorted exiles, misfits and drop-outs during the Fifties and late Forties. Lennon’s jaunty impressionistic book takes us into the Sixties, with an account of his experiences as a young journalist writing, sporadically, for the Guardian, while, in the intervals, getting caught up in all kinds of adventures (best of all an improbable encounter, in the company of Samuel Beckett, with Peter O’Toole ...”

“... Backward-ranging comparisons, and a risk of anachronism, are likely to enter into an experience of Peter Taylor’s fine stories, for his is an art which makes much of the existence of traditions, and of a deep past. At all events, it seems clear that the stories exhibit Austen’s dedication to a class, and that the class he is concerned with carries points ...”

“... how a garment was to work: how the short jacket was to flare over the hips, how Mick Jagger’s white jumpsuit was to gape sexily, how the seams and buttons on the front of a jacket would articulate the surface. Accounts of his way of working – Birtwell’s, for example – suggest why the clothes were so desirable and so good to wear: ‘He’d get the ...”

“... sober (fruit black, stems and leaves dark reds and greens, the flowers pale lavender, pink and white). Leonardo’s drawing of its flowers and fruit catches something of its thrusting, abundant prosperity. Opportunists ourselves (few plants exist, as we do, in every earthly environment), humans tend to make weeds a scapegoat. The weeds, not the humans who ...”

“... to stop Mercury abducting Contento, while another, distant frieze, dominated by a rider on a white horse, moves right. The foreground scene is dominated by temple lamplight, the background by daylight. Controlling sources of light is part of Elsheimer’s way of telling a story. Caravaggio used light to create shadows which edit out superfluity and make ...”

“... lying on his deathbed wearing a robe of black Belgian marble. His face, hands and pillows are of white Carrara marble, the mattress is yellow marble and the cover below banded calcite. Although it is displayed in the room where the boy died the effect is not, Penny points out, illusionistic – as a waxwork in real clothes would be. Its polished stone is ...”

“... and delicate of feature, with long, finely tuned limbs ... She had curly black hair, pale white skin and lustrous black eyelashes.’ But her father admires most her strong chin, wide downy upper lip and moth-grey eyes. About such a heroine a vast amount of tosh could be written. Ignatieff’s novel is subtitled ‘a love story’, which suggests it ...”

“... and the swirls and curlicues in seven main colours – pink, red, black, blue, yellow, green, white – are given space to breathe. At this point a Pollock canvas is still teeming with allusions and serendipitous depictions. Look at the canvas approximately two-thirds across moving left to right, and at mid-height you will see one of many faces (and ...”

“... The Ink Garden. The engravings – four exotic Western flowers in a Chinese garden – portray St Peter in the Waves; the road to Emmaus; the men of Sodom; and the Virgin and Child. The memory images comprise two warriors fighting; a Muslim woman from the west of China; a farmer, sickle in hand; and a maidservant who, like the Virgin, carries a child. The ...”

“... of the Virgin Mary. At Jaen in 1430, for example, four people saw the Virgin as a tall lady in white: ‘From this lady issued so much brightness that she shone as the sun shines.’ At Sant Aniol, near Girona, she appeared as ‘a beautiful, elegant woman dressed in white’. At Pinos, near Lleida, in 1507, a man saw ...”

“... when she first saw him on holiday in Milan in 1957. ‘Dressed in immaculately pressed jeans, white shirt, a blue V-neck pullover and a Jaeger slimline bow tie ... he represented everything that the English students ... knew they were not.’ It was not just a matter of appearance. Although formal education failed him – he found his identity in a gang ...”

“... exact art is that it matters whether the book ends, as it did then, with the exchange, ‘Hallo Peter.’ ‘Hallo Dad.’ or as it does now: ‘Hallo Peter.’ ‘Hallo dad.’ For the distinction wouldn’t footle. You would have to interpret ‘Hallo dad’ as a tellingly unique and utterly final act of tacit ...”

“... skin and another, is replaced by a richer one. Flesh painted in yellow-grey, pink, brick and dirty white takes nature’s tonal range up a notch. Frans Hals might seem to be a point of reference, but in his pictures, flickering, drawn strokes suggest that he used more fluid paint and a more flexible brush than Freud – and took less time, too. Freud takes ...”

“... Having tried other materials, Hopper found he liked his etchings printed very black on very white paper. It seems appropriate. The first paintings to bring Hopper wide recognition were watercolours of New England houses. Looking at these now, one is pleased by the dash with which he handled the medium – it seems to give a rather soft subject bite. It ...”