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...
There's no denying the attraction of the light and warmth of the south. Just look at Pierre Bonnard at Tate Modern: all those gorgeous yellows and oranges and ochres. Granted, the weather's rather less congenial in northern Europe, but when the sun or the moon is right, or there's snow on the ground, that northern light can be just as bright and fascinating for the artist, just as seductive, as the Mediterranean. Not convinced? Get down to Dulwich Picture Gallery and discover Harald Sohlberg: Painting Norway . Because Norwegian painting isn't just The Scream . Edvard Munch's world-famous image isn't the painting that defines the nation. That picture is by Sohlberg; it's called Winter Night in the Mountains , and it forms the climax of this superb exhibition in south-east London. There won't have been many Britons who will have known anything at all about Sohlberg before learning of this show. After all, who in continental Europe knows about LS Lowry...