It takes a split second these days to create an image, and how many millions are recorded daily on mobile phones, possibly never to be looked at again? You can see it all happening in the palatial surroundings of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, definitely one of those tick-off destinations on many travellers' bucket lists, where those in search of instant pictorial satisfaction throng the imposing statue-lined staircase for a selfie or pout for a photo in the café under the spectacular cupola. But we're not in Vienna for a quick fix, we're at the KHM to admire something more enduring in the shape of art produced almost 500 years ago by Rembrandt and his pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten that was intended to mislead your eyes into seeing the real in the unreal. Artistic deception is the story at the centre of Rembrandt--Hoogstraten: Colour and Illusion , one of the most engrossing and best-staged exhibitions we've seen this year. And, somewhat surprisingly, a show wi...
In 2019 it was all Leonardo and Rembrandt. In 2020 it's the 500th anniversary of the death of Raphael, so he's one of the really big names on the exhibition calendar for the new year, along with Jan van Eyck. Here's a look at some of the key shows across Britain and Europe for your diary, in more or less chronological order.
January
Edward Hopper's landscapes and cityscapes are at the fore of an exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler near Basel starting on January 26. It's organised in conjunction with the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, which has the largest collection of Hopper's often enigmatic, mysterious works. Until May 17.
The Kunstpalast in Dusseldorf is presenting a big show, running from January 30 to May 24, devoted to Angelica Kauffman, a rare exception in being a successful and respected woman artist in the late 18th century. The Swiss-born artist was one of only two women founder members of the Royal Academy in London, where the show travels later in the year.
February
At the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution will bring together more than half the pioneering Netherlandish painter's surviving 20 or so works. No one before van Eyck had created paintings that were quite so realistic-looking, quite so tangible. The show (one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences, the museum promises) runs from February 1 to April 30.
British Baroque: Two words that don't appear to go together well. Tate Britain is aiming to set that right from February 5 to April 19 with an exhibition featuring painters like Peter Lely, the woodcarver Grinling Gibbons and architects including Nicolas Hawksmoor.
Anna Ancher was one of the biggest names among the Skagen painters who played such a dominant role in Danish art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She gets a big retrospective at Copenhagen's National Gallery from February 8 to May 24, which will travel on to Skagen at the northern tip of Denmark in the summer.
Two exhibitions on the Dutch Golden Age transfer from the Netherlands to the UK this month, while one English show goes the other way. Young Rembrandt, our favourite show of 2019, moves from De Lakenhal in Leiden to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, where it's on from February 27 to June 7. Rembrandt's pupil, Nicolaes Maes, whom we saw at the Mauritshuis in The Hague, can be seen for free at the National Gallery in London from February 22 to May 31. And that greatest of British animal painters, George Stubbs, will be at the Mauritshuis from February 20 to June 1 in a scaled-down version of an exhibition we loved in Milton Keynes.
And we're not finished with Rembrandt, not by a long way. At the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, there's Rembrandt and Amsterdam Portraiture 1590-1670 from February 18 to May 24, with 80 paintings in total and 22 works by Rembrandt.
British Baroque: Two words that don't appear to go together well. Tate Britain is aiming to set that right from February 5 to April 19 with an exhibition featuring painters like Peter Lely, the woodcarver Grinling Gibbons and architects including Nicolas Hawksmoor.
Anna Ancher was one of the biggest names among the Skagen painters who played such a dominant role in Danish art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She gets a big retrospective at Copenhagen's National Gallery from February 8 to May 24, which will travel on to Skagen at the northern tip of Denmark in the summer.
And we're not finished with Rembrandt, not by a long way. At the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, there's Rembrandt and Amsterdam Portraiture 1590-1670 from February 18 to May 24, with 80 paintings in total and 22 works by Rembrandt.
March
Aubrey Beardsley's drawings shocked late Victorian Britain, and you can find out why in a show at Tate Britain that starts on March 4. Surprisingly, the Tate says there hasn't been a Beardsley exhibition on this scale in half a century. Until May 25.
