The Snowman has become an integral part of the British Christmas, with its come-to-life hero taking a small dressing-gowned boy for an adventure Walking in the Air . It's a 20th-century equivalent of Charles Dickens's tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim. When The Snowman 's creator, Raymond Briggs, applied to go to art school at the age of 15, his interviewer was horrified to hear that he wanted to be a cartoonist. Today, he might be even more horrified to find out about Bloomin' Brilliant: The Life and Work of Raymond Briggs at the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft in East Sussex. Briggs, who died two years ago, lived just a mile down the road from Ditchling, in the shadow of the South Downs. This joyful celebratory show looks back on a 60-year career that also gave us Fungus the Bogeyman , Father Christmas , When the Wind Blows and the story of his parents, Ethel and Ernest . Cartoons, picture books, graphic novels, for children perhaps, but actual
William Hogarth -- now there's a painter you think of as British through and through, flag-wavingly so. Just look at a painting such as 'O the Roast Beef of Old England'. So an exhibition entitled Hogarth and Europe at Tate Britain in London has something of a curious ring to it. Starting on November 3, it aims to show how Hogarth's portrayal of a rapidly changing British society in the mid-18th century was echoed by painters on the Continent, such as Francesco Guardi in Venice, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin in France and Cornelis Troost in Holland. Until March 20.
For an early pioneer of pan-European art, look no further than Albrecht Dürer. Dürer's Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist at the National Gallery from November 20 follows the master painter from Nuremberg on his trips to the Low Countries and across the Alps, spreading his own reputation and exchanging ideas with his Dutch and Italian counterparts. The first major Dürer exhibition in the UK for nearly two decades, it's on until February 27. It's been put together in collaboration with the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen, and the version that was on display there over the past few months had excellent reviews in the German press.
Dürer died in 1528. At about the same time, the Spanish were just setting out on their conquest of the Inca Empire centred in modern-day Peru. Starting on November 11 at the British Museum, Peru: A Journey in Time looks back at 4,000 years of the history of the country before the Spaniards arrived. It examines the beliefs and cultural achievements of the civilisations that lived there and their legacy on subsequent generations. With many artefacts on loan from Peru, the show runs until February 20.
The new exhibition at the V&A is Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution. Starting on November 20, the show will look at how the Russian goldsmith Carl Fabergé came to international prominence, winning patrons among the Russian imperial and foreign royal families, and how he came to set up a branch in London in 1903. Highlights will include a selection of the fabulous Easter Eggs crafted for the Romanovs in the years before the Tsar was deposed by the Russian Revolution. Until May 8.
And one final show this month in a rare London-only list: Paul McCartney has a new book coming out in November recounting his life and career through his lyrics, and to coincide with the publication, there's a free display in the British Library from November 5 of a selection of highlights from the words and photographs. Paul McCartney: The Lyrics runs until March 13.
Images
Albrecht Dürer, Saint Jerome, 1521, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon. © Instituto Portugues de Museus, Minstero da Cultura, Lisbon
Fabergé, The Moscow Kremlin Egg, 1906. © The Moscow Kremlin Museums
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