I can’t quite believe I’m standing here still speaking to you all at the end of a year of Art 2010! I set out as a newbie in this city of Washington DC, clinging barnacle-like to the bows of the NGA, in hopes that by taking small steps in these soaring halls I’d find my feet in a new place and in a new life.

Check out this week’s video blog. and the final one for Art 2010!

And now for the second half of my (much contested) favorite fortnight… Jan 3 sticks out for me, when I went right in with one of the NGA’s most prized paintings, Leonardo da Vinci’s Ginevra de’ Benci. And on January 21 we mourned the loss of a lion at the National Zoo with this life-size beast-ridden bombastic show-stopper from Peter paul Rubens.

On April 7th we lightened the mood with these lissom lovelies from Murillo (who also headed up the Hump party invite…)

August 20 was when we brushed aside the cobwebs of old art and went with Henri Matisse through his Open Window at Collioure into a fresh Fauve take on the world and its imaging.

El Greco’s Jerome crashed in on September 30th, beating his chest without rest on his feast day.

And I for one was beguiled by this garish and lurid snap-shot into an unsettling human drama, delivered by Kirchner on October 19.

Last but not least, who doesn’t love this Lichtenstein, so summery and saturated, sparking the start of the Pop Art movement (November 18).

Well here we are, with just a couple of days to go folks! On Friday the curtain falls on Art 2010, but before the lights go up and everyone is ushered out of the auditorium, let’s nestle into a nostalgic glimpse back over the last 12 months. I’ve come up with my favorite fortnight’s worth of works, which I’ll roll out over the next 2 days… hope you enjoy this mini-trip down memory lane…

On the 10th of January we had a lazy morning with that yolk-yellow Rosenquist, muling over what makes up the perfect brunch menu… And on March 4th we celebrated World Book Day with a fine and fetching lady from Fragonard.

Then on April 1 we ushered in Easter with Salvador Dali’s oddball rendering of the Last Supper…

While in June (the 18th) we set our toes a’ twinkling with Leo Villareal, gliding down his glinting tunnel of LEDS in the concourse between East and West buildings:

And we stayed a while with a little Italian tike on July 7th, smiling indulgently at Titian’s Ranuccio (and wishing we could reach over to ruffle his hair).

On Aug 25 we got serious with this strapping, struggling and distressing St Bartholomew from Jusepe de Ribera…

And on September 15 we fell for fall with this glorious golden tapestry of ridged and saturated oils by Hans Hofmann.

Find out which seven picks complete my favorite fortnight tomorrow!

There are rules around present-opening, and that’s only right. No one likes the spoil-sport who tip-toes down the day before a major celebration to ravenously rent open their gifts with gluttony and glee. Mostly on Art 2010 I’ve exercised a great deal of restraint in waiting patiently until the decreed and agreed day when I could unveil a painted or sculpted gem to you: saints stuck fast to their official feasts days, festivals were fused to the correct calendar mark. It wasn’t always easy, I’ll grant you (patience is not one of my most easy virtues) but there’s no point pinpointing a year with higgledy-piggledy highlights.

Having said that, today I’m breaking my own code of honor to bring you the kings way ahead of time. Because, even with a fair wind and a clear passage on the Orient Express, there’s no way Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar (the Wise Men) were officially entering Bethlehem until early Jan.

But be that as it may, you’ll thank me for bringing this ringing beauty to you before our project’s end in a few days’ time because this Adoration of the Magi (c. 1440/1460) is a belter. It’s actually (likely) authored by two luminaries of the Florentine Renaissance: Fra Angelico (c. 1395 – 1455) and Fra Filippo Lippi (1406 – 1469).

It’s thought Fra Angelico started this off, with the main figure of Mary and maybe the Magi. He was a Dominican monk (fra stands for ‘brother’) much devoted to making his painting channel and convey the devotion of his monastic community. So we find a fine-featured Virgin inclining gently behind her baby, and devoted focus in the features of the old king and Joseph. Angelico’s firm and physically-present bodies are derived from earlier artists’ handling of forms in space, and he always retained gothic charm in his color and patterns.

After this auspicious start, it was over to Lippi to fill in the elaborate, energetic entourage that representations of the kings’ visit usually include. Like Angelico, Fra Lippi was a monk, but according to some well-placed sources he observed his vows a little loosely (siring a number of bouncing babies around the city, painting his mistresses in the guise of Mary, etc). So here, his earthy observations are certainly suited to adding in all the excitement of the crowds flooding forward, the horses being tethered, the peacock strutting on the roof and the melee melting into the distance.

In 1492 an inventory was made of the Medici estate and this picture was listed as the most valuable in the collection: so aren’t we pleased we saw it today? (even if we did commit some early unwrapping).

So it’s roughly around this time that the shepherds (who had been watching their flocks by night, all seated on the ground) start star-gazing, and making their way to Bethlehem to honor the brand new baby Jesus. For as long as I can remember, I have felt profound fondness for these adoring shepherds – the humble rustic characters who were the first to recognize Christ’s divinity – who travelled through the night to bring gifts of milk and fleece and little lambs.

And on this day I’m thrilled at last to be discussing one of the NGA’s most cherished canvases: a painting by the artist Giorgione. Although he is considered one of the most important Venetian Renaissance painters, little is known about his life and very few surviving works can be definitively attributed to him. Born c. 1477 in Castelfranco, he died of plague in 1510, aged only 32 or 33.

Giorgione exerted influence on the work of generations of painters after him and if this Adoration of the Shepherds (1505/1510) is indeed by him (Giovanni Bellini and the young Titian are also still under consideration as possible authors) then it’s easy to see why. Because attribution anxiety aside, this work had an immediate impact on Venetian art: it’s a snazzy composition for a start, with the dark mouth of the cave dominating proceedings on the right and a light-bathed Venetian vista lifting the atmosphere on the left. A figural ring forms a firm shape in the front as Joseph, Mary and the shepherds (one stands, one kneels) behold the fat little infant on the floor. Their inclined heads (echoed by some small cherubic faces floating around the edges of the cave) contribute to a feeling of intense and intimate veneration.

Very Venetian is the flush of lush color given off by the garb of Mary and Joseph (extra ‘pop’ offered by the damp gloom of the rocks behind) which of course contrast eye-catchingly with the rag-tag get-ups of the shepherds. I like too the green-fingered focus on plants and overall details of terrain: Giorgione I think was influenced by Leonardo, which might explain his loving attention to nature, be it the shape and sheen of a leaf or the size and surface of a rock.

But perhaps Giorgione’s biggest contribution to the history of painting was the interaction he set up and suggested between landscape and people in his pictures. With him, evocative settings have a bearing not only on the mood of his scenes, but also on the frame-of-mind of the figures inside them. Which means that here, happiness and optimism are harnessed in the people we see and also in the opalescent landscape they’re seen in. Extra effect.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…

Two Turtle Doves

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

So sings the English carol that enumerates a series of increasingly grand gifts given on each of the twelve days of Christmas by a lover to another. It’s an impressive wish-list to say the least, but quite aside from how one could accommodate such showy showering of affection (have you any idea how many eggs 6 Geese-a-Laying lay or how loud the din is when you get 11 Pipers Piping?), I’ve always swooned ever-so-slightly at the thought of all those extravagant offerings.

Favourite of mine, for it’s simplicity and enduring significance, is today’s tidbit of those two turtle doves. It’s perhaps because of Biblical references (especially the verse from the Song of Songs) and the fact that it forms strong pair bonds, that the turtle dove has become an emblem of devoted love.

And I’m bringing you a turtle dove true love story today with this portrait of Giuliano de’ Medici (c. 1478/1480) by the Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli. This may be a posthumous portrait, one of several commissioned by the Medici family after Giuliano’s assassination in 1478. He and his brother Lorenzo had been viciously attacked in Florence cathedral by members of a rival family – the Pazzi – intent on political control of the city. Lorenzo escaped unscathed and restored order on the double. But Giuliano wasn’t so lucky.

His messy death shocked Florence and his picture became a much-repeated motif: and in fact Botticelli (as an artist in the cultural conclave of the Medici) might just have produced the prototype memorial with this portrait. The window ajar is an emblem of death, denoting the subject’s passage to the afterlife. Botticelli’s rendering of the subject is rich with his uniquely graceful and ornamental style. The pattern of the perfectly silhouetted hair creates visual play and the streaking creases on the tunic introduce a decorative element.

The lowered lids have sometimes been interpreted as evidence that this was painted  after a death mask. But there are also conflicting accounts that suggest that it was Giuliano himself who commissioned this while still alive, to commemorate the death of his dearly beloved, a Florentine lady called Simonetta Vespucci (who’d died two years prior). This portrait (also by Botticelli) shows her as a nymph or idealized woman.

I think there’s a love-link for sure on some level: on the left is perched a turtle dove, turned right away from our man. It sits on a dead branch across the parapet: the only place, according to Renaissance lore, that doves alight after their mates have died.

It’s Christmas, and have I got a glorious gift for you all (frankly, anyone who’s logging in to learn about art on a day so deeply ensconced in the festive period definitely deserves a treat). Inevitably today’s painting is of the Christian persuasion, but I think it’ll cater to all creeds, on the simple basis of its sublime appearance. The Nativity (c. 1450) comes proffered by Petrus Christus (active 1444 – 1475), a Netherlandish artist we’ve befriended before on Art 2010. This though is better than the portraits we looked at then: indeed, this is one of the artist’s most important devotional paintings.

I’ve a plan here, to unpack and unpick each little piece of the picture, rather like unravelling a great glut of presents from under the tree. I’m certain we’ll all get something we like. This scene is delivered beyond a birth narrative to incorporate Christus’s conception of it as one link in a chain of events: here too we have the sequence of Fall and Redemption of man. So in the stone archway appear Adam and Eve, she on the cusp of offering the apple to her man.

In the carved arch slide scenes from Genesis, while right in the foreground, at the bases of those blood-colored columns, are two figures, who in their heaving struggle stand for man burdened by Original Sin.

It’s the coming of Christ that cleanses that transgression so that our focus must fall on the mini baby wriggling on the floor. This is where we see Christus’s knack for naturalism, in the anatomy of the infant, and in the refined faces of Mary and Joseph.

Accuracy too comes in with that shooting recession: Christus is credited with being the first northern European artist to use geometrically sound perspective. Here he applies it to the folding hills that nestle what looks like a Netherlandish town (though in fact the two domes suggest it’s Jerusalem, cited at the place of Christ’s Passion).

Which brings us back to the multi-layered story at hand. Those pixie-proportioned angels are adding another dimension: their gorgeous glowing vestments are very reminiscent of the garments worn by ministers of Mass, so that this moment meshes the physical birth with its celebration in the church.

I promised a present that pleasures, irrespective of faith. Who wouldn’t coo at the jubilant, jewel-like colors on this panel? Or the breath-taking botanical detail in the far-off foliage? See the strangely evocative beasts by the manger, one chewing and one raising his head to the hay. Perhaps best are the figures in their simple flemish costumes, who give this scene a stage-like essence. This Christus really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap…

So opens that most charming and cheering of Yuletide poems, published anonymously in 1823. I think we’d be hard-pushed to find anyone not at least passingly familiar with these famous festive lines. Or, for that matter, anyone whose heart doesn’t offer even the faintest flutter at the sound of these verses so steeped in seasonal nostalgia.

For most of us, this text conjures much more than chestnuts roasting on an open fire, snow-covered scenery and the promise of days filled with food, fun and far too much wine. Instead, The Night Before Christmas is laced with the loveliest, most old-fashioned feel of childhood…

Which is why my Art 2010 gift to you this Christmas Eve is a piece of painting just about as sweet and simple as the poem. The Hobby Horse dates from the same era (c. 1840) and while not strictly speaking a Christmas picture, it is filled with the kind of infant jubilance most associated with this time. Here it’s a new toy taking all the attention: these horses first cropped up in Europe in the mid 17th century and it might just have been imported, with its silken hair, smooth hide and pretty bridle.

The painting is authored by Robert Peckham (1785 – 1877), an American folk artist from Massachusetts. And before we balk at the (admittedly) slightly eery apparition of the two tots dressed ever-so-similarly (one is a boy and one a girl, with tell-tale-bonnet in hand), let’s look past the lack of sophistication at the pure and primitive heart of the picture. Peckham – who unlike other folk painters had actually received some instruction from two artists – was particularly gifted with this sort of children’s portrait, and this is one from the high-point of his career. The children take centre-stage inside a home interior, and any stiffness resulting from their slightly wooden poses is diluted by the dynamism in the detail all around. The carpet is pungently patterned, the green doily design dances and the clothes are intricate and colored. It’s in this detail that our childish delight comes in, since it offers endless festive fripperies for us to feast our eyes on. Like kids on Christmas morning…

Ever since last weekend, Husband and I have been listening on loop to a lilting and lyrical new Christmas song by Coldplay. Husband especially is a fierce believer in the brilliance of this band, and sure enough as the notes of Christmas Lights floated through the floors of our house, there was their usual ability to assimilate a haunting/ catching tune and let’s-think-about-them lyrics.

As far as I can fathom, this song is about the breaking of a relationship, and the singer’s feeling of despair in the midst of all the Christmas merriment in London. But as the song slides on, there’s a hope that heaves up at the sight of thousands of twinkling lights, which he wonders might work a miracle and magic back his love. The message of hope at the end is goose-bump-bringing:

Those Christmas Lights

Light up the street

Maybe they bring her back to me

Then all my troubles will be gone

Oh Christmas Lights keep shining on

Oh Christmas Lights

Light up the streets

Light up the fireworks in me

May all your troubles soon be gone

Those Christmas Lights keep shining on

It’s a double delight that the lyrics link to a feeling of hope in the face of adversity and anxiety, since that allows me to squeeze this bizarre and beguiling work by Sigmar Polke in before the close of the year. Hope is: Wanting to Pull Clouds (1992) is a work in polyester resin and acrylic on canvas and certainly offers up a slice of strange. There’s a man in period dress, perhaps a seafarer or seaman, with coils of rope slung around his arms, which are wrapped at their other ends around two bulbous clouds before him. And there dotted directly in the center is the real subject of the scene: a tiny sailboat floating across the patched/ color-washed waters.

Polke (born 1941) is pretty much one of the most important German painters of the post-war generation. He has a healthy irreverence for traditional painting techniques and tacks and he often introduces an anarchic element, so much so that he’s been described as a “visual revolutionary”. And while he often uses Pop Art-related images in unexpected, contradictory combinations to get the viewer to question conventional methods of art evaluation, I can’t help but think that Hope is a simpler and less cynical piece.

