The word 'avant-garde', so much used in connection with the various manifestations of contemporary art, is starting to have a strange, ironic ring to it. One might even claim that it is starting to signify what is behind the times, rather than in front of them. Like all such terms, it is in fact a metaphor, rather than a direct description. Borrowed from old-fashioned military terminology, it seeks to describe a situation where social norms are being perpetually challenged by artists. In the military sphere, where it originated, it is long out of use. Armies no longer marshal themselves in regular formations of the battlefield. There is now no recognized grammar of warfare - any more than (come to think of it) there is a recognized grammar of art. The mantra now is: 'It's art because I say it's art!' In these circumstances, it is increasingly difficult to define what is positioned ahead of what - who is at the head of the column and who is near he tail end of it. ELS

An anthology of essays and reviews by the eminent art historian and writer, Edward Lucie-Smith. The articles cover a broad span, from the Italian Renaissance of Giotto and Antonello da Messina, Leonardo and Michelangelo, progressing to Rubens, Velázquez and Ingres, with essays on William Hogarth, John Constable and John Everett Millais for British Art. With the experience of his landmark publications on modern art, which remain in print; the author sweeps the reader on a fabulous journey of perception, disclosing the strands that bind the continuum of classic and contemporary art.

Andrea Palladio . Antonello Da Messina . Michelangelo Drawings . Loot . From Giotto to Malevich . Italian Paintings from the British Royal Collection . Leonardo-The Non-Deliverer . Cranach Censored . Sigismund of Luxemburg . Holbein in England . Rubens: A Master in the Making . Forgotten Empire . Velázquez in London . William Hogarth . Citizens and Kings . Ingres . Gothic Nightmares . John Constable . John Everett Millais . Renoir Landscapes . Americans in Paris . Gauguin at Tate Modern . Radical Light . Wilfredo Lam . Before Damien Hirst, there was Salvador Dali.