And starting on March 12, over at Tate Modern, Andy Warhol will be famous not just for 15 minutes but for almost six months. This show of the master pop artist will have works not seen in Britain before and runs until September 6.
Titian: Love, Desire, Death at the National Gallery from March 16 to June 14 reunites for the first time in four centuries a series of six paintings of classical myths commissioned by Prince Philip of Spain in 1551. The show goes to Edinburgh and Madrid later in the year.
Ah, yes, Raphael. There's a major exhibition on at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome from March 5 to June 2. Perhaps by the time you read this they'll actually have posted something on the venue's website about it.
And starting on March 12, over at Tate Modern, Andy Warhol will be famous not just for 15 minutes but for almost six months. This show of the master pop artist will have works not seen in Britain before and runs until September 6.
Titian: Love, Desire, Death at the National Gallery from March 16 to June 14 reunites for the first time in four centuries a series of six paintings of classical myths commissioned by Prince Philip of Spain in 1551. The show goes to Edinburgh and Madrid later in the year.
April
There'll be more Lely and more Warhol in Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, which runs from April 3 to August 31.
Going back more than a century before Kauffman, Artemisia Gentileschi is another pioneering woman artist in the retrospective spotlight this year, this time at the National Gallery. April 4 to July 26.
And one of the very best exhibitions of 2019, The Golden Age of Danish Painting, is brought to a non-Scandinavian audience at the Petit Palais in Paris from April 28 to August 16. There are more than 200 works, with Christen Købke the star attraction.
Going back more than a century before Kauffman, Artemisia Gentileschi is another pioneering woman artist in the retrospective spotlight this year, this time at the National Gallery. April 4 to July 26.
And one of the very best exhibitions of 2019, The Golden Age of Danish Painting, is brought to a non-Scandinavian audience at the Petit Palais in Paris from April 28 to August 16. There are more than 200 works, with Christen Købke the star attraction.
May
One of the biggest exhibitions ever staged outside Spain about Francisco de Goya opens at the Fondation Beyeler near Basel on May 17. Running until August 16, the show will include more than 70 paintings, some from Spanish private collections that are rarely exhibited.
June
The Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh is devoting an exhibition to King James VI of Scotland and James I of England, the man who united the crowns of the two countries in 1603. Bright Star, running from June 20 to November 22, will feature paintings, miniatures, jewellery and textiles.
The Anna Ancher show moves from Copenhagen to Skagens Museum on June 13 and will run through until October 18. The Aubrey Beardsley exhibition from the Tate is on at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris from June 15 to September 13, and Angelica Kauffman transfers from Dusseldorf to London's Royal Academy from June 28 to September 20.
The Anna Ancher show moves from Copenhagen to Skagens Museum on June 13 and will run through until October 18. The Aubrey Beardsley exhibition from the Tate is on at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris from June 15 to September 13, and Angelica Kauffman transfers from Dusseldorf to London's Royal Academy from June 28 to September 20.
July
Titian: Love, Desire, Death opens at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh on July 11 and can be seen there until September 27.
September
Anniversary time again! It's the 400th birthday this year of the Dutch city of Dordrecht's most famous painter, Aelbert Cuyp, and In the Light of Cuyp at the Dordrechts Museum will bring home three dozen of his most important works and show them alongside the British landscape painters he had such an influence on, above all Gainsborough, Constable and Turner. September 27 to March 14, 2021.
October
A Raphael exhibition we do have details of is the one at the National Gallery in London from October 3 to January 24, 2021. The National says it will be one of the first shows to examine in full the career of the short-lived but prolific Italian Renaissance master, with loans from some of the world's leading museums, including the Uffizi.
Looking ahead a bit to 2021, the National Gallery will also be hosting a show on the great German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer's Journeys across Europe, looking at how they sparked an exchange of ideas between North and South. It's being organised in conjunction with the Suermondt-Ludwig Museum in Aachen, where Dürer Was Here opens on October 7. With about 140 works by Dürer and his contemporaries, the exhibition runs until January 10, 2021.
