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...
If you want a great view of London, there's always been one place to go: Greenwich Hill . Where else then, to depict the distant towers and spires of the City about a dozen years after the Great Fire of 1666 that razed so much of it, with a windmill on the heights of Highgate or Hampstead. These days, your eyes might be drawn more to the right, to the towers of Canary Wharf. This painting, attributed to the Dutch painter Johannes Vorsterman (or maybe Vorstermans ), is the opening image in The Architecture of London , a show at the Guildhall Art Gallery in the heart of the City that's sometimes quite fascinating, at other times a little bit on the dull side. This isn't really an exhibition full of great paintings, but it demonstrates both how London has changed down the years as well as how artists have interpreted one of the greatest cities in the world. That's not to say there aren't some big names. Such as the master of the cityscape himself, Canaletto, makin...