For me, this twinkles with the twitching thought that hope alone can convey us to a place of faith and firmness. As the man tugs the weather and directs the wind-flow (presumably to provide the ship safe passage), his hope alone is making things happen. And as the Latin inscription across the top of Coldplay stage shows (I believe that Elvis is still alive), hope is the first and formative step on the persuasive path to belief.

Husband has entered a hoary war… with squirrels. And it’s a battle (he tells me) that’s going to get bloody. The back-story is that as soon as we moved into our house, Husband got into some husbandry, by which I mean some casual taking care of the critters in our yard. Feeders were flushed clean and filled with (expensive! organic!) seed and the wooden house (Weekend Retweet!) was washed and wired into position. But even as he handled the hairy rope, wrapping it around a sturdy-looking branch, lots of little eyes were looking hard at Husband from all around: the squirrels were registering their reconnaissance.

You see the feeders are strictly speaking selected and slung up for the specific nourishment of birds, all those beautiful bejewelled red cardinals, blue jays, nut hatches and chickadees. Not the froth-tailed fat-enough-already squirrels that marked out the feeder zone as their own from day one, and are now defending it against our feathered friends.

Oh husband has hit them with his all-star arsenal. The rope was dropped to make things more pendulous, but within half an hour a squirrel was squatting on the feeder ledge. Next he removed rope to isolate the feeder, but soon enough they were airborne, sailing from trunk to target with sickening ease. Wire wrapped around tree and seed was simply balanced between by the fleet-footed foe and all the while their numbers grew. It’s a well-oiled operation when squirrels attack and as I speak there’s a full infantry of footsoldiers on the ground, hoovering up the husks of seeds spilled by the general, who’s generally just hanging out up on high.

As Husband continues to wrack his brains in the war room and storm through his tool kit for workable weapons, I have to hand it to the squirrels: their ingenuity and efficiency cannot be faulted. So in celebration of our crazy-making critters I’m bringing you another one here. This ever-do-delicate document is done in watercolor and gouache over traces of graphite on vellum and to stand before it is to become breathless with the infinitesimal fineness of its rendering.

German artist Hans Hoffmann (c. 1550 – 1592) is currently on display in the NGA’s Arcimboldo exhibition, doing an ingenious job of illustration the interest in nature that was introduced in the late 16th century in northern Europe. His Red Squirrel (1578) is just exquisite, from pointed pixie ears and wafting whiskers to knuckled paws and sweeping tail. Hoffmann has pinned-down the physical specifics and the spirit of the animal with panache and aplomb: just keep the darned thing away from our feeder!

For all the high-jinx jolliness of this time of year, late December can be tension territory. Fun friends or family get-togethers can get all together less fun when cousin comments on something she shouldn’t, or brother and sister start bickering about a thing over the brandy butter and mince pies. Putting lots of people into a space and filling them up on food and booze can sometimes add fuel to the fire of seasonal stress, and tips for taking the testiness down some notches are appearing everywhere right about now. The salient point to stick to I suppose is that a picture-perfect holiday gathering is a cheesy movie myth, and nothing more.

And anyway, it seems that sometimes a little knife-edge tension can actually come out looking rather lovely: Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece (1976-1978) by Sir Henry Moore stands serene and shimmering at the entrance of the NGA East, and what an enveloping and evolving work it is.

Born into a mining family as the seventh of eight children, Moore (1898 – 1986) would become the most famous British sculptor of the 20th century. The two subjects that stick out most obviously in his oeuvre are the mother and child (which he treated without sentimentality) and the female figure (often looking fluid as a landscape).

Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece perfectly platforms so much of what Moore was about. For a start there’s truth in his use of materials, so that bronze still looks like bronze (Moore said “stone should not be falsified to look like soft flesh… it should keep its hard tense stoniness). He’d started his career carving stone and wood but after the war began working in bronze, which allowed him to go bigger and better, as here. Cast in several pieces, this piece is run-through with the very feel and flow of the material.

What I love about Moore is his utter rejection of classical or Renaissance ideals of beauty: instead he tapped into older times, taking ancient and primitive sculpture as his source and inspiration. This work here has an undulating energy that seems to shimmy up and through the forms. In fact I’d say the formula here is to be entirely form-driven, with Moore himself seeming to push us to an acceptance of shape and space as stand-alone entities. “The sensitive observer of sculpture must also learn to feel shape as shape, not as a description or reminiscence” he said. So there it is, an assemblage of curved shapes showing soft sides and flat facets that entrance us at that entrance with their simple grace. Soothing, for sure. What seasonal stress?

We’re right in the time when round robins and family group shots are rolling through our letter-boxes. And how I like getting these little glimpses into things people have been doing, and seeing people pop up all primped and preened and shining into the lens. I suppose the family freeze-frame is a chance to take stock of a moment in time, get someone into a snowman tie and spread paper smiles to people far away. While you can go all-out for the photo op (the Kardashians’ 2010 Christmas card is a case in point), a simple portrait with the relevant peeps does just as well.

I decided to use all the holly jolly holiday cards not so much as a comparison to today’s picture, but more as a stumbling segue of sorts. And I’m bringing Picasso’s The Tragedy not to dump a big old dampener on things, but because it is surely one of the most intense and evocative painted family portraits at the NGA.

Obviously and alarmingly it is painted entirely in shades of blue, from flesh to fabrics, floor to faces. It’s from Picasso’s so-called Blue Period, which ran from 1901 – 1904. Picasso (1881 – 1973) is almost synonymous with 20th-century art, or at least symbolic of it: I mean the man’s prodigious career as a painter and sculptor spanned many years, and in that time he innovated his creative character constantly. In his time, he tried and tested Cubism, classicism, Surrealism and ceramics.

But it’s his utterly eery, enchanting and early Blue Period we’re probing today. Having moved to Paris in 1900, Picasso had just started using his mother’s name to sign paintings. It was at this point that he plunged into this limited and lugubrious color palette, perhaps pushed that way by dramatic and moving things he witnessed around him: La Vie (1903) is haunted by the suicide of his close friend and Absinthe Drinker (1902) is pretty self-explanatory.

And what is it that makes The Tragedy so electrifying? I think body language plays a big part: the man and woman especially seem so closed-off, with their crossed-over arms and bowed heads. And yet their vulnerability comes comes flooding through in the exposed, elongated toes and the boy by the man’s side. The way Picasso places the figures – in a loose-formed, fluid triangle of sorts – he opens to image to a rush of inter-relationships, as well as our wondering what they may be.

And why so blue? It’s just a master-class in how color can cast a certain mood and elicit a specific spiritual response. Don’t you get the chills just looking at this? Imagine what a dab of red could do…

Winter for me means layers: under, middle, over-the-top Michelin-man layers. You name it, I’ve strapped and wrapped it around my person as soon as the first flake flutters to the floor. There are precious few concessions to style or sexiness when the season turns against me: my coat is only form-fitting because it’s hotter inside that way.

When the temp takes the plunge I always think back to a Cambridge friend who looked at winter as the most lovely and lusty of wardrobe opportunities. “Think of it,” she’d say, “the full-length fur drops to the floor to reveal a ravishing little number beneath. What could be more fantasy-filled?” Or freakin’ freezing, I remember thinking. So thank goodness I can turn to Gotlzius at the NGA, who’ll let me steam up your screens with some barely-there beauties without me exposing any extremities to the chill. The Fall of Man positively sizzles with skin-on-skin suggestiveness, and should be more than enough to warm the cockles over a winter-whipped weekend such as this.

Here we have Adam and Eve languishing lusciously in the Garden of Eden. There’s not a scrap of the shame we might expect in a time of Temptation and imminent Fall: instead the artist focusses on fine corporeal casting and introduces a warming under-layer of physical desire. This intimate interpretation, in which Eve has nibbled and twists to her man for him to do the same (see Adam’s total state of hypnosis) was brand new when Goltzius brought it in 1616.

Dutchman Hendrik Goltzius (1558 – 1617) had been successful as a draftsman and printmaker before he turned to painting around 1600. Here, the anatomies attest to the attention he paid to Peter Paul Rubens and others like him: the bare bodies shimmer with the cleanliness of classical statues but are also made opulent and palpable with sensual shading and form.

Look outside the naughty niche nooky for some creatures and critters that have been dotted about for our edification and salvation. The sweet face of the serpent confirms the deceptiveness of appearances and those two goats are signs of lack of chastity. The elephant way off in the distance stands for piety and temperance, so here’s he’s trumpeting as a contrast to Adam’s fetish for flesh and unfaithfulness towards God.

And what about that fat tabby cat planted so purposefully near the picture plane? As his little almond eyes return our gaze it’s as if he’s warning us to turn away from what we should rightfully condemn, lest we lose ourselves to lust and loosened morals. I say just pull on a pair of thermals Eve, those will quell any fires, quick as a flash.

Scenes of St Sebastian are two-a-penny in art history… and if that sounds flippant, let me explain. He’s a popular subject for a few stand-out reasons: since he’s often shown shot-through with arrows (according to the manner of his martyrdom) his nakedness allows artists to let loose on anatomical know-how, slipping in sinews and skin textures and all sorts (especially so as the scientific bent of the Renaissance set in). There’s also the ancient angle: Sebastian was a Christian killed at the time of Emperor Diocletian (he died around 288), so often there’ll be a smattering of columns and some rubble of old ruins, attesting to an artist’s instruction in the arts of ancient Greece and Rome.

Sometimes I have to say I find pictures of this saint to be washed with a watered-down emotional glaze: he’d gazing upwards, cool as a cucumber (delivered from the piercing pain by his faith in God), snaking elegantly all the while. Which is why I’m bringing you this utterly-unlike-that version by Varallo on the day that the eastern orthodox church honors this saint.

Oh just look at this shockingly lurid work, which offers none of the usual anodyne effects of a simplified and sweetened St Seb shoot-out. Instead we’ve nowhere to look but at the brutal bodily reality of the moment, far too close and far-too affecting.

The Italian Tanzio da Varallo (c. 1575 – 1633) was orphaned age 11 and received his first artistic instruction from one of his brothers, who worked in the Mannerist style of the late sixteenth century. But by 1600 Varallo had upped and left for Rome (we’re not sure how long he stayed there) which ran a deep rut of influence across his canvases. Here, I’d say we’re seeing lashings of Roman Caravaggio, what with the high-key contrasts of light and shade and the dramatic poses of the protagonists.

But Varallo has a visceral vim that’s all his own. See how he condenses the bodies to barrel them into the confines of the canvas, cropping them side to side. The head of the angel sways in sympathy with the saint, while the bookend body of a female figure flattens movement to the right.

Everywhere is eddying energy, brought in by the lancing lines of the archers’ arrows, the bent and twitching bunches of fingers and the pulsating, pulling swathes of drapery. Varallo’s native village to the north of Milan was a major centre of popular piety, an inheritance that reads clear here in the realistic and expressive features of the saint. And utterly addictive are these cry-out-loud colors that create red blood and pale skin, and an emotional intensity that’s hard to ignore.

Sometimes in life there are these sublime moments of slippage, when time loosens its vice-tight grip on things and you enter a dizzied state of hyper-awareness. That’s the best way I can think to describe last night, as Husband and I attended a Christmas party at the White House. As we entered, we were told “8.30, on the ground floor.” For what? I whispered to Husband. For our photo with the President, he said.

From that moment, the hours melted into a mellifluous flow of horns and fiddles from the band, giant garlands studded with blue-green peacocks, acres of tables strewn with silver platters piled with pixie-sized potatoes, peeled-to perfection carrots and every other permutation of seasonal fare (including tiered stands with iced biscuits: a bee! a squirrel! a sparkling snowflake!), and the most magical feeling of anticipation.

As the time ticked closer, so started up the ticking in the chest. As we waited in the fast-paced photo-line, I remember rather hoping my instincts would kick in. Because when you’re told you’ll be taking a picture with the President and First Lady, it takes a time to even attempt to compute the weirdness/ wondrousness of it at all.

Quite honestly, I’ve struggled to find a fine art match to make some sense of our surreal snap-shot last night, and I’m not saying I’ve landed on the most laudable one here. Indeed, some might say a painting by Russian Alexander Rodchenko was quite the wrong way to go for a visual reference, but I’m sticking to my guns on this one. Because something about those airborne orbs recalls the bloated ornaments that punctuated with  prettiness the party proceeding, and those zig-zag lines suggest the time-slippage I’ve been banging on about.

Rodchenko (1891 – 1956) had started out in a Cubist idiom but from 1916 (after he’d completed art school) he started on the path towards abstraction. He was a founder member of Moscow’s Institute of Painterly culture, which advocated a utilitarian approach to art, to satisfy the needs of society. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Rodchenko’s art took a strong turn for Constructivism, an art movement mustered around 1914 that aimed to encapsulate in visual terms the building bricks and stratagems for a new society. A work like Untitled (1919) Rodchenko called a “construction” since it is made from real, readable materials (oil and wood, in this case).

So in its context of creation this painting had specific societal purposes. But in our setting today, the excited exploration of how colors react in conjunction with different backgrounds and forms, as well as the zinging lines and curving circles, remind of some of the myriad, meshed-up, marvelous impressions we were lucky enough to immerse ourselves in last night.

Present wrapping has always been a particular forte of mine… To the point that, when we were young, my brothers and sister would form an orderly line outside my door at  Christmas time, waiting patiently for me to paper and package their gifts. On a good day, I didn’t charge them.

Later in life I’ve run into a wrap dilemma since Husband is – surprisingly – a man who enjoys prepping a gift. And not just the easy-to-corner square box type either. No, he’ll gamely take a gamble on any odd-shaped, protrusion-ridden thing, so long as you reel him enough roll, ribbon and tape. So now we’re in the peculiar predicament of a double-wrapper marriage, which means that sometimes we actually vie with one another as to who gets to wrap what. It’s sad when you put it on paper like that.

Be that as it may, this is a time that presents are appearing: popping up in the hands of a friendly caller at your door, sprouting sparkly under the Christmas tree, or dancing dreamily in your head at night. So it’s only right that I heave this peculiar, interest-piquing package under the Art 2010 tree today. It’s by Christo, an American artist who was born in Bulgaria in 1935 who has always had a faiblesse for and fascination with wrapping things up as works of art.

