The Bayeux Tapestry exhibition at the British Museum starts on September 10; it's already sold out for this year but booking for the rest of the run, from January 1 through to July 11, will open on October 21. If you've never seen this most breathtaking of historical artefacts, you may want to seize the chance before it leaves London next year for its permanent home in Normandy, which will have been renovated during its absence. At Southampton City Art Gallery, we're promised an extensive exhibition of British art from the first half of the 20th century, drawing on the museum's own substantial holdings and those of the Ingram Collection . Running from September 26 to February 21, Art Then! British Painting, Sculpture and Drawing, 1910-1960 will feature artists including Barbara Hepworth, Gwen John , Paul Nash and Eric Ravilious. There might not be much new on in London this month, but we'll always have Paris. Starting at the Musée Jacquemart-André with Time...
The first work you encounter by Dieric Bouts is a pretty gruesome one. It's a triptych depicting the martyrdom of St Erasmus. The saint lies tied to a board, looking remarkably stoic considering his intestines are being wound out of him by two men straining at a windlass. His bishop's mitre can be seen at the bottom left of the central panel. Four men oversee the torture, the central figure gorgeously attired in a fur-trimmed green-and-gold coat, his gaze directed to the incision in Erasmus's stomach. This frightful subject matter is beautifully laid out, precisely drawn and bursting with colour. Your average visitor to St Peter's Church in Leuven 550 years ago might not have been able to read, but in Bouts's painting they could take in the story of Erasmus in one powerful image. Thus begins Dieric Bouts: Creator of Images at M Leuven. Bouts lived and worked in this Flemish university city in the late 15th century, a generation or so behind those founding f...