From medieval psalters to the oils of Gustave Courbet, the Louvre has organized one of the most comprehensive surveys of a cultural motif that is both beguiling and timely.

Through this maelstrom, Smee, a Pulitzer-winning art critic, traces the stories of several engaging personalities: Gustave Courbet, the scandalous realist painter naively committed to revolution ...

The A-list allure of this exhibition’s pictures, which have never been shown together in Britain before, is reason enough to ...