David V Barrett, Author at Catholic Herald

David V Barrett

Fantasy: Realms of Imagination at the British Library

November 30, 2023

Fantasy, as the exhibition at the British Library in London points out, is both a means of escape and a way of viewing our own world through new eyes. Fantasy: Realms of Imagination spans from the oldest religious mythologies such as the Epic of Gilgamesh up to the works of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman,

Paula Rego’s Crivelli’s Garden is a modern masterpiece

August 30, 2023

Three quotations sum up Paula Rego’s approach to her monumental work Crivelli’s Garden, a free, one-painting exhibition at the National Gallery in London. First: “If the story is ‘given’, I take liberties with it to make it conform to my own experiences, and to be outrageous.” You step into Room 46 and you are confronted

Eric Gill: a moral problem

August 05, 2021

On the centenary of a remarkable Catholic Arts Guild, how should we treat the work of the controversial sculptor at its heart?

‘It is true, it is true, it is true’

November 18, 2020

Gentileschi’s turbulent life was the background to her remarkable art, says David V Barrett

Aubrey Beardsley epitomised 1890s decadence. His conversion changed everything

September 18, 2020

Aubrey Beardsley’s work is instantly recognisable: sweeping, sinuous black lines, sensual, mythological, with a haunting beauty all of its own. The new exhibition of his work at Tate Britain is the first there in almost a century, and the largest anywhere in 50 years. And it’s a delight to see. As well as covering his

It’s all about power… ‘British Baroque’ at Tate Britain

February 08, 2020

The curators' aim was 'to marry the art with the profound changes happening in Britain'. So how well did they succeed?

How a militaristic goddess became the Venus of Western art

January 16, 2020

Venus and Aphrodite By Bettany Hughes Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 241pp, £12.99/$17 Whether we know her as the Roman Venus or the Greek Aphrodite, the goddess of love and lust is as powerful today as she has always been. Bettany Hughes traces Venus/Aphrodite back to her beginnings and follows her career over millennia, right up to

Is that it? The National Gallery’s ‘immersive’ Leonardo show

November 28, 2019

I applaud the reasoning behind the National Gallery’s exhibition Leonardo: Experience a Masterpiece. People often spend just seconds in front of a great painting; here is an opportunity to spend some serious time. The National Gallery is celebrating the 700th anniversary of Leonardo’s death by focusing on its version of the Virgin of the Rocks,

An Egyptian extravaganza that costs an arm and a leg

November 21, 2019

The Tutankhamun exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, near London’s Sloane Square, is on its third stop on a 10-country tour. It’s the last time these items will leave Egypt, and in some cases the first. The familiar face and figure on all the posters is not Tutankhamun’s famous death mask, which is too delicate to

When people really believed in fairies

November 21, 2019

Fairies: A Dangerous History by Richard Sugg, Reaktion Books, 279pp, £9.99/$16.95 Do you believe in fairies? Many of us would say no, then perhaps sigh and say, “But I wish…” Richard Sugg’s book provides dozens of stories of people encountering fairies, or at least accepting their existence as a given. A good number of the

Hogarth was a great satirist, but a storyteller above all

October 31, 2019

William Hogarth shone a bright light on the human condition in the mid 18th century. His social commentaries focused on immorality and hypocrisy, vice and corruption at all levels of society, from the aristocracy to the lowliest commoner. His best-known work is probably Gin Lane, which shows a baby tumbling from its gin-soaked mother’s arms.

William Blake review: a strangely utilitarian portrait of a visionary

September 19, 2019

William Blake lies in Bunhill Fields cemetery in London, a couple of hundred yards away from the Catholic Herald’s office. His grave was recently rediscovered, and a new memorial stone laid a year ago, bearing lines from his poem Jerusalem. Touchingly, there is always a vase of freshly cut flowers at his grave. The new

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