Like Dürer, Thomas Lawrence was a child prodigy, and his early prowess as a portrait painter will be on show in Thomas Lawrence 1780-1794: Coming of Age at the Holburne Museum in Bath. From October 9 to January 3, 2021.
And now to the mystery man of Dutch Golden Age art: Jacobus Vrel. Scarcely anything is known about who he was or where he painted, and his pictures often have an enigmatic feel. What more will researchers have uncovered by the time an exhibition of his work opens on October 13 in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich? Until January 10, 2021, after which it goes on to Paris and The Hague.
Titian: Love, Desire, Death is at the Prado in Madrid from October 20 to January 10, 2021, but there's another show of the master's work at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, focusing on his depiction of women. Titian: Color Femmina, with around 60 paintings, runs from October 13 to January 17, 2021.
Also in Vienna, time to delve into your subconscious as the Belvedere recalls the encounter between Salvador Dalí and Sigmund Freud in London in 1938 and reflects on the significance of the psychoanalyst for the artist's work. Dalí-Freud, with 150 exhibits, opens on October 23 and continues till March 7, 2021.
Back in London, two big shows to end the year. The sculptures of Auguste Rodin, with around 150 works, many never seen outside France before, will be at Tate Modern from October 21 to February 21, 2021. And at Tate Britain, October 28 sees the opening of Turner's Modern World, exploring how JMW Turner observed the industrialisation and innovations of the early 19th century. This one runs until March 7, 2021.
Like Dürer, Thomas Lawrence was a child prodigy, and his early prowess as a portrait painter will be on show in Thomas Lawrence 1780-1794: Coming of Age at the Holburne Museum in Bath. From October 9 to January 3, 2021.
And now to the mystery man of Dutch Golden Age art: Jacobus Vrel. Scarcely anything is known about who he was or where he painted, and his pictures often have an enigmatic feel. What more will researchers have uncovered by the time an exhibition of his work opens on October 13 in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich? Until January 10, 2021, after which it goes on to Paris and The Hague.
Titian: Love, Desire, Death is at the Prado in Madrid from October 20 to January 10, 2021, but there's another show of the master's work at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, focusing on his depiction of women. Titian: Color Femmina, with around 60 paintings, runs from October 13 to January 17, 2021.
Also in Vienna, time to delve into your subconscious as the Belvedere recalls the encounter between Salvador Dalí and Sigmund Freud in London in 1938 and reflects on the significance of the psychoanalyst for the artist's work. Dalí-Freud, with 150 exhibits, opens on October 23 and continues till March 7, 2021.
Back in London, two big shows to end the year. The sculptures of Auguste Rodin, with around 150 works, many never seen outside France before, will be at Tate Modern from October 21 to February 21, 2021. And at Tate Britain, October 28 sees the opening of Turner's Modern World, exploring how JMW Turner observed the industrialisation and innovations of the early 19th century. This one runs until March 7, 2021.
December
Time for one final Rembrandt exhibition before we end 2020? Oh, go on then. Becoming Rembrandt at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt looks at Rembrandt's rise to international fame in the years between 1630 and 1655, with lots of major loans promised, so it will follow on nicely from the Young Rembrandt show in Leiden and Oxford. At the Städel from December 9 to April 5, 2021.
Images
Edward Hopper, Gas, 1940, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © Heirs of Josephine Hopper/2019, ProLitteris, Zurich; © 2019 Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, FlorenceAnna Ancher, Little Girl with Flower, 1885, Skagens Kunstmuseer
Titian, Danae, probably 1554–56, Wellington Collection, Apsley House, London. © Stratfield Saye Preservation Trust
Francisco de Goya, Doña María del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva Álvarez de Toledo, 13th Duchess of Alba, 1795, Fundación Casa de Alba, Palacio de Liria, Madrid
Angelica Kauffman, Self-Portrait of the Artist Hesitating between the Arts of Music and Painting, 1794, Nostell Priory. © National Trust Images/John Hammond
Raphael, Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist (The Esterházy Madonna), c. 1508, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum/Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. © Szépművészeti Múzeum/Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, 2020
Rembrandt van Rijn, The Abduction of Ganymede, 1635, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden
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