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...
Some of Britain's most prestigious museums and art galleries will be open again within weeks, although the visitor experience looks set to be very different.
In London, the National Gallery and the Tate have just announced their plans, and it's the National Gallery that will be back in action first, on July 8. There will be timed tickets, limited visitor numbers, initially shorter opening hours, specific routes through the galleries, more efficient air-conditioning, and they'd like you to wear a face covering. Titian: Love, Desire, Death, the show of the reunited Titian series depicting classical myths that was open for just three days before lockdown, is now back on, extended until January 17.
And continuing until September 20 is the free show about Rembrandt's pupil Nicolaes Maes, the painter whose most memorable contribution to the Dutch Golden Age is the witty sub-genre depicting mistresses eavesdropping on their servants. We saw it last year in The Hague.
The Tate plans to reopen all four of its sites, including Liverpool and St Ives, on July 27. Again, timed tickets and specific routes will be in operation. At Tate Modern, there are Pop-Art idols to be seen in the Andy Warhol show until September 6, while at Tate Britain, the fascinating exhibition about Aubrey Beardsley, who himself lived fast and died young 70 years too early for Warhol, has been extended until September 20.
The Wallace Collection will welcome the public again on July 15. And on July 29, the stunning Forgotten Masters exhibition highlighting the work of Indian painters for English patrons during the East India Company's rule over the subcontinent comes back for a six-week run until September 13. If you've not seen it, it's a real eye-opener and absolutely delightful.
Meanwhile, the Royal Academy is letting friends in from July 9 and the general public from a week later to see its Picasso and Paper show, which will run until August 2. Only five hours a day, four days a week, and you'll need to wear a face covering.
The Sainsbury Centre in Norwich is open to visitors again on July 7. Its Art Deco by the Sea show, looking at how the style shaped the British seaside between the wars, has been extended until September 20, while another exhibition examining Art Nouveau: The Nature of Dreams in its various manifestations across the West will now run until December 31. You can get a taster of the Art Deco show in a 15-minute video tour available on the BBC iPlayer. The Sainsbury is another venue asking its visitors to wear a mask.
One exhibition that's scheduled to go ahead north of the border is Modern Masters Women at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh, running from July 30 to August 29. The show will feature work by the likes of Joan Eardley, Elizabeth Blackadder, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and Victoria Crowe, whose luminous landscape paintings we saw in the Scottish capital last year.
It's by no means business as usual yet for museums and galleries on the Continent, but many are now open, and there are some attractive-looking exhibitions starting in July, albeit, in a few instances, rather later than originally planned.
At the Grand Palais in Paris, for example, Pompeii was due to get under way on March 27 but this immersive show finally sees the light of day on July 1, taking us back almost 2,000 years to when Vesuvius erupted and buried the city in AD 79. New archaeological finds and virtual reconstructions will be features of the exhibition. Pompeii's an eternally fascinating subject, as we saw at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford last year in an excellent show about what the Romans ate and drank. The Grand Palais exhibition runs until September 27.
Every three or four years, Normandy is home to the Normandie Impressioniste festival that celebrates Impressionism across the region with which the movement is so closely associated. We were there in 2013. The 2020 edition belatedly gets under way in July, and the stand-out show looks to be Electric Nights at MuMa, splendidly located by the entrance to the harbour in Le Havre, which explores how artists in the second half of the 19th century incorporated new-fangled artificial lighting into their work. Monet, Pissarro, Toulouse-Lautrec.... and not forgetting Atkinson Grimshaw. July 3 to November 1.
If you're in the south of France, there's a different quality of light on offer: the searing sunlight of the Spanish summer as recorded by Joaquín Sorolla. The Hôtel de Caumont in Aix-en-Provence plays host to Joaquín Sorolla: Spanish Lights between July 10 and November 1. You can't better Sorolla for capturing the seaside and the glare of the afternoon sun, as we saw at the National Gallery last year.
Be sure to check each individual museum's website for details of coronavirus measures and booking arrangements when planning a visit, as they do vary, and not just from country to country. Things are still very much in flux, and we have noticed dates and other details changing at short notice.
In London, the National Gallery and the Tate have just announced their plans, and it's the National Gallery that will be back in action first, on July 8. There will be timed tickets, limited visitor numbers, initially shorter opening hours, specific routes through the galleries, more efficient air-conditioning, and they'd like you to wear a face covering. Titian: Love, Desire, Death, the show of the reunited Titian series depicting classical myths that was open for just three days before lockdown, is now back on, extended until January 17.
