What a lot of new exhibitions this October! We list well over 20 across Europe below -- many more than usual -- and have still had to leave out quite a few that we'd mention in most other months in order to keep this post to a reasonable length. Let's start at the Royal Academy in London with deep blue seas, cloudless skies, intense light and the heat of the sun. From October 2 to January 31, you can experience the excitement Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and many others felt while Painting the French Riviera . The exhibition features more than 160 exhibits from the 1870s to the 1960s, and a version of the show travels on to the Cleveland Museum of Art in March. Hmm, Renoir. Now perhaps seen as the most chocolate-boxy of the Impressionists, but without doubt the creator of some of the most recognisable images in French art of the late 19th century. Well worth stealing , and clearly the National Gallery is on to a winner with its Renoir and Love ex...
Portraits of Dogs: From Gainsborough to Hockney -- now that's a very good notion for an exhibition in dog-loving Britain. In reality, however.... The Wallace Collection in London has borrowed more than 50 works to put its idea into practice. Unfortunately, a good quarter of those are by Sir Edwin Landseer. So, if you really like twee, gooey, unsubtle 19th-century paintings of dogs pretending to be people or populating Queen Victoria's sitting room, you'll love it. Now, it's not as if Landseer -- creator of The Monarch of the Glen -- wasn't a highly skilled artist with a deep understanding of animal anatomy and behaviour. It's just that he produced loads of mawkish kitsch , presumably because that was what his sentimental Victorian patrons wanted. And there are a dozen of those Landseers here, coming at you round every corner . But then there's also this Landseer: A Saluki Dog . The Saluki , prized by the hunters of the Middle East, with a long history (...