He started in Paris in 1958 (covering everyday objects and natural forms) and then extended his packaging practice in the early 1960s to include large-scale sites, both urban and rural. Since the 60s, Christo has collaborated with his French wife Jean-Claude on these projects and honestly, you name it, they’ve wrapped it. We’re talking bridges, oil barrels in Cologne harbor, islands in Biscayne Bay, Berlin’s Reichstag building, all draped and dressed in fabulous fabrics in confident colors.

Package 1974 (1974) is by Christo alone and is to be cherished as such, since these smaller scale works are the only element of his oeuvre containable in conventional art spaces and therefore collectible. The critic David Bourdon called Christo’s work “revelation through concealment” and indeed we do get a sense of awakening and awareness when faced with this shrouded shape slung-around with string.

There are lots of things going on here: the flapped folds of the fabric recall drapery on classical statues (Greece borders the artist’s native Bulgaria) and the material itself has anthropological implications (Christo calls it “an extension of our skin”). But most of all, this act of concealment and conjuring-of-questioning is as ebullient a gesture as I’ve found in art. As Christo himself said in 2002: “we only create joy and beauty. We have never done a sad work.”

I suppose some little boys and girls will be scratching out earnest epistles to Santa as I speak. Maybe something along the lines of: “I’ve been ever so good this year, helping Mummy with the baby and hardly hitting brother at all. Please can I have these things I have written and I promise to be good for all of next year: a pony, a dolls house, a box of colouring crayons and a bike.”

And as all those hundreds of thousands of envelopes get plastered shut, stamped and posted with care, it’s a letter of another order I’m delivering to you today. This one’s by the American Minimalist Robert Morris (born 1931), who I’ve grown to like a lot but who leaves me a bit baffled and befuddled at the best of times…

It was involvement with avant-garde theatre that inspired Morris’s classic 1960s Minimalist works. It seems to have been a small and simple step: he’d used basic geometric constructions as props in his performance pieces and thus spied their potential as sculptures in their own right. Doing things like placing large plywood polyhedrons in a gallery led to what Morris called an “extended situation” which was all about the ‘embodiment’ of the viewer: rather than peering in close to a piece of his art and pondering the construction and composition, Morris moves the viewer to become aware of their relationship to the objects in space and time.

This larger-scale spatial exploration that Morris maneuvers with big pieces is all well and good (and indeed it had a profound influence on contemporary art) but how are we to approach a much smaller work like Untitled (The Letter), 1964? This is painted lead and locked in place onto the wall in the concourse gallery of the NGA East.

For a start it’s more figurative than I’ve seen from Morris: a little lead letter suspended on two fine filaments before a slate grey ledge and a panel of white. It fits with the Minimalist mantra that a work is neither painting nor sculpture, but beyond that, what can it mean?

For me in any case Morris masters a subtle and quite sublime sense of tension here: the unopened missive must be one of the most simple and yet totally tantalizing subjects he  could have picked. And I suppose it does do what his overall oeuvre aims for, i.e. getting us to contemplate our relationship to the piece in the context of space. With this letter there unfolds a lovely layering of space, between the envelope, the panels, the wall and us. Because we move, it’s a fine and fragile state of flux that Morris manages to make us see.

But of course, all we really care about is what’s written in that letter.

It’s that time of year when sniffles and sneezes and snorts and wheezes are all around as people succumb to seasonal coughs and colds and so on. If the passenger on the bus beside you isn’t honking into a hankie, then your colleague at work will be chugging hot tea with honey for their throat. And it’s a big job, battling to keep at bay all those bugs and bacteria being airborne as everyone is eventually felled by a fat bout of flu.

Well, worry not, because to boost your immune systems today I’ve a peachy picture to make you feel all better. This is The Convalescent (probably late 1910s to mid 1920s) by Gwen John. What a cosy, coddled and comforting feel this emits, with its soft-focus subject, suffused light, divine dappled paint effect and hushed blushing color palette. Gwen John (1876 – 1939) was one of the foremost British artists of the early 1900s. In contrast to her flamboyant brother, Augustus (also an artist, one of the most gifted of his generation), she led a reclusive life and had only one solo exhibition in her lifetime. At her death, she was largely unknown, but her reputation was revived in the 1960s.

This sort of quiet, contemplative study of a woman in an interior is exactly the thing that John did best. The simple, unadorned room is boiled down to a flat, matte wall, a strip of skirting and a glimpse of wood floor. Front right is a table with doily, pot and cup and the subject herself sits in a wicker chair, backed and boosted by a big white pillow.

I’m drawn especially to the dabbing of the brush, in dry opaque paint: this was a technique that John evolved in the later stages of her career (she’d started out using glazes, or transparent layers of paint) and the patched appearance gives a touching effect of tenderness or fragility. The muted colors play into this atmosphere, and the beiges, peaches, creams, browns and blue have an incredible combined effect of dampening and dulling the ‘sound’ of the scene.

This small and intimate picture packs quite some punch. The artist subtly ushers us right into the room: the cropped table and our odd standing-above-her angle see to that. Then there are the implications of the letter being read: her focus naturally piques our interest as to the contents of the text. And finally, knowing that John, a secluded and isolated sort of person, often painted herself as the subject in this sort of picture makes it immediately more compelling. Like we’re entering a magical and melancholy dialogue with the artist, in which only so much will be given away.

Let’s get this straight. On most days and in most ways, it was better being the older sister. I got to stay up later earlier, had a hamster before she did and got my ears pierced years ahead. But in the midst of all my primogenito gloating there was one thing my sister had over me: Saint Lucy. And purely because her feast day on December 13th excluded my participation, it always seemed like the most magical and mystical day of the year.

Following what is a northern European tradition, my sister would dress in a pretty white dress and process with a candle and small sack of sweets. Our domestic celebration traced back to what is especially a Scandinavian observation in which “Saint Lucy” comes as a little girl with lights and sweets. Sometimes a procession might be headed by the Lucy figure sporting a crown of candles (but obviously this was too risky for a wriggly little customer like my sister).

Although there are no sources on her actual life (other than the saintly accounts of the hagiographies) Lucy is believed to have been from Sicily, and to have died a martyr’s death in Syracuse around AD 310. It’s thought that while working to help Christians hiding in the catacombs during the terror under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, and in order to bring with her as many supplies as possible, she needed to have both hands free: she solved the problem by attaching candles to a wreath on her head.

Our lovely Lucy today is offered by Francisco de Zurbarán, a Spanish artist of the 17th century (1598 – 1664). He rarely veered from holy subject matter and was essentially one of the greatest religious painters of his time. What’s so unusual here in this entrancing incarnation of the young female saint is that he’s loosened his typically austere and intensely spiritual tack to introduce her as a contemporary woman of Seville.

She is certainly well-heeled: voluminous sleeve and skirts, hair coiffed with care and boasting some serious bling. A bundled bouquet adorns her crown. Surely the success of this image leans on our identification with Lucy as a human woman who’s not half attractive. It’s Zurbarán’s skills as a colorist too that zing this onto a higher level, as well as his stark yet sensual light-and-shade play.

Lots of legends surrounding Lucy launched in the time of the Counter Reformation, the most popular linking to her eyes. Say some, she plucked them out herself as men found them to be alluring and our Lucy had intentions of staying chaste and pure. Eviscerated eyes make for the most gory of attributes, but I must say that Zurbarán takes even these in his stride.

Husband and I recently riveted ourselves with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. This third installment in the series based on the posthumously-published Millennium Trilogy by Swedish author Stieg Larsson is the best yet. Lisbeth Salander (tattooed computer hacker) is recovering in hospital and awaiting trial for three murders when she is released. Mikael Blomkvist, the journalist and publisher of Millennium magazine who has been her constant if distant ally wants to prove her innocence, but Lisbeth must be willing to share the details of her sordid experiences with the court.

Sitting next to Husband, who has read all three of the books (numbers one The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Two The Girl Who Played with Fire) it was easy to appreciate the skill of the Swedish film-makers. Characters are clarified, plot-lines pared-down, scenes lengthened or left out. So that the finished effect was a filmic format that celebrated the cinema but was just as visceral, violent and compelling as the books.

It’s by no means obvious or easy to track down the tricks for turning a written story that’s well-known and super successful into a visual medium. But that’s exactly what Juan Gris did when he took on Fantômas in his painting of the same name (dated 1915) at the NGA. Fantômas was the sadistic protagonist of bestselling crime novels of the early 20th century and here the artist has absorbed the texts and transformed them into a beguiling and brilliant bit of art.

Fantômas was a man said to be nowhere and everywhere at the same time, and that slippery essence seems to inhabit this still-life. In fact still-life might be a bit of a misnomer in this case, since the objects appear to be anything but still. A table, a glass, a newspaper, some fruit, a pitcher, a pipe, a chessboard and more all melt and merge magically into each other. Gris is good at this sort of collapsed space between objects, putting out an oddly-angled perspective that’s traceable in the top Cubist artists. Each object offers only a ghostly trace of itself, a contour here, a texture or color there and he uses a system of overlapping planes to provide the picture’s spatial structure, differentiating each layer from the next by alterations in tone or texture.

This was the perfect project for Spaniard Gris (1887 – 1927) who’s generally considered the “third man” of Cubism (after Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso), showcasing his particular painterly rigour, clarity and colourful approach. It end up as an excellent combination of his Cubist credentials and his skills for conveying the character and creepiness of the Fantômas franchise.

The party season is gaining pace and chances are that sometime soon you too will be treading the boards at some festive soiree. It could be a dainty drinks do with mince pies and mini puddings, lots of egg nog and sparkling bubbles. Or it might be a bash for the office, with people perched around the photocopier, sipping cocktails from plastic cups. Or you could be headed to a debonair dinner, all starched silver service and cranberry sauce.

Whatever the caliber of your evening’s celebrations, it’s important to address the issue of dress. According to the super-milliner Stephen Jones, when it comes to seasonal sartorial selections, nothing tops the importance of a decent hat. “Festive!” says he about hoisting into place some handsome headgear: “For a girl, something smallish if you’re dancing and for a man, a trilby (great for passing around the floor).” Some of Jones’s suggestions are far too out-there, even for a fashion-forward such as myself (hat with rhinestones worn with glasses also rimmed with rhinestones, anyone?) but I like the attitude of adding something dazzling up top at this time of year. So in the spirit of inspiration for the shindigs we’re all attending, let’s lay on a little hat show at the NGA…

The Dutch have got headwear down it seems: either austere and sleek, as in Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Gentleman with a Tall Hat and Gloves (c. 1660), or fawny and floppy as in this Young Man in a Large Hat (c. 1626) by Frans Hals.

Ladies should dare to do drama in December: perhaps plump for a splash of holly-berry-red and a long tilting brim like our Girl with the Red Hat (c. 1665) by Johannes Vermeer…

… or make a more mystical entrance with a Venetian tricorn hat, tucking your cape up over your chin for added allure (hand-fan and glove are optional extras). Giambattista Tiepolo (c. 1755).

French pictures of course offer fruitful foraging-ground for haute-couture inclinations: here’s a nod to country chic from Berthe Morisot, whose Young Woman with a Straw Hat (1884) sets out a summery sort of vibe.

Or go more wild and wriggly like Maurice de Vlaminck’s Woman with a Hat (1905) who sets this stunning scoop-shaped thing fast forward on her forehead.

But for me it’s Matisse who offers most charm and charisma, whether with Plumed Hat from 1919…

… or the utterly lovely Lorette with Turban, Yellow Jacket (1917). Cool, casual and totally on top.

Christmas dinner is a time for tradition. Often to the point of stultification. I know that in our household, if my poor Mum so much as thinks about buying in a pudding or by-passing the roasted winter root vegetables, there are upheavals and uproars that would make a roomful of raucous toddlers blush. Brits especially like Christmas the way it’s always been, with dinner on the table by two, and every element of the feast formatted by the ages-old rule book. That is, unless Heston Blumenthal can have his way. Because, believe it or not, the celebrity chef famed for his crazy creations such as snail porridge and bacon and eggs ice cream has come up with an all-new Christmas pudding that’s putting the boring old traditional type right in the shade.

The Hidden Orange Christmas Pudding (priced at £13.99) looks from the outside like the ones we’re used to, but cut it open and a whole candied orange is revealed inside. Says the culinary sorcerer behind the citrus concoction: “The candied orange in the middle of this incredibly moist Christmas pudding makes it very special. As it cooks, the essential oils from the orange peel infuse the nuts and fruit from the inside out producing a wonderfully aromatic Christmas pudding.”

Supermarkets shelves are stripped clear of the confection and online resources have been promptly plundered. So fevered is people’s pudding pursuit, that some savvy shoppers (who long-since bought bundles of the desirable dessert) are making phenomenal profits on e-bay.

Well, if we can’t get our citrus fix with a slice of Blumenthal’s bejeweled beauty, we’d better take a piece of Peto instead: Still Life with Oranges and Goblet of Wine (1880-1890s) should just be enough to keep our hunger pangs at bay. I honestly think I’ve now coveted and covered nearly every single painting by John Frederick Peto (1854 – 1907) at the NGA. I’m a falling fool for his small-scale, cosy compositions that cleverly capture the marvel of the minutiae of mundane life.

Born in Philadelphia, Peto studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where the trompe l’oeil pictures of artist William Michael Harnett cast their spell. Because for Peto it’s all about convincing us to all-but reach into his picture to pluck up one of those golden orbs. The ledge is level with the picture plane, a parallel that stresses its proximity. There are subtle shadows traipsing to the right and a patch of a glint sitting on the glass’s rim. But best of all are those fat, pith-rimmed orange segments that look plump and sweet enough to sink our teeth into. Now if only they could be candied and stuck in the centre of a Christmas pudding…

Consider – if you will – the following:

1. You are offered a brain pill that will make you 10% more intelligent, but you will seem 20%  less intelligent to everyone else. Do you take this pill?

2. You have won a prize, which has two options, of which you can choose either (but not both). The first option is a year in Europe with a monthly stipend of $2,000. The second is 10 minutes on the moon. Which do you choose?

3. You wake up inhabiting Bruce Springsteen’s body. Your voice sounds just like his, but your musical ability is still entirely your own. You are scheduled to perform in a huge concert that night. What do you do?

These are just three of the brain-straining quizzicals posed by a strangely addictive game given to Husband by his (triplet!) sister. It’s a deck of the most delirious cards: on each is printed an extreme scenario with a follow-up question that probes the inner workings of personality and personal taste and conscience. “Prepare yourself for some insane conversations” yells the lettering on the back of Chuck Klosterman’s HYPERtheticals and indeed it is a jump-off point for some out-there talk.

