Philosophy

The joy of clutter

The world sees Japan as a paragon of minimalism. But its hidden clutter culture shows that ‘more’ can be as magical as ‘less’

Matt Alt

A novel kind of music

So-called ‘classical’ music was as revolutionary as the modern novel in its storytelling, harmony and depth

Joel Sandelson

Creating art that was aware of itself – and the viewer – made Manet the first modernist

15 minutes

Sitting on the art

Given its intimacy with the body and deep play on form and function, furniture is a ripely ambiguous artform of its own

Emma Crichton Miller

The celebrated architect who took inspiration from sitting, waiting and contemplating

29 minutes

More than breathtaking, ‘The Birth of Venus’ signalled an aesthetic revolution

19 minutes

The overlooked polymath whose theatrical oeuvre made all of Rome a stage

30 minutes

‘Dun dun dun duuun!’ Why Beethoven’s Fifth sticks in the head and stirs the heart

5 minutes

The truth of photographs

It’s often said that a successful picture ‘captures the essence’ of a subject. But a great photograph does so much more

Daniel Star

Inside the unique creative space where ‘outsider’ artists find their form

14 minutes

What makes John Keats’s ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ so enduringly powerful?

10 minutes

The art of rules

Conceptual art often confounds. The key is to understand the rules of the artwork and the aesthetic experiences they yield

Sherri Irvin

The sonnet machine

A sonnet contains an emotional drama of illusion and deception, crisis and resolution, crafted to make us think and feel

Timothy Hampton

Tracing Goya’s ‘dark’ journey from Spanish court painter to macabre visionary

51 minutes

The radically impractical 18th-century architect whose ideas on beauty endure

19 minutes