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...
The fabrics swirl, billow, ripple and cling.... the colours are gorgeous, the atmosphere often dreamlike. It is a feast for the eyes. We've come to see Evelyn De Morgan: The Modern Painter in Victorian London at the Guildhall Art Gallery in the very heart of the City. It's a bit of a misnomer, that title, because De Morgan's work doesn't really convey much of an impression of modernity, certainly not in the sense of late 19th-century technological and scientific progress. The style is reminiscent in many ways of the Pre-Raphaelites from earlier in the Victorian era, and Edward Burne-Jones in particular. But what was modern about Evelyn De Morgan was in fact the most obvious thing about her; she was a woman, in what was still a very male art world. Before we get into De Morgan's history, let's start with a painting to give a flavour of her art, and it's one of the most spectacular in this exhibition: The Storm Spirits . Just pause for a moment t...