Now at the NGA I’d say the artist offering up the strangest conversations would probably be Giorgio de Chirico: just clock his Conversation among the Ruins (1927) for some fast-fix proof. Here’s a lady with her back to us, draped in Grecian garb, seated on a wooden chair at a table that looks lifted straight out of a fine dining establishment. A man stands before her, suited and booted and presumably partaking in the the eponymous chat. Beyond the curious couple, the oddness really sets in: an angled patch of wooden floor supports a strip of rug and a segment of wall. There’s a dismembered door jamb and a door jammed open and what looks like a mahogany wardrobe behind the man. This mind-blowing mise-en-scene all takes place in barren brown territory.

De Chirico (1888 – 1978) is best remembered for is ability to make the viewer take a fresh – and often disturbing – look at the familiar. Having been educated in Athens and Florence (he was born in Greece of Italian parents), he moved to Paris in 1911. From 1910 – 1920 he shared Surrealism’s passion for the city as an eerie and seductive labyrinth and produced lots of paintings with silhouetted figures in harshly-lit, unnervingly empty streets.

In time though, de Chirico was increasingly taken in by classical painting and began fusing his interest in ancient Greece and Rome with disjointed and disharmonious elements in his decadent pictures. So our insane conversation topic for today: what on earth does this picture mean?

Free travel is just one of the peak perks of art: in the course of this year I’ve been to places I’m not sure I’ll see before I expire. A portfolio of painted pictures at the NGA have broadened my horizons and I’ve a few more pit-stops on the choo-choo train before we screech to a halt on Dec 31. I’m taking us into the heart of America today, with two artists who capture this country’s rural charm with disarming visions. Both Grant Wood (1891 – 1942) and Thomas Hart Benton (1889 – 1975) resisted the trend towards abstraction that dominated American art in the 1920s and 30s: instead they stuck to the figurative convention, reflecting life in more realistic terms.

Wood became one of the best-known American Regionalists (that is, scene painters), after the enigmatic farming couple in his American Gothic made his name. The NGA’s work New Road (1939) reveals the influence of Netherlandish Renaissance painting that so much seeped into Wood’s way with paint during his travels in Europe. So for instance, there’s a persnickety approach to detail all around: witness the blades of grass, tumbling pebbles, wood grain patterns and rivulet-ridden mudbanks. But then he also wants some quantifiable quirkiness in this snapshot of the Midwest: I’m not sure if it’s the soaring rise of the road, the slight soft-focus of the colors and contours or the fable-like feel of the subject-matter, but something makes New Road utterly riveting, despite its (let’s be honest) initially dull demeanor.

Benton is a bit like Wood in that he too rejected Modernism and chose to chart the character of land-based life in the US as a Regionalist. The son of a US congressman, he’d rejected the family’s traditional career of politics in favor of art, and came up with an idiosyncratic and beguiling style.

Call me coo-coo, but I’m totally taken by this painting Trail Riders (1965), in which kitsch colors and swirling lines lift a mountain view into magical other-wordliness. Perspective is pretty standard on the one side, with forms diminishing into the distance, but then the colors on those far-off hills are saturated beyond what they’d be in real life. I have a sense too that Benton re-jigs the layout of the land to offer an attractive panorama, complete with pretty dip down, parallel bands of green grass and fir, and a kind of cake-and-icing confection on those rocky risings.

Both Wood and Benton sign off on lush and lovely interpretations of US scenery, strengthened by decent doses of observation. But when it comes to these two, rigour and realism usually come served alongside a big dollop of oddness and a sweet slice of whimsy.

Husband and I braved the hordes yesterday for some full-on Sunday shopping. First we hit a market shop for seasonal must-haves such as glögg to glug, marzipan mini-sweets to set on breakfast plates, fuel for cheese fondu burners and tissue for arts and crafts projects. Then it was onto the next of our to dos: at the garden centre we tittered about to tree or not to tree, and opted in the end for a frothy wreath, a sprig of kissable mistletoe and some beauteous beeswax candles. Last stop was Merriment in Georgetown, where people pushed and prodded to get a couple of seconds on Santa’s knee or a free horse-drawn carriage trot after an hour in the cold. Hands were heated by small cups of signature hot cocoa and people hoovered hot-dogs and dough-nuts to keep on their feet in the madness of the melee.

December is definitely a time for mad-dashing and dancing through the streets of a weekend, wherever you are. It’s all fueled by Yule or other winter-time traditions and can drive us just all just a bit round the bend. There’s a picture in the NGA holdings that I have to say gets all that jingle-jangling of nerves spot on: Rush Hour, New York (1915) is by Max Weber (1881 – 1961) and doesn’t it just set your teeth on edge? Such canine-like constructions here, all sharp and shard-like: I’m pretty sure Weber wasn’t much of a fan of his subject as seen.

Weber emigrated to the US from Russia with his Jewish parents when he was 10. Between 1905 and 1908 (in his mid-twenties) he studied at both the Académie Julian and the Académie Matisse in Paris. So far, so good. But then, as the only American artist to have naturally assimilated both Fauvist and Cubist ideas, he found his art was widely derided on his return to the US. His large-limbed nudes, like the ones appearing in this Composition with Three Figures (1908) were somehow too much for people to stomach.

Our Rush Hour doesn’t scrimp on the difficult delivery: I’d say his abstract credentials are comfortably un-compromised here. It’s bristling with the kind of prismastic forms you’d find in a Picasso picture and the shattered scenes of fellow Russian Kasimir Malevich. Space is suggested in the act of overlaying and forms are transformed into geometric entities. It’s an alarming rendering of an ordinary street scene, that’s for sure. But I’d say at certain times of the day – not to mention the year – this is about as restless and rampant as rush hour gets.

Being born Dutch and bred in Britain had some big bonuses for my siblings and I. Quite aside from the opportunity for bilingual ability and the hatching of two European cultures, each December we got a duo of seasonal saints. That is, for a few years, when we were of the age to believe and sharp enough to call on our dual national influences when it mattered the most, we celebrated St. Nicholas on the 5th and Santa 20 days later.

December 6th is when many kids across Europe receive their Christmas gifts, in a ceremony that’s separated from what’s more common in the US and the UK. In Holland though, the festival of St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas) falls on the the eve of his feast, i.e. the 5th. The local legend is that he arrives on his white horse by steamboat from Spain, bringing sweets and presents for the good and a smack on the bum (very un-PC) with a bunch of twigs for the bad. The worst offenders are met with the threat of being carted back to Spain in an empty sack.

I remember vividly waiting red-cheeked for the saint’s arrival. Suddenly there’d be a mad rap at the door and in he’d stride, with staff and bishop’s hat. There’d be the big book (where all our behavior was recorded, of course) and a fusion feeling of fear/ excitement as the roll-call began. Our painting here puts St Nicholas up front (though not centre) in a scene of the Visitation (1490) by Piero di Cosimo. In the middle, Mary greets the aged Saint Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist.

Front right we have St Anthony Abbott…

…and on the left sits our Saint of the day, identified by his attribute of three gold balls alluding to his charity towards the daughters of an impoverished nobleman.

The Florentine Piero (1462 – 1522) was a bizarre man (as seen in his biography by Vasari) and his eccentricity spread to his paintings too. Here we might interpret his idiosyncrasy in the inclusion of mini scenes in the middle-ground: the annunciation appears on a way-off church, there’s the adoration of the shepherds on the left and the massacre of the innocents on the right.

Piero’s unique approach is in his eclectic style too: he’d adopt elements from contemporaries for his own fantastical fusion. There’s a stringent realism that’s traced from Flemish art (favored in Florence at the time) and a pyramidal composition that leans heavily on Leonardo da Vinci. And our saint springs from a source of wonderful whimsy: bristlingly bearded and seriously studious. Kinda makes me want to believe in him all over again.

No sooner had the ink dried on our house settlement papers than Husband and I had shaken on our own new-place pact: we had to have a hound. Brilliantly, it was me who came up with the best breed for us (having for the longest time been the one on the doggie back-burner), and I hit on the Hungarian Vizsla in a round-about way…

Some time ago well-known fashion photographer Sean Ellis had decided that the only thing that would save him from the self-obsession of his chosen industry was to get a dog. Kubrick became his best buy ever: the pup slept in his bed for 8 years straight and came on set constantly, often lighting up the lens with luminaries from the entertainment and fashion industries.

It was a review for Ellis’s new book Kubrick the Dog that caught my eye: a candid compilation of photographs plotting the life of his hound, both heartwarming and breaking. And a total showcase for the handsome and humane Hungarian breed.

There’s one artist at the NGA who has the kind of in-tuned-with-animals aesthetic that’s appropriate for today. His name is Franz Marc and he’s a German Expressionist, born in Munich in 1880 (he died in World War I in 1916). For Marc, art was a spiritual force that should oppose the corrupting nature of modern industrial society and for him only animals possessed the qualities of purity and beauty he found lacking in hi fellow human beings.

This stunning shot is his Siberian Dogs in the Snow (c. 1910), painted after he’d moved to the Bavarian countryside to a small artist’s colony, and where he could immerse himself in nature.

I’m taken aback by the blanched beauty of this scene: Marc invested color with specific significance (red for dominance and yellow for sensuality, for example) so here we’ve to interpret what his choice of a pared-down, almost monochrome palette might mean. What’s magical is that, in Marc’s world of white, our lens is sharpened and we look closely and keenly to pick out the Siberian dogs, the snow and the snapping twigs stuck in the ground,  Suddenly, our attentive attitude becomes like that of the hounds, hunkered down, whipping quick and with noses pointed to a place of interest.

Marc once asked “Is there any more mysterious idea for an artist than the conception of how nature is mirrored in the eyes of an animal?” and I have to say he’s nailed his idea here. The dogs inhabit the whole picture plane, one cropped at the ankle to lend a sense of proximity. I’m not sure I’ve seen a better picture for bringing us in spiritually close to man’s best friend.

Husband has just stumbled across some outrageous photos of an OAP dressed as a daring, death-defying superhero. The story behind the snaps is ace: a few years ago, French photographer Sacha Goldberger found his 91-year-old grandmother Frederika feeling lonely and depressed. To cheer her up, he suggested they shoot a series of punchy photographs in unusual costumes, poses and locations. Frederika (AKA Mamika) agreed albeit reluctantly, but once they got rolling and the camera got clicking, there was no stopping the dynamic duo.

From smoking gun and flying cape to intimate scenes with a powers-endowed partner, Mamika’s transformation is totally kick-ass. And in fact not far from the heroic facts of Frederika’s life: born in Budapest, she saved ten people during World War II, says Sacha: “she hid the Jewish people she knew, moving them around to different places every day.” Having survived Nazism and Communism, Frederika fled to France, only to crop up later in life, cast as a homegrown hero.

Now, I’m ladling on lots of artistic license here and calling on a Dutch Master to furnish the fine art foil to Frederika. I’ve opted for this disarming charmer from Frans Hals, because I think this Elderly Lady (1633) takes some beating. Just like Mamika, this woman is brought to breathtaking life by a master-hand: Dutchman Hals has to be one of the most original of all portrait painters.

Here we have cast into the canvas the artist’s uncanny ability to capture fleeting expressions: there’s a dash of wry in her eye and a touch of twinkle. Amusement quivers at the corners of her lips. This is the kind of charismatic realism that Hals (1582/83 – 1666) brought to the then-staid Dutch tradition of portrait painting. It extends to the definition and position of her hands: clasping on right and gripping on left. He has the hang of using hands as tools for expression and personality.

Seen up close and in the flesh, it’s clear that much of the energy of a Hals portrait comes from his handling of his brush. He has what’s commonly called bravura brushwork, that is deft and daring manner of movement where the paint appears to be applied confident and quick across the canvas. In all his best portraits Hals has looser sections of a painting set alongside areas of extreme and accurate detail: just focus on the fine-stitched fabrics of her bonnet, the paper-thin concertina of the ruff and the intricate lace cuffs. For me, it’s this tension between some slight slap-dash and some fierce focus that makes Hals’s Elderly Woman a force to be reckoned with.

One week ago I was tasked with the baking of an apple pie. Simple, you might assume. But there was a hungry Thanksgiving horde with high expectations and nothing’s quite as disappointing as poor pastry. Flaccid or too-floury crust, too-tart or tangy apples, sugar on the high or low side… people, these are the perennial fears of the pie-maker. Especially in this country, where in one year I’ve unearthed endless apple pie idioms that tell how deeply embedded this delightful dessert is in the national psyche. As American as apple pie = quintessentially American. In apple pie order = in very good order, or very well organized.

So it was with the weight of this country’s pie-high hopes hovering over me that I set about peeling, coring, slicing, dicing, sprinkling, crumbling, rolling, cajoling and waiting anxiously at the oven as my improbable mound of crust-cloaked Macintoshes melted and hissed in the heat. Thankfully, everyone had filled up on a fantastic main meal before the dessert got dished, but some smiles and appreciative grunts let me know that for this year at least I hadn’t upset the apple cart.

Today’s picture has long been the apple of my eye at the NGA (I’ll warn you now: I can keep going with the apple puns). This formidable nine-foot-long painting shows The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise (1791) and is by Benjamin West (1738 – 1820). Often described as the “Father of American Painting”, West was the most celebrated historical painter of his day, and the first from his country to gain an international reputation. In fact in 1863 he settled in London, where he remained for the rest of his life. This work was intended as one in a series to decorate the Royal Chapel at Windsor Castle (the overall project was abandoned when George III canceled it in 1801).

Of course it’s the apple offering the tie-in here, but this explosive moment follows after Eve’s fateful enticement of Adam to take a bite of the apple from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Here Archangel Michael acts as the agent of the Lord’s wrath, backed up by a piercing beam (the “flaming sword” mentioned in the book of Genesis). The sinners cling to one another and have been slung-about with fur robes so that they can stand unashamed in the presence of God.

West’s treatment of this seminal scene preempts the English Romantic movement: witness the dramatic gestures from all three protagonists, the delirious differences in light and shade and the rich paint application on the canvas. It’s all so gargantuan and gloriously over-the-top, I can almost hear West whispering: How about them apples?

It’s December Day One, which means we’re officially entering the one-month run to Christmas. So, now’s when we really start stomaching shedloads of chintzy shop decor. Now’s when our ears will properly be pummeled by carols and Christmas songs shouted loud from shop speakers. And we’d better be ready for all advertisers and avaricious vendors filling us in on exactly how many hours and minutes we’ve left to buy the perfect gift.