The Tate plans to reopen all four of its sites, including Liverpool and St Ives, on July 27. Again, timed tickets and specific routes will be in operation. At Tate Modern, there are Pop-Art idols to be seen in the Andy Warhol show until September 6, while at Tate Britain, the fascinating exhibition about Aubrey Beardsley, who himself lived fast and died young 70 years too early for Warhol, has been extended until September 20.
Meanwhile, the Royal Academy is letting friends in from July 9 and the general public from a week later to see its Picasso and Paper show, which will run until August 2. Only five hours a day, four days a week, and you'll need to wear a face covering.
The Sainsbury Centre in Norwich is open to visitors again on July 7. Its Art Deco by the Sea show, looking at how the style shaped the British seaside between the wars, has been extended until September 20, while another exhibition examining Art Nouveau: The Nature of Dreams in its various manifestations across the West will now run until December 31. You can get a taster of the Art Deco show in a 15-minute video tour available on the BBC iPlayer. The Sainsbury is another venue asking its visitors to wear a mask.
It's by no means business as usual yet for museums and galleries on the Continent, but many are now open, and there are some attractive-looking exhibitions starting in July, albeit, in a few instances, rather later than originally planned.
At the Grand Palais in Paris, for example, Pompeii was due to get under way on March 27 but this immersive show finally sees the light of day on July 1, taking us back almost 2,000 years to when Vesuvius erupted and buried the city in AD 79. New archaeological finds and virtual reconstructions will be features of the exhibition. Pompeii's an eternally fascinating subject, as we saw at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford last year in an excellent show about what the Romans ate and drank. The Grand Palais exhibition runs until September 27.
If you're in the south of France, there's a different quality of light on offer: the searing sunlight of the Spanish summer as recorded by Joaquín Sorolla. The Hôtel de Caumont in Aix-en-Provence plays host to Joaquín Sorolla: Spanish Lights between July 10 and November 1. You can't better Sorolla for capturing the seaside and the glare of the afternoon sun, as we saw at the National Gallery last year.
At the Kunsthaus in Zurich, we go back a century to re-experience an era of rapid change in both art and society. Smoke and Mirrors: The Roaring Twenties looks at the spirit of innovation and wide variety of styles that developed following World War I, with work from Klee, Kandinsky, Le Corbusier and Christian Schad, among others. July 3 to October 11, with a further showing at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao due next year.
Highlighting 30 or so female Surrealists, Fantastic Women at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt has had very good reviews, and from July 25 it moves on to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art by the sea at Humlebaek, north of Copenhagen. Works by Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington and Meret Oppenheim are among some 250 exhibits in a show that runs until November 8. And tickets to Danish museums are half-price until August 9.
Last chance to see....
Sadly we haven't been able to get to many exhibitions this year, but the Edward Hopper show at the Fondation Beyeler, just outside Basel, is near the top of the list of those we have seen. Focusing on his landscapes, and with the added bonus of a video homage by Wim Wenders to the cinematic nature of Hopper's pictures, it's still on until July 26.Images
Titian, Danae, probably 1554-56, Wellington Collection, Apsley House, London. © Stratfield Saye Preservation Trust
Aubrey Beardsley, The Yellow Book Volume I, 1894, Stephen Calloway. Photo: © Tate
Thomas Martine Ronaldson, Summer, 1928. © Manchester Art Gallery
Recreation of street in Pompeii with view of Vesuvius. © Gedeon Programmes
Thomas Martine Ronaldson, Summer, 1928. © Manchester Art Gallery
Recreation of street in Pompeii with view of Vesuvius. © Gedeon Programmes
Joaquín Sorolla, María on the Beach at Biarritz, or Backlight, Biarritz, 1906, Museo Sorolla, Madrid. © Photograph Museo Sorolla, Madrid
Christian Schad, Maika, 1929, Private collection. © Christian Schad Stiftung Aschaffenburg/2020 ProLitteris, Zurich
Kay Sage, At the Appointed Time, 1942, Newark Museum of Art, Bequest of Kay Sage Tanguy, 1964. © Estate of Kay Sage/VISDA 2020
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