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“... or virtue. Nor does he ever exhibit any beauty that is not mundane. The painting which perhaps best exemplifies the qualities Caravaggio lacked is The Last Communion of St Jerome, which Domenichino began about a year after Caravaggio’s death and completed three years later, in 1614. For over two centuries it was one of the most admired and loved ...”

“... of confused and contradictory evidence they contain – the playground of the conspiracy junkie. Nicholas Branch, a pivotal character in Don DeLillo’s Libra, a retired CIA intelligence analyst hired to write the CIA’s own, secret history of the Kennedy assassination, thinks of the 26 volumes as ‘the Joycean Book of America ... the novel in which ...”

“... and has joined the bust of its former owner in the V & A. The Case of the Donatello Ashtray is the best story in this anthology of articles and lectures by Pope-Hennessy. But there are many other examples of his Holmesian flair (and rather too much gloating over what are supposed to be the blunders of his rivals). On the whole, his detective work does not ...”

“... discovered to have been designed by Bernini. As a rule, such brilliant and busy patterns are best displayed beside plain colours. Again and again Bernini employed verde antico, but never with the effect achieved by Borromini in the nave of S. Giovanni in Laterano, where it is contrasted, simply, with white and with dark grey. The mass of drapery veneered ...”

“... that Stuart is to blame for everything. In point of fact, Stuart Cuno does nothing. He does his best to keep out of the way. He sits on his own in rooms or in churches practising quietness of mind. If he is drawn into the action at all, it is only at the invitation of the other characters, and even then he does nothing. Only in doing nothing, in fact, can ...”

“... in the most uncritical way. It seems a dubious practice to suggest to young readers that what is best must necessarily have gone before. But encouraging modern children to acknowledge some of the enormous advantages that have been won for most of them this century, whatever its other drawbacks, does not seem to be fashionable. It is interesting to compare ...”

“... lighting in the church, but Humfrey also observes that this correspondence can only be partial at best and his account suggests that the use of light in the altarpieces was in any case governed by convention. Certainly it is not simply a ‘rational’ solution, as is often claimed, least of all in this painting by Bellini, where the sun is setting behind ...”

“... which suffers badly from feeling obliged to include too much, nonetheless achieves some of its best effects through what it leaves out. There are two scenes in particular where the reader is drawn to identify closely with the main character, Jamal Khan, because of what is missing from the text. In the first scene, about halfway through the novel, Jamal ...”

“... made Russia a potential antagonist. Shortly after the defeat of Napoleon, the young Grand Duke Nicholas had come to England. Lady Charlotte Campbell found him ‘devilish handsome’, while others, less frivolously, thought that he might one day put Russia on the Western path of enlightenment. Alas, when ...”

“... Ralph Glasser’s and Nicholas Gage’s latest autobiographical instalments find their authors making good in their countries of adoption, England and the US respectively. The cost to each of their ascent from exceedingly harsh social beginnings has been different, but in ways that are not surprising: in England the struggle centred on class, in the US on money ...”

“... heroic narrative not scrupulous description, is impossible to reconcile with the ambitions of the best contemporary Dutch painting. Nevertheless, Alpers is wrong to argue that Dutch painting is the product of a tradition entirely alien to Italy, and it is alarming to find her especially commended for doing so. Michelangelo’s denigration of Northern artists ...”

“... for each an engaging ‘reflection’ or commentary. Although the book is philosophical in the best sense of the term, there is little in it by way of straight philosophy; and although it touches on issues central to psychology, neurophysiology and the computer sciences, it assumes no technical or factual expertise. ‘In poetry,’ Auden wrote in The ...”

“... balls, soirées, routs, race meetings and country house parties at which this purpose might be best advanced. By the time he set off for Wales and Ireland, he had abandoned the hunt. Throughout the letters, however, he seems keen to draw attention to his delight in female company, archly alluding to a brief liaison with the famous singer Henriette ...”

“... pen, a mid-century Soviet relic was enlisted to honour one of the last acts of Tsar (now Saint) Nicholas II, who founded my hometown in October 1916. From socialism to monarchism in ten days. Some of the city’s pensioners accused the local government of trying to suppress the sacred memory of the revolution. ‘Our forefathers would be turning in their ...”

“... instead of swinging from one chandelier to another ... He’s a miserable little coward and the best way of dealing with a bloody fucker like him is to get hold of him personally and give him a good beating which he won’t forget.’ This attack on Lord Beaverbrook, which must have sent a frisson of delighted horror through its listeners, was something of ...”