In the midst of all the commercial clap-trap, it’s sometimes easy to let-slip the simple centre of the story of Christ’s birth. Though a quick dip into the NGA can cure all that, especially if you’re in the Renaissance galleries, where this religious story and its resplendent implications takes centre-stage as the subject of choice. Here’s one gorgeous Virgin Adoring the Child (1480/1490) by the ever-beautiful and beatific Botticelli (1446 – 1510).

Looking at this it’s easy to see how Botticelli does a deft double-dance between the styles that suited and seduced him most. You see, while he was a Renaissance artist, fully signed-up to the cultured court of the Medici in Florence in the late fifteenth century, his eye and hand also trace an elegant line back to the sinuous, sibilant lines of Gothic art.

So on the one hand we have a sturdy understanding of anatomy, classic sign of scientific advance in Renaissance Florence. Witness the baby’s bulging belly and his shaded, contoured limbs. But then Botticelli undoes this accuracy by lengthening the baby beyond believability, making the effect altogether more stretched-out and smooth. Mary’s figure too looks likely enough but it’s just too long when looked at objectively: his point is not perfect proportions but rather the impression of attenuation and therefore elegance.

There’s more of the mish-mash of influences elsewhere. Peering beyond the people there’s a landscape that’s laudable in its representation of recession. Again, the mastering of perspective was a Renaissance triumph and Botticelli does his best to stick to the new rules here. But elsewhere he’s letting in a quotient of more dreamy musings we might find in a medieval painting. Trace for instance the multiple lines rippling through the fabric of Mary’s mantle and red tunic or the particular definitions he brings to her hair and the wicker keeping the ox and ass shut in: this sort of meandering and melodious line is linked to art of the age before Botticelli. The round format here (tondo in Italian) was familiar to the artist and may suggest it was commissioned for someone’s home. Which is one way to keep on-topic in the midst of the season’s more crash commercialism.

I’m attached to the saint we’re talking about today: St Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland and gave his name to that fantastic place in Fife (legend says that relics were conveyed there from Constantinople in the 10th century). Andrew was a brother of Saint Peter, and like him a disciple of Christ. Andrew’s attribute is an X-shaped cross, following the method of his martyrdom: he requested not to die on a Latin cross, deeming himself unworthy to be crucified in the same way as Jesus. St Andrew’s Cross is still on the national flag of Scotland.

Our painting today arranges Andrew center stage: The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (1545) shows him with arching cape and outstretched arms. Like his brother Peter, Andrew was a fisherman, living and working by the Sea of Galilee. This painting freeze-frames the famous moment when Christ calls both brothers to his ministry with the words “From now on, you will be fishers of men.”

This large and luscious painting is by the Venetian artist, Jacopo Bassano. It was “discovered” in the 1980s and has been beautiful boost to his oeuvre. Even though Bassano (c. 1515 – 1592) is often not mentioned in the same breath as the undisputed A-list of 16th century Venetian artists (Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese), no one should gloss glibly over his gargantuan achievements.

See, though we slot him into the Venetian school, he was actually a provincial village artist, working his whole life out of his native Bassano, about 65km northwest of Venice. He kept himself abreast of artistic trends by studying prints by or after other masters such as Raphael, Parmigianino and leading Mannerists. This magnificent mega-pic ricochets off a Raphael cartoon (now in the V&A), which had been the basis for a series of tapestries for the Sistine chapel. Most likely, Bassano had used a print of the cartoon as the basis for his composition.

Bassano is to be patted on the back for taking this image into his own territory. For a start he brings an acute, sharp-cut approach to the anatomy, adding dipped and defined muscles on Andrew’s forearms and calves and across the backs of James and John (the two lads – both also prospective apostles – seen to the right with their father Zebedee).

A typical Bassano touch too is his natural inclination to nature: he ups the scope of the sea and springs up surging mountains and a verdant shoreline. And I love the colors that burst from left to right, like a bank of flowers full of flapping petals, with Andrew as the most exotic bloom, all billowing bright with pink and green.

Having just returned from a week of wonderful wandering on the West Coast where we ate out a lot, I’m in the mood to write about art and food. You see, when dining out, what appears on the walls around you is just as important as what appears on the plate in front of you. Don’t you think? There’s a cheap and cheerful Greek joint in DC where for a few dollars you’ve got yourself a hero sandwich and a vat of Diet Coke. What I enjoy just as much as the food there is the almost-authentic atmosphere conjured by a clatter of picture frames filled with images of Greece across every inch of wall. Yes, there are plastic plants and yes, the music is a little insistent, but I swear: squint just a little and all that white stucco architecture and deep blue sea sits deliciously with a pita and lifts you out of even the longest, most tiring DC day.

At the other end of the scale is the Brit restaurateur Mark Hix, who’s long been in the habit of hanging high art around the eaters in his numerous London establishments. Inspired by Lionel Poilane’s bakery in Paris (where the owners have historically accepted works in lieu of cash when poor artists couldn’t afford to pay their monthly bread bills), he’s known for dishing out dinners in return for some serious interior decoration.

This has got me thinking about which work I’d choose from the NGA collections to hang in a dining room, given the choice. And after dalliance with 17th century Dutch still-life scenes, I did an about-turn and landed on Morris Louis (1912 – 1962). Because he’s the man behind this beguilingly drippy painting, Beta Kappa (1961). On either side, loosely parallel lines in inviting colors dive down and burrow towards the base of the canvas. It’s clean and sparse, yet messy and busy.

For the longest time, Louis was looking for his hit formula in art. After modest (at best) success as a Cubist painter, he changed his direction aged 40, adopting a new “soak stain” technique. After that there was no stopping him. As a member of the Washington Color School, his focus was forever fixed on color, it’s application and projection. In the last ten years of his life his paintings are parted into three distinct series: Veils, Stripes and Unfurleds and Beta Kappa belongs to that final category. I think it’s magic all over: not loud and yet far from invisible and it totally alters the space it’s in. Perfect for with my steak and frites.

Since we’re with the theme of human behavior this weekend, I’m taking you from the active insistence of our Apollo archetype yesterday to a more subtle and significant pattern of people-relations today. When next you’re out and about, see if you can’t clock the sight-lines that are exchanged in couple contexts, or in parent-child relationships. Apparently, the kind of side-on, split-second look you often catch between people is something that happens in close relationships all the time. A quick glance thrown from one person to another is a way of checking that the thing we’re doing or saying or so on is getting the approval signals we need.

Sight-lines are some of the strongest tie-signs in people’s body language compendium and they’re happening all over the NGA. Especially in this huge-hitting portrait of The Copley Family (1776/1777) by John Singleton Copley. This painting marks a happy moment when the artist was joined by his family in London after time spent apart. At the age of 35, Copley (1738 – 1815) had decided he must travel to Europe: largely self-taught until that point (and though he’d found early success as a colonial portraitist), he felt he needed to get some artistic sophistication under his belt. In the end, the American Revolution altered his plans and he settled in England in 1775. This scene evolved not long after, when he was reunited with wife, children and father-in-law.

Obviously what’s evident is Copley’s usual strength of design and vigor of characterisation. The composition is fluid and fresh, draping the figures in a sort of dipped half-moon. The setting is fanciful to say the least: when was the last time you saw a silken, brocaded interior room reel seamlessly into an idyllic landscape? (For what it’s worth, these background details served to stress the family’s civility alongside their natural simplicity).

But it’s in the faces and behaviors that the real interest lies, and where I hope to cite some of those sight-lines. There’s one with the artist’s wife Susanna, whose four-year-old son John anchors her neck and drags her face towards his for some emphatic face-gazing. It’s the same in the case of baby Susanna, who’s reaching and rattling for eye-contact and communication with her grandfather. Sight-lines extend to include us as spectator too: two of the daughters look out at us, as does the artist, who’s set down his sketches for a full-on eyeball. So I suppose the next question is this: who’s looking for whose approval in the sight-lines that are set up?

It’s another myth-meets-modern-celebrity-couple situation today and we’re taking inspiration from the decidedly ungodly Russell Brand. For those who’ve seen the 2008 flick Forgetting Sarah Marshall, you’ll know Brand offers up in it his usual brand of awkward, not-sure-if-it’s-funny stuff. And from what his co-star Kristen Bell has since said of the shoot, he spent his off-camera hours doing what Brand did best in his pre-Katy Perry days. Brand had sent his female companion home when he spotted Bell, ready to put the moves on his co-star. But Bell was having none of it: “I made it really clear from the beginning that I would sock him in the b***s if he tried anything,” she says. “So he was intimidated, truth be told.”

Socking someone in the b***s is one way to deter unwanted advances, but today’s myth tie-in takes an altogether classier route. When forest nymph Daphne was being pursued by the hot-for-her sun god Apollo (who’d been struck by Cupid’s arrow), she did what any natty nymph would do and turned herself into a tree, a transformation that took her beyond Apollo’s talons.

This scene, filled with salacious lust and a quick-witted costume change, has been a popular one throughout art history, and the NGA has a vibrant version too. In fact, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s Apollo Pursuing Daphne (c. 1755/1760) registers a really rather unusual composition. Daphne (seen with her father, the river god Peneus) appears properly propelled backwards by Apollo’s thrusting forward movement on the right. It’s dynamic, made all the more so by the double diagonal slant of Peneus’s paddle and the land-slide (which echo the shape of Daphne’s body and that of Cupid cowering behind). Against those lines are set the figures of father and pursuer, for an energetic cross-hatching effect.

Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Tiepolo (1696 – 1770) was the finest Italian artist of the Rococo era and the last great master of his country’s fresco tradition. Throughout his career he painted small pictures of mythological themes, which proved extremely popular. In this case he’s taken up a tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and honestly I think his fast-fuel style of painting is perfectly suited to the story. As one contemporary write up sums up: “Tiepolo is full of spirit… of an infinite fire, an astonishing coloring, and an amazing speed. He paints a picture in less time than it takes another to grind his colors.” In this case his composition, colors and brush combine so that we can almost hear the crackle as legs turn to barked-trunk and the snap as fingers become twigs and leaves.

If you like me are stuck in a post Turkey Day stupor, then I’ve just the thing to zing you back into consciousness. All I will say is I hope you didn’t have too much breast and thigh on Thanksgiving yesterday…

Check out this week’s video blog.

My first Thanksgiving proper happened the year I met my Husband, and one thing struck me above all: it wasn’t the marvel of marshmallows on a vegetable dish, or the pungent pumpkin pie aroma hazing through the house. No. Instead I was intrigued by the inexcusable imbalance between the time it takes to set it all up and the time it takes to scoff it all down.

He and his American friends had camped for a couple of days at my parents’ house. 24 hours prior, the turkey got dunked in its basin of brine. The next morning the ladies were up at the crack, snipping, slicing, draining, straining, melting, pouring, crumbing and humming the dishwasher. As the novice I’d been ushered out of the kitchen and onto decoration duties.

As the eating hour drew near, dish after dish flowed forth from fridge, oven, stove and shelf and we tied on bibs in anticipation. An epic feast of Roman proportions, to be ingested over at least a few leisurely hours, I thought. But then it started. The scramble. I think it took all of 20 minutes for us to forage like feral things and then flop onto armchair/ sofa/ floor/ each other, belching and bellyaching in the uncomfortable aftermath.

Which is where our painting comes in. Now, I’m not for one minute suggesting that this bonkers bacchanalian scene is in any way similar to our post-turkey situation, but there’s just something about the saturated and satisfied languidness of this picture that resonates right well with what we’re talking about.

The Feast of the Gods (1514) has got to be among the best Renaissance paintings in America. It’s by Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430/35 – 1516), the leading Venetian artist of the High Renaissance. This work was the first in a series of mythologies commissioned by Duke Alfonso d’Este to decorate a room in his castle in Ferrara, and was later a little added-to by Titian, who mapped in the moody mountain landscape at the back left.

The story is about satiation and sauce: the gods (Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo et al) are partying hard in an idyllic wooded setting, fooding and boozing, served by nymphs and satyrs.

On the right is where the scandal happens as Priapus (thrusting god of fertility) approaches lustily a sleeping nymph, Lotis. But an ass belonging to Silenus (Greek god of drunkenness) brays at the crucial moment, alerting the deities who take much merriment in Priapus’ misfortune.

Venetian paintings, especially those by a big star like Bellini, are always infused with eye-catching color and crystal light. All the better for us to look in on a lavish and lascivious feast like this.

So… if you’re an American given to the delicious delight of Thanksgiving, or even a non-American adopting the concept and cookings of this festive winter-time feast, then today will be a lot of talking about turkey. Or battling with Brussels sprouts. Or mulling over precisely how many mini-marshmallows to plant atop the sweet potato mash (there are those who appreciate precision, you know). Even though this year I’m sidestepping the considerable responsibility of putting on my own culinary show, I’m able to help those in more sticky predicaments. Apparently you can call a 1-800 holiday help-line if it’s getting hairy. And it’s not too late to get the new In the Kitchen app from the Food Network, with 45,000 recipes from their sizable stable of chefs as well as seasonal menus and life-saving suggestions.

So that’s that sorted, but we’ve yet to consider that other heinous hurdle that happens every time big groups of people gather to gorge on a massive meal: how on earth to get them all to the table on time, once the hot-hob slaving is done and while the food is still at least luke warm? Here to offer a stylish solution is a lovely lady from Winslow Homer.

Now obviously the weather in The Dinner Horn (1870) is a bit off-touch (unless you’re celebrating Turkey Day in Australia that is), but I could not resist this breeze-blown breath of fresh air, packed with the promise of an imminent feed. Homer makes me feel good, with his homespun paintings of America at its best: wholesome, industrious, colorful and hopeful. Homer (1836 – 1910) was a leading artist of his generation, often sealing into his pictures a passion for nature that reflected this country’s pioneering spirit in the 19th century.

While it was a stint in France that gave him his first fine-art foray (he came to art late after starting out as a commercial printmaker), Homer quickly staked out a style that didn’t look much like anyone else. The Dinner Horn shows us how he constructs forms rather solidly – with nice clear outlines – and then fills them in with saturated color and bright light.

Here he sets out a lovely little balance between a brown building and path to the left and green reaches on the right. The white dress is stark and striking as the central motif, echoed ever so lightly in the pale blue sky. Homer loved above all to paint the power struggle he perceived between man and nature: while his Horn doesn’t do that exactly, it does toot beautifully about the small but significant strife of getting people to sit down, serve themselves and start.

