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Art

The painting La sfida (The Challenge) which shows Magdalene wearing a red dress with long auburn hair (Credit: Nieves González/ on loan from a private collection)

Why Mary Magdalene is a divisive biblical figure

By Precious Adesina

Close-up of banana with duct tape sticking it to a wall (Credit: Getty Images)

The hidden history of a controversial $6m banana

By Matthew Wilson

A detail showing soldiers on horseback from the Bayeux Tapestry (Credit: Alamy)

The brutal truth revealed by the Bayeux Tapestry

By Deborah Nicholls-Lee

Archival aerial view of Trent Park House, a grand stately home with a flag flying from roof surrounded by grounds, from early 20th Century (Credit: Houghton Hall)

The English stately home where Nazis were bugged

By Cath Pound

Team Argentina tossing Lionel Messi in the air (Credit: Getty Images)

10 of the World Cup's most striking images

By Kelly Grovier

Detail of mountain and blue sky in Franklin Carmichael's Lone Lake (1929) (Credit: Alamy)

The paintings with 'a distinct Canadian character'

By Cath Pound

Crop of The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street, Boston on March 5,1770 by a party of the 29th Regiment (Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York/ Gift of Mrs Russell Sage)

The image that fuelled the American Revolution

By Deborah Nicholls-Lee

A cropped version of Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird by Frida Kahlo (Credit: Nickolas Muray/ Collection of Mexican Art)

The pain and passion in a Frida Kahlo masterpiece

By Arwa Haider

A cropped version of Saint Sebastian by Guido Reni (Credit: Getty Images)

How 3rd-Century saint Sebastian became a gay icon

By Nick Levine

Cropped version of Van Gogh's Café Terrace at Night (Credit: Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands)

'Five details in Van Gogh's first starry night'

By Kelly Grovier

David Hockney's A Big Splash which captures a split-second moment of exploding pool water and clean summer light (Credit: Tate)

Why A Bigger Splash is David Hockney's masterpiece

By Kelly Grovier

Max Beckmann's 1927 artwork Variété (Variety Show) (Credit: Courtesy private collection/ Gina Folly)

The 1927 painting that foretold Germany's downfall

By Precious Adesina

A view of the Earth's horizon from the dark side of the Moon (Credit: Nasa)

Nine of the most striking images of 2026 so far

By Kelly Grovier

James Abbott McNeill Whistler's Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, also called Whistler's Mother (1871) (Credit: Musée d'Orsay)

Whistler would hate his 1871 painting's success

By Matthew Wilson

Clse-up detail of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (Credit: The Museum of Modern Art, New York)

The controversy over Picasso's most shocking work

By Precious Adesina

A black and white image shows a couple in the corner of a booth in a small Paris cafe with their faces close together as if they are about to kiss(Credit: Estate Brassai/ Succession Philippe Ribeyrolles)

10 intimate images of a lost, decadent 1930s Paris

By Cath Pound