If you're thinking about seeing Wright of Derby: From the Shadows at the National Gallery in London, be warned: There's not a huge amount to this show. The gallery describes it as "the first major exhibition dedicated to the British artist’s 'candlelight' paintings". Major? There are actually only 10 of Joseph Wright's oil paintings in this smallish display, and while they certainly include some of his finest, it's not a lot for your money. Especially as the star attraction is An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump , Wright's masterpiece of 1768, which you can usually see for free just yards away in another room in the gallery, in rather less cramped circumstances. Without a shadow of a doubt, it's an astonishing painting, somehow encapsulating the 18th-century Enlightenment -- the advance of reason and science -- in one image. Whenever we're in the National Gallery we almost always stop by to look at it for a minute or two. There is...
A big theme to start us off this month at London's Royal Academy. Entangled Pasts, 1768-Now: Art, Colonialism and Change brings together more than 100 contemporary and historic artworks to examine empire and slavery. Joshua Reynolds, John Singleton Copley and JMW Turner on the one hand, Lubaina Himid, Yinka Shonibare and John Akomfrah on the other. It's on from February 3 to April 28. Also at the RA, in a free display from February 17, is Flaming June , Frederic Leighton's masterpiece, a sensuous artwork that's absolutely stunning when you see it in the flesh, as it were, even if you don't normally much like Victorian painting. Usually housed in a museum in Puerto Rico, it's on show alongside others by Leighton and his contemporaries and works that inspired him. No rush, it can be seen till January 12 next year. There'll be less classical drapery and a lot more contemporary modishness on display in Sargent and Fashion at Tate Britain from February 22. Jo...