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...
The big new show in London this month is Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance at the Victoria & Albert Museum, starting on February 11. Donatello created a revolution in sculpture in 15th-century Florence, and this show, with some 130 objects, includes much work that has never been seen in the UK before. It's the last in a series of interlinked exhibitions following shows in Florence and Berlin that were highly praised. On until June 11. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford takes us to ancient Crete beginning on February 10 for Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth & Reality . The palace of Knossos was the centre of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization, and legend had it that an enormous labyrinth was built there to hold the Minotaur, a creature half-man, half-bull. This exhibition includes more than 100 objects that have never left Greece before as well as two immersive experiences. It runs until July 30. Curiously, the new show at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is also about the a...