Some of the most talented artists of early 17th-century Rome were linked by violence as much as skill. Caravaggio was a murderer, Bernini had a lover's face slashed when she (already married) betrayed him with his brother, Salvator Rosa was said

Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) is often compared to Emile Zola. It is easy to see why: both embraced realist techniques to chronicle ordinary urban life in an age of seemingly endless social upheaval. 

Sir Hugh Casson (1910-99) was the John Betjeman of postwar British architecture: the unthreatening, homely face of a sometimes difficult art form. Casson came to notice when, at the age of only 38, he was appointed Dir