Manet: Portraying Life

With exhibitions of masterly paintngs by Murillo and Barocci on offer in London from February, the best that The Royal Academy of Arts can come up with for its Spring biggy is boring old Edouard Manet. And it is demanding £15 from adults and £14 from silver surfers for admission! Daylight robbery! Manet: Portraying Life - the first retrospective devoted to the portraiture of Edouard Manet - opens on 26 January and limps along until 14 April. (CLICK for a third-rate video with faltering soundtrack.) Above is Manet's Portrait of M. Antonin Proust (1880) borrowed from the National Gallery of Art in Washington.