In Focus

In Focus: How the 'Tottering Hall' cartoonist became a sculptor

Best known as the creative force behind Dicky and Daffy, it was her son’s death that prompted Annie Tempest to learn ‘the grammar of the sculptor’s language’, discovers Ian Collins.

In Focus: How Italy inspired JMW Turner

Mary Miers considers how the country that fascinated Turner from youth shaped his artistic vision.

In Focus: Gerald Durrell, the 'pioneer with a marvellous sense of humour'

The author, conservationist and avid nature-lover describes his childhood in Corfu with the 'recollections of a child in a kind of earthy paradise,' in his book, My Family and Other Animals, finds Jack Watkins.

In Focus: T.S. Eliot's Journey of the Magi, the masterpiece that was dashed off in 45 minutes

Far from a celebration, the poem is a metaphor for the voyage Eliot believed the human spirit must make to experience Christ.

In Focus: Handel's Messiah, the Christmas music that was created for Easter

Handel's Messiah

The 100 greatest cathedrals in Europe, as picked by Simon Jenkins

Simon Jenkins gives himself a daunting task with his latest book, Europe's 100 Best Cathedrals (Viking, £30), which does no less than attempt to both explain and judge the masterpieces of western civilisation. Clive Aslet took a look and found a tome that will set readers 'afire to go on architectural pilgrimage'.

In Focus: Richard Wagner's five-hour operas — 'Singers are like athletes doing long-distance competitions. You get to the point where you’ve reached your physical limits'

Wagner’s stamina-testing operas inspire both passion and dread and the adjective Wagnerian is associated with scale and intensity. Henrietta Bredin acts as a guide for the nervous.

In Focus: Why the eerie thrives in art and culture

The tradition of ‘eerie’ literature and art, invoking fear, unease and dread, has flourished in the shadows of British landscape culture for centuries, says Robert Macfarlane.

In Focus: The extraordinary William Morris, the man for whom the word polymath was coined

Famous for urging us to have nothing in our homes that is not useful or beautiful, William Morris’s masterful command of pattern and Arts-and-Crafts design masked a deeply unhappy marriage, says Michael Montagu.

In Focus: John Hassall's iconic travel posters

The works of British poster king John Hassall remain a breath of fresh seaside air, says Lucinda Gosling.

In Focus: the fungi sculptures that bend stone into soft, flowing forms

They may look as delicate and organic as the real thing, but Ben Russell’s sculptures of fungi, cacti and roots will outlast us all, believes Natasha Goodfellow.

In Focus: How 21st century artists are reviving the art of the fresco

Once practised by Michelangelo, Raphael and da Vinci, the art of fresco creation has changed little in 1,000 years. Marsha O’Mahony meets the artists following in their footsteps.

Why a good frame can be a work of art in its own right

Catriona Gray retraces the history of frames, admires the craftsmanship required to make them and discovers what's the best way to preserve them.

In Focus: The Heath Robinson Museum at Pinner, home to decades of gently satirised modern life

Huon Mallalieu tells the story of the small museum in Middlesex, where you'll find the last records of the county before it became overrun by suburbia.

In Focus: How British artists contributed to the uncanny, desirous world of Surrealism

Michael Murray-Fennell delves into the subconscious, the uncanny, war and desire and discovers the contribution made by British artists to the Surrealist movement.

In Focus: How mass tourism to the seaside produced an entire era of iconic Modern art and architecture

Clive Aslet examines how seaside resorts used Art Deco to catch the eye, spurring on a movement of Modern designs for health and beauty.

In Focus: The story of life of St Clare, and other restituted paintings that found their way back home

In Focus: Why Dora Maar’s vision placed her in the first rank of Surrealists

The brilliant, innovative photographer at the forefront of Surrealism was much more than merely Picasso’s mistress, says Matthew Dennison.

In Focus: How the belt of a goddess revealed the true colours of the Parthenon marbles

For nearly 200 years the Parthenon marbles held onto the secret they were suspected of keeping.

In Focus: A self-portrait by Gaugin which fuses the real and the imaginary in a picture of narcissism and divine comparison

Lilias Wigan analyses Gaugin's 'Christ in the Garden of Olives', commenting on the painter's propensity to focus on himself, understanding the world purely as it could be viewed through his own eyes.