I once read that the key to the power of people-persuasion is the curveball. As in, when faced with a person who isn’t receptive to what you’re saying, throw a curveball into the conversation. It seems that going on a tangent, or offering some unique unexpected angle on a situation can be the way forward and through a communication impasse. I adore art that persuades with a visual curveball, jolting us upright and making us take proper notice in the process. In the case of Daybreak – A Time to Rest (1967) it’s an enormous pair of hugely disproportioned feet, sitting padded and fat, flush with the picture plane.

The feet are the point-blank focal point here, asking us to step up for up-close consideration. Thin but insistent lines etch across the soles’ surface, scratching out toes, balls and a matrix of creases. From first look the question crops insistently up: so who do these feet belong to?

Daybreak – A Time to Rest tells one stage in the story of Harriet Tubman (c. 1820–1913), the famed African-American woman who freed slaves using a network of safe houses called the Underground Railroad. It’s by Jacob Lawrence (1917 – 2000) an artist who stuck throughout his career to his campaign to physicalize in paint struggles faced by African Americans. Here he has Tubman prostate, with a rifle in the crook of one arm. Behind her sprawl the couple with their baby she’s saving. It’s an ardently abstracted image, made up of schematized shapes, jarring colors and a flat-as-a-pancake picture plane.

Growing up in Harlem during the Depression, Lawrence was exposed to an active cultural energy. The federal government’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) in Harlem  offered some initial training before he studied at the American Artists School in New York. In the late 1930s Lawrence worked in the Federal Arts Project before he had his first solo exhibition in 1944, at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Lawrence works within a distinct idiom that fuses American school of social realism and the Mexican muralist tradition. That translates into the abstraction we see but also into an acute ability to spotlight a person, a moment or a particular feeling. Here I’m intrigued by the three insects that thrum and hum at the start of a new day. And the fact that Tubman’s upward-looking face is placed like a pin-point near the centre of the scene, settled on a swaddle of purple. All in, it’s eery and enchanting eulogy to one step taken in the journey of African American experience in this country. Or indeed many steps, if those feet are anything to go by.

There was a girl at senior school even geekier than me. While I made the social-suicide decision of citing Meatloaf as a favourite pop artist in French conversation class, Geek Girl listed Mozart, Mendelssohn and Mahler as her top three. Bear in mind that these were the days when ‘cool’ was a consensus with most-limited parameters: classical was not ‘cool’ and neither was Meatloaf. But while I squirmed and suffered for my music, Geek Girl did not.

You see, she played the harp exceptionally well. We’d see her schlep this mountainous instrument across the quad, utterly dwarfed by it’s angular dimensions. When Geek Girl played (which she often did, at school assemblies, concerts and fund-raising benefits) she just shone beside those tight-strung strings and the sounds she made were nothing short of magical. This music made her beyond reproach and got her a get-out-of-geek-free card. She was never cool but always admired, which made me wonder at music’s awesome ability to level a playing field. So the sound of music is the subject of our sublime painting today.

Saint Cecilia and an Angel (c. 1618 and c. 1628) comes to us on Cecilia’s feast day, not from one but two Italian artists, Orazio Gentileschi (1563 – 1639) and Giovanni Lanfranco (1582 – 1647). This charming girl, all quiet concentration and perfect poise, is a patron saint of musicians and music. Her story goes that as she was dying she sang in heart and mind to God, and it’s also said that as musicians played at her wedding she sang out to the Lord.

It’s unclear to me if the painters worked in tandem (doubtful), or whether there was a handing-over at some point. But whether it’s one or the other, simultaneous or separate becomes rapidly irrelevant in the enchanting and pious presence of this painting. What’s clear is a favourite Gentileschi format of a couple caught before a darkened  background and close to the picture plane. The composition is straight-forward, falling into an easy V through the figures, helping us find fast focus on the hands and faces. The lighting is exceptional, delivering delicate shadow through its simmered-down shine. In fact, since we’re looking at lighting let’s bring in Lanfranco, who must be behind the buttery-soft glow that illuminates the scene. Lanfranco likes to create the lit-up-from-the-inside effect that he’s bringing into full force here. And it works. I mean, have you ever been more mesmerized by a quiet musician?

Last week I went to a conference at the NGA, the focus of which was education for today and tomorrow, with a specific slant on how we learn in and through the arts. One session stood out for me, in which for an hour and a half we took in two paintings by George Bellows (1882 – 1925). Our instructor said that on average a visitor spends just four seconds planted before a painting, so the idea here was to slow ourselves down and see what we could see in just two scenes.

The exercise started with us looking at New York (1911) and jotting down five nouns (half the group) or verbs (the other half). Object words tumbled forth first (bricks, buildings, busses, bales) followed by more abstract concepts such as cold, crush, rush and urbanity. Phase two was to bring adjectives to the table so again we looked deep for ideas: muted, disconnected, vague, linear and thick were all words that people produced from their personal perspectives on the picture.

At this stage the instructor introduced the comparison image, The Lone Tenement, painted two years earlier. Such a stark contrast had us overflowing with new nouns (sun, ship, fence, fire), verbs (shine, shiver, huddle, struggle) and adjectives (bright, cream, spacious, serene). Placing our little gallery seats plumb in the middle between the two images, we were tasked with a partner to come up with contrasting pairs of words or phrases (natural – unnatural, calm – rushed, dark – light).

All of this looking and language work was a bit of a revelation: it lasted literally for an hour an a quarter and not once did it feel like we were straining and wringing stuff from a dry source. But then it got even better. Five members of the group had to produce a short sentence related to one or both paintings (“The traffic was terrible on that cold February morning…”), which we took as a starting-point for our own story paragraph on the pictures. It was at that moment, when I pushed my mind into gear and put pen to paper, that I felt an engagement with a painting I’ll never forget. And that’s impressive since before this session, I don’t think I’d have spent even four seconds with either work:

“There was my girl I spotted in the crowd, the one I see most mornings. She’s got on her blue coat like always and her hair all piled up and pretty. She’s rushing in the midst of all those people, all that pushing and pulling of the crowd. I don’t know where she’s coming from or where she goes on those quick little legs of hers… but today for the first time she turned and looked right at me.”

She may look like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but pretty little popstrel Taylor Swift is certainly not afraid to take on the big boys. Long since known for recording and crooning about her love life in her sweet-as-peaches pop songs, her latest album is offering another helping of thinly-veiled vindictive venting:

Well maybe it’s me and my blind optimism to blame

Maybe it’s you and your sick need to give love then take it away

And you’ll add my name to your long list of traitors who don’t understand

And I’ll look back and regret how I ignored when they said “run as fast as you can.”

Says Swift of the new release Speak Now “It says everything I’ve wanted to say for the last two years.” And how. It’s been reported that three of the songs are about three of her exes: John Mayer, Joe Jonas and Taylor Lautner. Says the star: “There’s going to be a lot of speculation.”

Tiny Taylor taking on the big bad men that have been mean to her reminds me of the tale of Judith and Holofernes, a hit subject in the Renaissance symbolizing intolerance of tyranny and a just cause triumphing over evil.

According to the Old Testament Apocrypha (that is, sacred texts excluded from the Bible) the beautiful Israelite Judith saved her people by seducing and killing Holofernes, the Assyrian general. She did it by infiltrating enemy lines, getting him drunk, seizing his sword and decapitating him. “Approaching to his bed, she took hold of the hair of his head, and said, Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, this day! And she smote twice upon his neck with all her might, and she took away his head from him.”

It’s a grisly and meaty scene to say the least and this Mantegna take on it (called Judith with the Head of Holofernes c. 1500) offers it up good and juicy on a place. Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431 – 1506) was the leading artist of his time in northern Italy, with an idiosyncratic style that reflects the salient interests of the Renaissance. On the one hand there’s his interest in perspective and foreshortening: the way he’s painted the fat foot of Holofernes on the bed, totally truncated and done in three convincing dimensions adds to the impact of the scene. On the other hand, there’s Mantegna’s ardent study of ancient art: take Judith’s appearance, totally statue-like, with the way the drapery falls and her contrapposto pose recalling classical statuary. In fact she has a glass and chill in the aftermath of her deed that’s the cool-as-a cucumber Swift all over.

My Fast Favourite from the Gallery today is one a lot of you like as well. The Mill is by Rembrandt, who is one of if not the greatest of all Dutch masters…

Check out this week’s video blog.

It’s a challenge to top the charms of Steamboat Willie, the animated Disney short released on November 18, 1928. It was the first cartoon to feature synchronized sound and all these years later I can still recall the plot.

Mickey is aboard the eponymous steamboat, captained by Peg-Leg Pete, who flies into a fit at the sight of a Mickey whistling and turning the wheel as if he’s in charge. Later, collecting cargo, an emaciated cow has to be force-fed hay before being hoisted on board. Then there’s Minnie who just barely makes it onto the boat with Mickey’s help; when a goat eats the sheet music she’s been carrying, the pair crank its tail to have all the notes comes out. My most memorable image from the caper comes in the form of our hero sitting on the deck surrounded by a huge pile of potatoes to peel. A parrot starts laughing at the unfortunate Mickey, so he lobs a spud right at him which sends him flying into the water.

So it’s in honor of that Mickey that we’re taking another Mickey today, one right here at the NGA. Look Mickey (1961) is by Roy Lichtenstein (1923 – 1997), and it’s this image that (if we’re to believe the legend) started the artist off on his now-famed and distinctive art path. You see, it’s reported that Lichtenstein’s preoccupation with Pop Art began in the early 1960s when one of his children pointed to a comic strip and challenged him: “I bet you can’t paint as good as that!”

So this is Roy right out of the starting blocks in his first painting to use cartoon imagery. It delivers a comic image from the 1960 children’s book Donald Duck Lost and Found and shows how the artist adapted the image to fit the aesthetic he was evolving: outlines are emphasized, colors are saturated and the composition is simplified. So ultimately we end up with a painting that’s more “Popping” than the original comic.

Cartoons and advertising remained the go-to inspiration stock for Lichtenstein as he set out to reflect popular culture in a flat and deadpan way. His images are magnified, his colors strong and simple, his forms are flattened and often (though not here) Benday dots abound. All to emulate in an ironic way the appearance of mass-produced printing processes. At the time, Lichtenstein’s Pop Art – with its simplistic narratives and bold graphic visual language – was understood as a stand against the powerful postwar legacy of Abstract Expressionism. But let’s not load little Mickey with too much meaning for today. Instead let’s just enjoy him as a bright-colored break in a busy day.

There’s a fabulously camp ad for POM Wonderful on the TV at the moment… it shows a bronzed and buxom warrior, skin glistening slickly in the sun, striding forth, studded belt slung on hip. As he marches, a booming voice comes sailing in, stating that in ancient Persian mythology, warriors would gorge on the flesh of pomegranates pre-battle, to give themselves invincibility in the fight and to galvanize their bodies with a carapace of protective toughness.

It’s an impressive claim, and luckily accuracy can be lost to the ages that have slipped by between then and now. Perhaps POM decided on ancient scientific research for their latest campaign given some recent run-ins with the Federal Trade Commission about false health claims in some of their ads. Apparently, POM cannot substantiate that its pomegranate juices and products prevent prostate cancer, cardiac disease, and erectile dysfunction.

Be that as it may, the pleasant and I’m sure productive properties of the pomegranate are not to be disputed, and this is just the time they’s be popping up in shops. And on Art 2010 too, in this beauteous Still Life with Fruit (1675). Just looking at this picture gets me in the merry mood for the season: dusted grapes on a twisting vine, hazelnuts fresh from their curling cups and a frosted glass full of something crisp and bubbly. And of course that plumpteous pomegranate sat proud and central, its skin split to reveal rivulets of blood-red seeds within.

Jacob van Walscapelle (1644 – 1727) is the man behind this mini-masterpiece and he’s a little-known, and yet obviously gifted still-life painter in the second half of the 17th century. Born in Dordrecht in 1644, he established himself in Amsterdam in 1673 and remained there until the end of his life.

I’m sure I could convince you all that this work was of considerable dimensions, given the sense of grandeur that pulses from the picture. But in fact it’s modest at most, measuring a mere 40 by 35 centimeters unframed which means Walscapelle registers the sense of gravitas in other ways. Just a few objects assembled on a stone ledge are flooded with the most sublime light, which allows the artist to tread across all the tiny details of each thing he’s picked to paint. It’s a really sensual experience: you’re wondering what the fruit feels and tastes like and imagining the touch of the glass and nut husks.

Walscapelle shows us how much he thrills in the rich visual beauty of the natural world and underpins all the variety with a pleasant compositional restraint. So that what we end up with is simplicity sat alongside sheer lushness and luxury.

It’s time to bust out the bunting, Britain: William has popped that all important question! In fact, he and Kate got engaged in Kenya last month in a move that ended a marathon 8-year courtship. Prime Minister David Cameron was among the first to congratulate them, stepping outside No. 10 to state that William is “extremely excited” and “thrilled.”  

The pair are set to marry next spring or summer in what will be the biggest royal event in decades. And I can only imagine that these imminent nuptials will – mark my words – give momentum to months and months of speculation amongst (especially) women about all manner of things. Let’s see… there’s the dress (designer? shape? style?), hair, bridesmaids (who, what-wearing?), flowers (colors? character?) food, cake, carriage, ceremony. This event will be plundered and picked apart by all the lovely ladies who’ve long been in-waiting for this most make-believe of matrimonies.

So in the spirit of a good girly gossip we’re going with William Merrit Chase, who in his painting A Friendly Call (1895) nails that cosy and excited feel of a convivial chin-wag. Chase was used to sitting in on and whipping up this sort of sublimely genteel snap-shot of high and polite society in the 1890s and in this instance is set in his large summer house in Long Island. His wife Alice is at the right with her visitor on the left.

Chase (1849 – 1916) was a versatile American painter and teacher, trained at the Royal Academy in Munich from 1872 – 1877. After several months spent in Venice he returned to New York in 1878 and two years later became president of the Society of American Artists. He’s dabbling in and delivering up an American brand of Impressionism here. For a start there’s the choice of an everyday subject, making this feel fresh and fun. Then there’s the brushwork, dashing and darting across the canvas: some areas show real speed and ease in application. Light too is Impressionist in the impression he creates of a sudden swell of clarity coming into the room from outside.

But that’s where the similarities stop: the composition is carefully composed – much more so than a Monet would be – to exploit interesting visual play. Here his shapes do a lot of talking: rectangles on the walls and in the forms of the floor, sofa and soft furnishings contrast with the softly sinuous curves of the women and wicker. But despite his cleverly controlled composition, Chase loses none of his instantaneity: the master-stroke is with the lady on the left, who’s so rushed to rattle into her tattle that she’s yet to remove her hat and gloves.

