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Showing posts with the label Christen Købke

Very Rich Hours in Chantilly

It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience: the chance to see one of the greatest -- and most fragile -- works of European art before your very eyes. The illustrated manuscript known as the  Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry contains images that have shaped our view of the late Middle Ages, but it's normally kept under lock and key at the Château de Chantilly, north of Paris. It's only been exhibited twice in the past century. Now newly restored, the glowing pages of  Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry are on show to the public for just a few months. "Approche, approche," the Duke of Berry's usher tells the visitors to the great man's table for the feast that will mark the start of the New Year. It's also your invitation to examine closely the illustration for January, one of the 12 months from the calendar in this Book of Hours -- a collection of prayers and other religious texts -- that form the centrepiece of this exhibition in Chantilly.  It's su...
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Opening in September

We're going to start our September preview in Paris, where an absolute stunner of an exhibition is set to open belatedly at the Petit Palais: The Golden Age of Danish Painting . That Golden Age lasted for just over 60 years from the start of the 19th century when artists such as Christen Købke expressed a growing national pride in works of precision and clarity tinged with romanticism. We got to see this fabulous show early last year at the National Museum in Stockholm. It's on in Paris from September 22 to January 3, and if you get the chance to go, don't hesitate. A few minutes walk away, at the Musée de l'Orangerie,  Giorgio de Chirico: Metaphysical Painting opens on September 16. De Chirico's enigmatic art from the first two decades of the 20th century draws on the German Romantics and prefigures the Surrealists. After it closes on December 14 it will transfer to the Kunsthalle in Hamburg early next year. If you head down the Seine from Paris to the Musé...
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Opening and Closing in August

August is normally a quiet month for new shows, but there are two exhibitions moving on this month to fresh locations that really deserve to be highlighted. At the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, the doors open on August 10 on Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light . Joaquín Sorolla is best known for his impressionistic light-filled paintings of the Spanish coast, but as the previous version of this show at the National Gallery in London demonstrated, he produced masterpieces of social realism and portraiture too. The Dublin show looks to be smaller than London's, with 50 or so works, but the best of Sorolla's work is remarkable. Until November 3. And if you're visiting Madrid at any point, Sorolla's atmospheric house and studio, now the Museo Sorolla , has a great selection of his paintings and is well worth a visit. Our tip, though, is to go somewhere less scorching in August. Copenhagen, for example. Because the best exhibition we've seen all year has f...
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Opening and Closing in July

Olafur Eliasson is one of the biggest names in contemporary art, and Tate Modern in London is staging the most comprehensive British exhibition of the Icelander's work to date starting on July 11. Of the more than 30 works on show, from paintings and sculptures to large-scale installations, only one has been seen in the UK before. Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life runs until January 5. Over at the Royal Academy, it's time to welcome another Nordic artist, but one you may never have heard of. The RA describes Helene Schjerfbeck  (1862-1946) as one of Finland's best-kept secrets, and the show will trace a career that moved from early naturalism to highly abstracted late self-portraits. It's the first show about her in Britain and runs from July 20 to October 27. The Moon is a popular exhibition subject this year, the 50th anniversary of the first manned landing on Earth's nearest neighbour. The new show at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich aims to chart th...
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The Golden Years of Danish Painting

Denmark: We know what you're thinking when you hear about Denmark. You're thinking hygge , even if you don't quite know what it is. You're thinking Nordic noir . Or maybe you're just thinking pastries . But we're thinking about painting. Because for the past 200 years, the Danes have been pretty good, punching above their weight. There's Vilhelm Hammershøi , and the Skagen school. And before them, there was the Golden Age. We've just been to see to an absolutely stupendous, all-encompassing exhibition bringing together many of the masterpieces of The Danish Golden Age at the National Museum in Stockholm. It's possibly one of the best shows we've ever been to.... and we go to a lot. Danish art's finest years lasted for a little over half a century, bookended by two traumatic events: the British naval bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807 aimed at stopping the Danes throwing their lot in with Napoleon, and the loss of Schleswig-Holstein follo...
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Opening and Closing in February

It's the 500th anniversary this year of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, and to mark the occasion 144 drawings from the Royal Collection are being exhibited simultaneously in 12 museums across the UK. Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing  starts on February 1, with 12 works each on show at the Ulster Museum in Belfast,  Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery , Bristol Museum & Art Gallery , the National Museum in Cardiff, Derby Museum & Art Gallery , Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, Leeds Art Gallery , the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, Manchester Art Gallery , the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield, Southampton City Art Gallery  and Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens . Admission at most venues is free. Until May 6. All the drawings and more go on show at the Queen's Gallery in London starting in late May, with a selection at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh from November. For something completely different, head for the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Jeff Koons , ...
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