You may have noticed that it's the 250th anniversary of John Constable's birth this year, while JMW Turner was born 250 years ago last year and Thomas Gainsborough's 300th birthday falls in 2027. Put them all together and you get Gainsborough, Turner and Constable: Inventing Landscape at Gainsborough's House in Sudbury, Suffolk. This show, running from April 25 to October 11, explores the emergence of English landscape painting through three of its greatest exponents, and it features mostly rarely seen works from private collections -- including Turner's Abergavenny Bridge , which hasn't been on public display since 1799! Meanwhile, the show that's just been on at Gainsborough's House -- Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk -- transfers to the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham, Berkshire, starting on April 4. On till November 1, the exhibition explores the pivotal role the time Spencer spent in Suffolk had on his career. You can read he...
We're starting in London this month with a double helping of Renaissance Italy: From November 9, the Royal Academy has Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c. 1504 , when the three briefly crossed paths in the Tuscan city. While sculpture and painting feature in this display of more than 40 works, the emphasis appears to be very much on creations on paper, as it is in Drawing the Italian Renaissance at the King's Gallery, which opens on November 1. This show, which also includes Titian, promises the widest range of drawings dating from around 1450 to 1600 ever to be displayed in the UK, with about 160 by more than 80 artists. The RA exhibition closes February 16, that in the King's Gallery on March 9. As the Renaissance in southern Europe was coming to an end, a new Golden Age was starting in India, that of the Mughal Emperors. The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence at the Victoria and Albert Museum will display paintings, jewellery, clothing and more ...