There's not a haystack, waterlily or cliff-face to be seen; you won't be gazing into the box at the theatre or contemplating steaming locomotives in the station, because we're not looking at the French Impressionists for a change; we've crossed the Rhine (literally; we flew into Strasbourg and took the train) to explore Impressionism in Germany: Max Liebermann and his Times at the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden. Yes, there are Caillebotte-like yachts and Renoir-style children, intimate interiors and cityscapes -- similar themes, though the treatment is often quite different -- but then there are also actors on the stage, Bible stories and views of orphanages, subjects the French never really tackled. Oh, and beer gardens. The three big names in this show are Max Slevogt, Lovis Corinth and above all Max Liebermann, the doyen of the German Impressionist movement. And a man with a passion for horticulture; Liebermann's garden on the outskirts of Berlin is as im...
London's Courtauld Gallery has just reopened after renovation, and its first big exhibition, Van Gogh: Self-Portraits , starts on February 3. This show -- the first to cover the full range of Vincent van Gogh's self-portraiture -- will bring together around half those he created over his short career: 16 of them, from his time in Paris in 1886 to his stay in the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in September 1889. It runs until May 8. At Tate Modern they're tackling another popular subject, surrealism, in the shape of Surrealism beyond Borders , which starts on February 24. The Tate says previous stories of surrealism have focused on Paris in the 20s -- not in our exhibition-going experience -- and that this one will rewrite the history of the genre, reaching across 50 years and looking at art in centres from Buenos Aires to Seoul. This show comes from the Met in New York; the New Yorker called it "deliriously entertaining", though the Wall Street Journal sai...