Neil Simpson

We are currently living through an apparent contradiction. On the face of it public opinion has never been stronger. Information moves at a startling pace, interacting with and increasingly being defined by the users who consume it. Yet at the same time we have rarely seen, since the collapse of...

The debate around Scottish independence is one which the Scottish Nationalists have of late, like it or not, done an excellent job of defining, driving and dominating. Their membership has rocketed; their leader, Alex Salmond, is widely praised and showered with awards; the nationalists are listened to. It is also...

Damien Hirst's retrospective currently showing at the Tate Modern begins with a few tired attempts from his early career. One work, for example, is nothing more than a set of pots painted in bright colours and hung from a wall. Clearly it's often difficult to predict later greatness (or even...

Damien Hirst. The reputation loudly precedes the not-so-young British artist like some diamond encrusted Triumph of skulls, formaldehyde and sacred cows. It's a shiny, bloody and very, very expensive orgy. Hirst has earned infamy for what many saw as a ridiculously over the top sale of 218 of his works...

The look on George Osborne's face said it all. "When was the last time you had Greggs' pasty, Mr Osborne?" asked the Labour MP John Mann at a Select Committee hearing on the budget. Of course most people wince at the idea that Greggs has captured the headlines, as the...

For Talleyrand, the French diplomat who successfully navigated a career under the Bourbon Monarchy, Revolution and Napoleon, those who hadn't had the luxury of living in the serenity of pre-Revolutionary France had not tasted the 'sweetness of living'. It's an image of pacific order and calm; manicured lawns and symmetry....

There's a telling photograph in the National Portrait Gallery's Lucian Freud retrospective of David Hockney sitting poised on a stool in Freud's studio. The elder Hockney looks like a man at peace, his glasses perched on his nose giving him a grandfatherly air. Freud, by contrast, is hunched, standing in...

What could be more typically English than Jan Siberechts' neat image of a tamed English Arcadia? The image, currently on display at the Tate Britain's Migrations exhibition, is one of polite mowed lawns; chimney smoke gently drifting up into the fresh early morning air; a church steeple in the distance...

The Nutcracker, like Dickens, seems to embody Christmas. Showings of The Great Escape may be intermittent, but we can always rely on Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and that Russian Dance to get us in the mood. The Royal Ballet's traditional interpretation of this great classic is a...

In an age of pithy sound bites, video clips and succinct PowerPoint presentations, it is understandable that we tend to focus on specifics when it comes to art.

The visual arts, like music, are increasingly enjoyed in a fragmented manner; exhibitions, as with albums, are rarely considered in their...

One of the most dramatic changes to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, which recently reopened after an extensive overhaul, is the airy and relit second floor. Artificial lighting, which often distorts oil paintings, has been replaced by an open ceiling which allows natural light in. The tremendous benefits of this...

The Scottish National Portrait Gallery has recently reopened after a dramatic overhaul lasting several years. Founded in 1889, the Gallery has one of the largest collections of portraits in the world, but is often overlooked. Sitting on Edinburgh's Queen Street, it was formerly a quiet and cosy affair; a poor...

Simon Schama, who is best known for his BBC series A History of Britain, curates a new exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery: Travelling Light.

How would you explain Britishness? If we were introducing a foreign ambassador to Britannia with no prior knowledge of her,...

This exhibition highlights how solid economic bonds can be extinguished, almost overnight in a hail of political wrangling and arguing. It is prescient, although perhaps without meaning to be. Indeed, just as it is impossible to tell the story of Britain after...

When it comes to history we have an understandable tendency to be seduced by the silk finery of luxurious clothing, pleasant country mansions and outdated social conventions. Just think of Downton Abbey where, let's be honest, part of the appeal was in the superficial: posh accents, butlers and exquisite table...

Showing at the Tate Modern until 8 January 2012

My previous review looked at an exhibition focused on the Dutch artist Vermeer and his contemporaries. It was an intensely psychological exhibition, masked by visuals that were superficially easy and uncomplicated. With Vermeer, we are often led to apparent answers...

Tate Modern until 11 March 2012

In 1936 Charlie Chaplin appeared in his iconic film Modern Times. Amidst the repetitive tedium of the assembly line, Chaplin exposed something that even Adam Smith had noticed in his Wealth of Nations as far back as 1776. We may, as a species, be...

Cornelis Bisschop's image of A Girl Peeling Apples presents us with what is initially a familiar and comfortable idea of domesticity and harmony. The composition hints at the Italian masters; the colours encourage us to see virginal chastity and womanly virtues. Bisschop has led us into what is initially a...

"On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood
Robed in the sable garb of woe
With haggard eyes the Poet stood;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air)
And with a Master's hand,...