BBC CultureThe sexed-up cartoon hunks that defined gay cultureverified_publisherBBC Culture - Nick LevineAt the time of their creation, Tom of Finland’s erotic drawings of heavily muscled men were radical. But 100 years on from his birth, how do they stand up now, asks Nick Levine. Touko Laaksonen’s groundbreaking gay erotic art has made him a global icon. For more than 50 years until his death in …
BBC CultureHow Léon Spilliaert’s dark paintings are strangely upliftingverified_publisherBBC Culture - Cath PoundThe Belgian artist suffered from insomnia and often wandered the streets alone. His paintings found beauty and light from the darkness, writes Cath Pound. Léon Spilliaert’s eerie, enigmatic works inhabit a twilight netherworld between reality and dream. It was a realm he conjured following the …
BBC CultureThe photographer fighting to save an ancient cultureverified_publisherBBC Culture - Edward SiddonsIn recent years, Brazil’s Yanomami tribe have suffered epidemics, deforestation and fires – and all the while, Claudia Andujar has helped them fight back. She talks to Edward Siddons. In the dense Amazonian rainforests that sprawl across the Brazilian-Venezuelan border, one of South America’s …
BBC CultureThe most terrifying images in history?verified_publisherBBC Culture - Kelly GrovierPaintings of the past depicted horror, dread and foreboding. But can art still frighten us into a new consciousness, asks Kelly Grovier. Has art forgotten how to frighten us? In times past, artists understood fear and exploited it as among the most potent emotional levers that a painting or …
BBC CultureRediscovering India’s forgotten masterpiecesverified_publisherBBC Culture - Rahul VermaPigeonholing great works of art as the property of the East India Company has meant they’ve been ignored for centuries. But a new exhibition is giving due recognition to artists who deserve to be as well-known as Michelangelo, writes Rahul Verma. They were simply labelled ‘Company Painting’ and …
BBC CultureThe restoration that shocked the worldverified_publisherBBC Culture - Fisun GünerA new exhibition features the groundbreaking work of Jan Van Eyck, whose Ghent Altarpiece features an astonishing number of art firsts, writes Fisun Güner. European artists of the past often depicted exotic animals in a way we now know to be wildly inaccurate. Since most would not have had the …