Having just moved house, Husband and I did hit the stage of loathing outright every single thing we own. Every single thing that needed wrapping, packing, carrying, conveying, unpacking, unwrapping, placing and arranging. When you start to think about things in that way, it’s clear that objects-owned have the potential to slow you right down and start ruling your life. Husband often jokes about the volume of his possessions swelling since the time he set out for London ten years ago with all he owned in just two suitcases, but we generally do aim for something approaching sparseness and control in terms of the contents of our house. But clearly we’ve a way to go when we compare to the ground rules of Generation Zero.

Currently there’s a growing number of young people in the UK and the US who believe they can do more with less. Stuff, that is. It’s a boom backed up by a lot of blogs (minimalstudent.com, missminimalist.com, cultofless.com) and books (The 100 Things Challenge: How I Got Rid of Almost Everything, Remade My Life and Regained My Soul, The Art of Being A Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living, Joy Less: a Minimalist Living Guide) and spurred by discontent with the status quo once the recession hit. Minimalism is an attractively simple template for living: anyone can practise it, there’s no rigid framework and advances in technology are a huge help (entire shelves of CDs can be condensed into online filing cabinets).

The concept of course is not a new one: everyone from Buddhists to beatniks have come to similar conclusions, as did American Minimalist artists of the 1960s and 1970s, whose work visualizes the ease and efficiency of a pared-down approach.

Tony Smith (1912 – 1980) is often cited as coming up with the first real Minimal art and he’s behind Die (model 1962, fabricated 1968) at the NGA. After switching from architecture to sculpture in the early 60s, Smith started making this sort of box-like form. Die is one of his first such sculptures, a six-foot cube of quarter-inch hot-rolled steel with diagonal internal bracing, according to the specifications he sent the welding company that made the work.

The dimensions of Die are determined by the proportions of the human body, so it’s scaled to be neither a monument (too big) nor an object (too small). It’s Smith’s stark use of geometric form, industrial materials and impersonal surfaces that make him a Minimalist all over. And yet while there’s simplicity and the seeming lack of emotional content here, I do think the title conjures multiple meanings. Perhaps that’s just the point: strip things right down and you’ve more time for more important mental musings.

It’s Remembrance Sunday in Commonwealth countries, first dedicated by George V in 1919. At first, the memorial was made to observe members of the armed forces killed in Word War I, but since then the occasion has swelled to commemorate more generally the sacrifices of fighters and civilians fallen in all conflicts. Officially Remembrance Day falls on 11 November, to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918: major hostilities were formally ended “at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” of 1918, with the signing of the Armistice. With people all over the world pulling together in minutes of silence at this time, I’ve picked a picture to inspire quiet and contemplation.

Poppies (1891) is by the American artist Childe Hassam (1859 – 1935) and  squares off a scene somewhere around the Isles of Shoals, some small, rocked and treeless islands off the New Hampshire coast. Hassam had a poet friend called Celia Thaxter with a house on one of those islands, and between 1890 and 1894 he painted lots of pictures there.

The composition sits settled and serene, split into three horizontal bands, each with distinct colours and cast of brush. In the foreground red and green grunge together in fatly focussed flowers and fine slashed stalks. The middle-ground is more mellow, all mauve, grey and white demarcating water and rocks. Finally the pale and wan sky sits still on top.

The poppy is of course a familiar emblem of Remembrance Day: these were the flowers that bloomed in billowing masses across the worst battlefields in Flanders in the Great War, and their brilliant papery petals remind of blood spilled in fighting. But it’s the poem In Flanders Fields that forges most memorably the link between poppies and Remembrance. It’s perhaps one of the most notable poems written in World War I, purportedly by a Canadian physician Lieutenant Colonel Jon McCrae, after he witnessed the death of a friend the day before.

One of the reasons that Saturdays are so wonderful is that you suddenly have stretches of time for the things you can’t even think about doing during the week. Whether that’s knocking up a batch of biscuits in the kitchen or counting the times a squirrel scurries across the garden fence. One of our new neighbors loves nothing more than to consider his next concrete-laying project. It’s each to their own during those precious un-pressured hours.

I got to thinking about tinkering this week as I read about America’s National Toy Hall of Fame, the place to pick up inspiration for Saturday pottering. Their all-star archive includes such all-time classics as the bicycle, kite, teddy bear, stick and cardboard box (a bit odd, the last two, but add imagination and you’ll be on your way). The latest addition to their toy line-up is playing cards, truly a tool for hours of absorption and amusement. And here to lend visual clout to the card argument is The House of Cards (1737) by Jean Siméon Chardin.

Here we have a boy (his apron suggests he’s a household servant called to clear and clean up after a gaming or gambling party), who’s become distracted mid-task. He’s using the cards (folded for some reason) to build a delicate structure of sorts. The lad’s intense focus on his building project sets the tone for the entire picture: this sort of sober domestic scene is exactly what we come to expect from Chardin (1699 – 1779), whose restrained images make a striking contrast to the wilder excesses of the Rococo style, flourishing in France at the time.

Chardin was largely self-taught, which makes me marvel at the magic he conjures up here all the more. There’s a sublime stability in the composition of the shot, which uses a broad-based triangle to freeze this flash-in-the-pan instant. I think the colors he’s gone for are inspired: a characteristic Chardin palette of earthy brown-grey tones enlivened by the swathe of bright white cards and injected here and there by a bright flash of red on rosy lips, ruddy cheeks and hearts and diamonds playing cards. By intensifying the glare of light on the face and hands of the boy, we focus on his focus and the precariousness of his placement of hand.

There might be a somber moral being made clear here, about the idleness and vanity of worldly constructions. There’s even a Jack of Hearts card (i.e. rascals, cads) peeking from the drawer at the front. But whatever. This looks like a truly lovely way to while away an afternoon to me.

Up until recently, Yeo Valley Organic was probably the preserve of virtuous mums and the more discerning dairy foodie. Fast forward a couple of weeks and the UK farming and dairy company (based in the village of Blagdon in the Yeo Valley in Somerset) is all anyone can talk about. And all it took was some sexy young farmers, a rollicking rap and an owl with a very flexible neck.

Their yoghurts, milks, butters, creams and cheese are yum, but that’s not all that’s tasty about Yeo: at the heart of the Valley is a commitment to supporting sustainable British farming and the conviction that, look after the land and animals and they’ll look after you right back. So it’s with that message very much in mind that I’m taking you down to another magical farm today. The Farm is by Joan Miró, the Spanish artist best-known for his large, colorful and witty paintings developed from doodles. In 1920 Miró (1893 – 1983) moved from Barcelona to Paris, keen to insert himself in the artistic hot spot that was the French capital. There he met Picasso and the Surrealist André Masson, who must be the base-point for the automatic drawing that Miró settled on as the foundation for his signature style.

Spontaneous, sinuous and oddity-addled paintings are what we imagine when we think of Miró. But this work, from 1921 – 1922 is of another order entirely. Deeply attached to his native Catalonian culture, Miró soon settled into the habit of spending his winters in Paris and his summers at the family farm near Barcelona. In 1921 he determined to make a painting of the place: The Farm became that painting, one Miró regarded as rudimentary in his artistic career.

To me this looks like one of those fastidious and fascinating illustrations you find in a good children’s book. He’s working with a particular style here, a kind of primitive and folksy realism that’s underpinned by the split-up, splintered shapes of Cubism. The details are delightfully rendered: there are animal rumps in the weed-riddled building to the left, a wine-press being wielded by figures in the distance, a coterie of critters in a caged hutch to the right and a stream/ snail/ salamander combination in the right foreground.

But this is an off-kilter realism, made strange by Miró’s tendency to whittle his shapes into schematic, geometric forms (squares, rectangles, cylinders and circles abound). Also odd is the ground, which rises up to tilt towards us, as opposed to settling into a flattened perspective. So The Farm finishes up looking like a highly personal take on a favorite place. And all the more ravishingly real for it.

Not long ago we looked at St. Martin of Tours, who as a young man in the city of Amiens found a poor beggar huddled beneath an archway. The man was nearly naked, shivering with cold, and had received no alms to assist him. On seeing him, Martin took his own cape from his shoulders, tore it in two and covered the poor man to warm him. Martin’s gesture of generosity is earmarked each year on this night especially in France: Martinmas is marked by carrying lanterns through darkened homes, honouring the bringing warmth and light to those who were previously without it.

Martin is forever fixed in a haloed firmament as the patron saint of beggars, drunkards and outcasts… and if ever there was an outcast more in need of some saintly salvation at the NGA, I haven’t found him. This hermit has long had a place in my heart: just something about his chubby little body and sweet, Santa-like face. Obviously there are no legitimate Santa links and this is in fact an image loaded with symbolic significance. Of which more later.

Our painter here is a good one: Gerrit Dou (1613 – 1675) was born and bred in Leiden, the Netherlands, like me. He founded the fijnschilders (fine painters) of Leiden, a collective that continued until the 19th century. He was also Rembrandt’s first pupil, and certainly here we have shades of that master’s masterful ability with contrasts of light and shade.

But Dou didn’t just ‘do’ Rembrandt emulation, rather, he developed his own style and furrowed a niche painting small-scale, meticulously detailed pictures using a highly polished and smooth technique. The Hermit (1670) is just such a picture, a delight to unpick with patient eyes. Dou was a slow and fastidious worker (he is said to have waited for the dust to settle in his studio before he began) and as a result his surfaces are so smooth that the brushwork is imperceptible.

His interest in detail is written all over the varied plant life and the rich assortment of objects around the man: skull, hourglass, crucifix and bible are rendered with acute attention and skill. Dou often sets his figures under a stone arch as here, with the result that the objects seem to slide right towards us from beneath it, emphasizing the illusionism of the technique. And of course, as well as being expertly executed, all these objects are emblems that carry iconographic meanings. And it’s the sight of that red lantern latched onto the tree that makes me happy: at least our hermit has the marvelous Martin looking out for him.

The other day I had a Starbucks experience peppered with seriously interesting conversation, which was an odd outcome, given I’d gone alone. It wasn’t that I spotted someone I knew in the queue or got chatting cheerily with one of the baristas. Rather, I was exposed to a seamless stream of what I’m going to call demi-logues. Let me explain. As I waited to order my typical tipple, I got into a chat about the recent US elections. As the man behind me droned into his phone, I picked up a pristine impression of his political leanings and a run-down of how he’d voted. Fast forward five minutes and I’m sat in the cold on the terrace upstairs. I’m alone except for one other woman, so a calm, quiet coffee moment will surely be mine. Until she claps open her cell and starts belching out a barrage of expletives that’d make your grandmother blush. Hell, it made me blush. She’s a surgeon, she was offended by something someone had said at work, and so on and so forth.

If you’re thinking I was wrong to tap into what were intended as private conversations, then my answer to you is this: totally involuntary. Listening is no longer a question of choice when the person next to you sets up a temporary phone booth and starts yammering away. In fact a recent study published in the Journal of Psychological Science suggests that “halfalogues” (the official term for a semi-sided conversation) inevitably engage a listener-in’s brain because he wants to fill in the blanks he’s not hearing.

Our painting today turns around the theme of a one-sided conversation, because while Edouard Vuillard’s The Conversation features two talkers, the painting is so sodden with a spooky silence that our brain can’t be held back from filling in the missing words. Frenchman Vuillard (1868 – 1940) is someone we were with not long ago, on October 24. As then, this is another example of the kind of intimate domestic interior that made his name at the start of his career.

This 1891 painting shows the simplified subjective vision that Vuillard was after as a member of the Nabis, a group of artists who clubbed casually together in the late 1880s to revitalize painting. Vuillard I always find paints with a kind of clod-like thickness. Clod-like for the colors, which stick to an earthy palette, and thick for the fattened, blocking brushstroke.

What’s masterful for me is the meaty mood he manages to conjure and convey in what is really a pretty diddy painting (24 by 34 cm). It’s like I said from the start: totally impossible not to eavesdrop.

During the year I lived in Milan, I learned a few things about Mediterranean mealtimes. Breakfast is bolted on the go, but lunches are long and dinners drawn-out. Even in an overbooked day at the office, colleagues collect up bags and blackberries at midday and march out for a repast done right. And right means your primo, secondo and perhaps a light little something for dessert (scoops of tiramisu or a creme caramel). The point is there’s ritual and regular order to things around Italian eating, and what I was most struck by when I first got there was seeing that a cigarette slots into the sequence right after the sweet, with the short shot of espresso taken to expedite the afternoon’s work.

This sort of smoking is about social bonding through communal actions and feeds more than a physical craving per se. Smokers dwindled by one third when the ban was introduced in Italy, but I believe that there of all places, it’ll take a lot to expunge a habit that’s hatched into the pleasure-filled patterns of people’s day. This painting might help me put across my point. Madame Amédée (Woman with Cigarette) is by Amedeo Modigliani (1884 – 1920) and there’s a sensuous ease here that physicalizes the Italian approach to a tobacco-toke.

This portrait, with its marshmallow-softness and liquid line perfectly packages the influences that Modigliani assembled so seamlessly in his style. In the facial features, color-blocking and modernist treatment of the madame, he’s echoing African sculpture, Cézanne and Picasso. But alongside these Parisian inputs sits something more subtle and old-school: the way Modgliani silhouettes dress against flesh, draws in quick-sided details like earrings, lips and folds on the neck, and just the sheer impressive presence of her recalls and resonates with Italian heritage. This might look a thousands miles from a Botticelli, a Martini or a 16th century Mannerist, but they’re there alright, just sitting and shimmering beneath the surface.

Am I alone in feeling charmed and yet disarmed by Modigliani? It might be his story, in part: a truly irresistible train-wreck, this handsome and amorous man was addicted to drink and drugs. “I am going to drink myself dead” was what he predicted, and indeed this came to pass. But an artist’s greatness is not built on bad decisions alone, and herein lies the mellifluous magic of a Modigliani portrait. Forms are filled and flowing and there’s an elongated elegance to it all. Everything (eyes, hair, shoulders, chair) appears to drip and droop inexorably down. Including that cigarette clamped so comfortably and insouciantly between the fingers of her right hand.

Husband and I have just moved, so we’re doing battle with a deluge of boxes. In amongst that monotonous mountain, I have scrabbled first and foremost for the ones marked “shoes”. You see, I just couldn’t let my little pumps and slender heels sit for too long inside a box, bashed about, bored and bereft-of-foot. Nor would the riding boots or cute new clogs hold up in any way well to weeks of crushing in constricted space. So out they all came, greeted, treated and seated comfortably at the bottom of our new-home cupboards.

I’m reconciled to the fact that I’ll lose at least a handful of male readers here, as I start to tell the ladies about the Shoe Galleries at Selfridges in London. They just opened a couple of months ago and truly, this might be a reason to cross the Pond pronto. In stretching spaces, 4,000 pairs of shoes sit-in-wait, ready to seduce the eager visitor: the collection is divided into 120 lust-after labels, from Louboutin to Lanvin, and Topshop to Tod’s.

They say the shelves heave with every permutation of slingback, stacked heel, sandal, slipper and shoe-boot. It’s making my feet twitch just thinking about it. “We’re incredibly proud and so excited by the Selfridges Shoe Galleries” says director of accessories, Sebastian Manes. “We’re offering customers a unique shoe experience for all budgets.”

Oh you betcha, but it’ll be a bit before I can get to the store… So in the meantime, in the spirit of a small shoe shopping spree, I’ve rustled up a couple of pairs from another gallery, the NGA. First up, a beautiful brocaded silk pair, rendered in a watercolor, graphite, and gouache on paperboard study by American artist, Marie Alain (c. 1935). This is shoe with historical heft: it’s an 18th-century style, sporting all the elaborate trimmings fashionable at the time (crossover flaps on the vamp and stitched florals on the sides). I like a lot the sculpted shape of the heel, and if you’re concerned about stepping out in soggy autumn/ winter streets, pattens (that is, separate wooden or leather soles) can be attached over the shoes whenever necessary.

Next up is this chunky-but-charming set of sabots (French for clogs). Really, the hands-on craft-work here rivals any Manolo or Miu Miu: these come courtesy of the French artist Paul Gauguin (1848 – 1903). These are an investment piece: they’re made from oak wood, with a leather under-sole and iron nails, so really will last a lifetime. The shoe offsets it’s practical design with two dainty, detailed painted scenes from one of the painting greats of the 19th century. Great under jeans or a midi-length skirt.

Posing. It’s confusing. For little ones, it’s best not to get them to smile and style for the lens. On our recent pumpkin patch outing, one mum – massive camera in hand – was urging her kids to “point to the cow” and “pick up a pumpkin”. She was so set on conducting a perfect shot, she missed all the moments of uncontrived, un-orchestrated cuteness from her twin toddlers. Posing really becomes a be-all-and-end-all in the pubescent years, when all the mirror-peering, primping and preening segue into a degree of self-defining in front of the camera. In our teens and 20s, posing in a photo (here’s me looking fine/ fit with my attractive, camera-comfortable friends) is an important social skill (just dip into Facebook if you need proof).

But later in life posing purposefully in pictures becomes a bit naff. That means no pouting in front of the leaning tower of Pisa or anxious angling of limbs in a beach shot. Just crack a smile and aim to look natural, is what I’ve been telling myself for years… But then, what if Washington Life magazine slings you headlong into a “fashion shoot” and someone starts telling you to turn this way, twist your shoulders and wipe your smile straight off your face? Here is their November issue on creativity in the capital (enter “54” in the black bar for the actual feature and click the right button to scroll through. Find me on page 56).

It’s just the face I’m not happy with… the photographer said “sultry” but I think I got stuck somewhere in “stiff” territory. To find some solace after seeing my sulky face, I turned to the NGA, where this Nude Warrior (c. 1816) has exactly the right idea about posing. See, he’s gone so far as to turn his face away from the camera, so he has no face placing to even worry about.

This is by Théodore Gericault (1791 – 1824) whose art typifies the spirit of Romanticism. Since he came from a wealthy family, Géricault could chart a truly independent course in art. Though he’s not touching on his usual themes of violence, horror or madness here, this “lone hero gazing into the distance” subject is totally keyed into the era. We can’t see the warrior’s face (the unknowable-ness notches up the allure and intrigue), which makes the body language total linchpin. I love the serene yet scintillating pose: parallel diagonals slash through the shot, adding energy echoed in the dark and storming sky. In fact the cast of the body is so captivating and convincing, that I bet Géricault got a model to pose.

Cheryl Cole has reached nascent National Treasure Status. Starting off a bit dodge as the garrulous one in Girls Aloud (who allegedly lamped a club bathroom attendant and went to court for it) has not held the Toon beauty back. Undoubtedly the X Factor (Simon Cowell’s TV-show search for singing talent) has boosted Cheryl’s star power: stripped off were the rough-and-ready regional edges and in came a delicate-demeanored delight, Xtra-accessible for her ability to cry copiously on screen.

But in the Cheryl Show there’s a second star to consider, because she certainly shares the stage with her soft, shining sheets of hair. Whether its deep chestnut brown or warm berry red, it’s been taking up a ton of screen space and time, ever since L’Oreal signed Cheryl to promote their hair products. The first ad she did got people pestering: her hair was accused of being an avalanche of extensions… we’d all find things less flat and effort-filled if we wore someone else’s tresses, complainers carped. So now, in her most recent outing, there’s a subtext: Cheryl is wearing natural hair extensions, cared for with Full Restore 5.

When I think of lustrous locks at the NGA, this painting comes quite quickly to mind. I mean really, does painted hair get more rich and thick than this? Study of Lilia (1887) is by French painter and art instructor Charles Auguste Emile Durand, who abbreviated and latinized his name to Carolus-Duran (1837 – 1917). From Lille, Carolus-Duran studied there under the painter Souchon before doing the Beaux-Arts in Paris.

His stylish Lilia portrait is just the sort of thing he was well-known for. For me it has a lavish quality, in color and canvas surface, that conjures up great art by the likes of Velázquez et al. (this perhaps a persisting influence from Souchon, who impressed upon his pupils the importance of studying and emulating the Old Masters).

The work also confirms that as a teacher, Carolus-Duran practised what he preached. In his studio, models were posed in full light, without shadow effects and against strongly-colored backgrounds. Here, I’m struck by the way her dress melts into the warm wall behind her, so that all our attention lands on the milky nape and auburn hair. Pupils were also discouraged from using too-small brushes and we really read the direct painterly handling of pigment here.

What I’ve gleaned about Carolus-Duran is that his emphasis is on full-bodied form and saturated color, a double focus not too far-off from what I imagine Miss Cole must look for from her own mini-masterpiece: her hair.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent

To blow up the King and Parli’ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below

To prove old England’s overthrow;

By God’s providence he was catch’d

With a’dark lantern and burning match.

Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.

Holla boys, holla boys, God save the King!

And what should we do with him? Burn him!

Those less familiar with the British Isles are forgiven for being a little fearful of some of the festivities that unfold on the night of November 5th each year. Guy Fawkes Night (or Bonfire Night or Fireworks Night) is the most blazing of celebrations, commemorating the day in 1605 when Guy Fawkes was discovered in the cellars of Parliament preparing to blow it up. The Gunpowder Plot involved a clutch of Catholic conspirators attempting to destroy the Houses of Parliament and it was Fawkes who was found in an underused undercroft ready to raze the building to the ground. Instead it was all the conspirators who were burned to cinders.

Bonfires are big tonight, and fireworks. Also everywhere are effigies of Fawkes, either asking for money (“a penny for the Guy”) or being burned in a flurry of flames. A flickering fire is the heart and centrepiece of any Bonfire Night feast, which can include bangers and mash, jacket potatoes, bonfire toffee and Parkin (a soft cake made of oatmeal and molasses).

Today I wanted to go with the fire theme, which means I’m venturing well beyond my typical turf with this eye-catching Chinese Qing Dynasty vase. Honestly, I could not let alone a glimmering, glowing artefact conveniently called The Fire Cloud, could I?

So first we need a foothold in the Qing Dynasty. When Manchu forces seized power from the Ming in 1644, they founded what was to be the last, and perhaps greatest Chinese dynasty. To avoid unpopularity, Qing emperors did not impose an alien culture, but gained acceptance by coming under Chinese influence. Soon enough, economic success from the expanding Qing empire resulted in increased patronage of the arts.

For me the visuals on this vase are truly arresting since they propose a perfect synthesis between the shape of the object and the flow of the design on the sides. I say design, but really there’s a breathless fluency to the way the oxblood glaze has taken to the porcelain. As the color bleeds, billows and blows in patches either saturated or sparse over those sleek contours, I’m instantly thinking raging, roaring, rising flames.

I am the latest and most avidly-ascribed follower of The Principle of Active Irresponsibility. It’s basically this: if you are a person with any kind of responsibility, it’s imperative you use a comfy armchair with rigorous regularity. Don’t dust it, fluff it, or decide it needs a new spot in the living room: just slump and snuggle into its welcoming arms. Apparently the best thing for writer’s block is to cosy down in a comfy chair to work out for a minute or few exactly what it is you want to say. And apparently it’s the same for all us authors of busy-til-we’re-blue-in-the-face lives: we must take time whenever we can and an armchair is the best place for it.

Jürg Fröhlich, a Swiss professor of theoretical physics, says that sitting back even for a second gives us more of a bird’s eye view of ourselves. Suddenly tasks or troubles no longer seem quite so towering and the sitting produces a pause from which (as he puts it) “truly original ideas, insights, knowledge and gutsy actions can grow.”

Now there’s no better painting at the NGA for celebrating the perks and pleasures of Active Irresponsibility than Woman Seated in an Armchair by Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954). Truly, that canary yellow armchair (in fact I’d go so far as to call it an arm-lounger, what with the footstool thrown in) with red trimmings takes easily the centre stage.

The carnival colors here are of course something we come to expect from Matisse, the man behind what was the first modern art movement. Fauvism forced bright and pure colors, flattened perspectives and simplified details onto an audience gone sleepy in its Salon acceptance. The movement was given all of its momentum by Matisse and what I find moving to see here is even though Fauvism proper persisted only from 1905 to 1907 (after which its wings were clipped by the new kid on the block, Cubism), Matisse mainly stayed true to the principles he established at the start of the century.

In 1940 (when Woman Seated in an Armchair was painted) Matisse was moving towards ill-health and severe arthritis, though despite this his dynamism in odd detail and charisma of color remain rigorously intact. This is a joyous eulogy to taking time out in the day… just beware: it seems we’re softer when deciding decisions from a comfortable seat (e.g. sure, I’ll go ahead and snap open a second packet of biscuits, or buy that set of steel drums on QVC). Other than that, Matisse and me see no reason not to fall into and in love with a seductive soft seat.

If your house is anything like ours right now, it’ll be clattering with colored candies and shiny sweets, hordes of the things left over from Halloween. I was fretful about letting down any little knockers at our door (let’s face it, no child is happy with a healthy granola bar or vit-boosting piece of fruit proffered due to dwindled sweet stash), so I loaded up on loads of terrible treats. And I do mean terrible. Candied colors like you wouldn’t believe, too-shiny sugar shells, coatings of questionable chocolate… it’s all just a general move to tiny (and adult) tooth abuse. Which means making sweets vanish once the scaring is done is all the more urgent today.

Real Simple has come to the rescue with an inventive set of use-em-up recipes. You can stud a sheet of just-soft white chocolate with candy corns, cranberries and salted pretzels. Or blend sweet-sour fruit sweets into a sticky strawberry shake. You could shove chopped licorice sticks in with sweet popcorn and pecan halves for a grab-able snack or dot white meringue mounds with rainbow skittles. My favorite take on the post-Halloween treat is to slather a cookie with jam before dousing it with handfuls of half-bashed M&Ms.

All those saturated, synthetic candy colors are calling out for a Kenneth Noland comparison: this is Mandarin, from 1961. I don’t think I’ve seen a sunnier picture, ringed around by a more gorgeous gold or shining from its center with a hotter orange. Noland started a series of circle paintings in the late 1950s: they began as indistinct, blur-edged discs but soon became precise, target-like works of concentric circles such as this one, with sharply-defined sides and confident colors.

Kenneth Noland (b. 1924) is a painter and sculptor who studied in his native North Carolina and Paris before settling in Washington, DC, where he became a member of the Washington Color School. His clear contours and flat colors also made him a leading exponent of Hard Edge painting (a term coined by an LA art critic to describe abstract painting in which flat areas of color are defined by clean, hard edges).

A work like Mandarin is the artist’s answer to the unfocused compositions of Abstract Expressionism (by which he’d been briefly seduced in the late 40s and early 50s). And it sure doesn’t get more focused than this: square meets circles meets galvanized geometry. Gradually Noland would evolve to create ellipses, chevrons, stripes and grids, never losing his love for full-on flat color and a slick, clean edge. Which for me makes him look a little candy-like, just here and there.

If you thought you were home and dry after harassment by ghouls, gremlins and hobgoblins on Halloween, then think again. Because November 2 is by tradition the Day of All Souls, on which (it has been believed), the unhappy souls of the dead return to their former homes. In the past, people were so superstitious about unsolicited, unsavoury visits to their houses on All Souls, they’d keep the kitchen warm and leave food on the table to appease passing spirits and specters.

It’s souls in a home we’re visiting today in the eery form of Ghost (1990) by Rachel Whiteread (born 1963). Whiteread was a YBA: she studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and started working in the 1980s. Mostly she makes casts, not of objects themselves, but of the space in or around them: the underneath of chairs and tables, behind bookshelves, within rooms.

The NGA has what is undoubtedly her breakthrough piece: Ghost was the first of her works to cast an entire living space. It’s a negative plaster cast of a parlor in an abandoned Victorian town house on a street in North London. Ghost got Whiteread attention from the public and critics and is still to this day her best-known work.

So how did she do this, on unprecedented scale? First she stripped the room to its architectural bones, before gridding each wall into castable chunks. It took 3 months to cover the walls with multiple moulds, cast and peel away the plaster and rearrange everything on a steel frame.

With the practicalities of the process in place we can gauge Ghost a little better. At the heart of the work’s genius lies the brain-straining phenomenon that we are both inside and outside of the room at the same time. It’s also compelling that on an initially plain-looking form are etched all sorts of infinitesimal details that demarcate the passage of time and the existence of people. There’s an imprint of a light switch, lines of tiles around the fire, blackened sootiness in the hearth. All in, these curious castings of human life remind that this work makes rigor mortis of a place once inhabited by living souls.

I find it hard not to associate Ghost with death and loss. It probably has to do with the milky pallor of the plaster itself and the tomblike tension of the work’s straight sides. I suppose you’d call it a memorial to lived time, a mummified memory of a place where lives were spent. For me, it’s absence materialised, a soul made solid.