Christopher Allen

We take it for granted today that artistic styles change and succeed each other as inevitably as the seasons, or the times of day. But this is not always the case. In tribal cultures, nothing changes from millennium to millennium; repetition is the rule and continuity is the priority. Even among advanced civilisations, consistency is generally valued above innovation; in Egypt the canons of sculptural proportion and the conventions of painting remained identical for thousands of years.

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J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851), who was born 250 years ago, remains the most influential painter that Britain has ever produced; indeed his pre-eminence has only become clearer in the last generation or so, with the rediscovery of the idea of the sublime at the end of last century. It is clear as soon as you walk into the vast room filled with contemporary works inspired by Turner’s vision that opens the impressive exhibition at the Gippsland Art Gallery, another example of the aesthetic and scholarly ambition to be found in Victorian regional galleries.

Art history is not a discipline separate from history in the broader sense, let alone a genteel pastime disconnected from the great themes of social development. In fact, if the greatest theme in the story of humanity is the character of different cultures and civilisations, the history of art, literature and music – as Jacob Burckhardt was one of the first to understand in the 19th century – offers perspectives at least as profound as those we gain from the study of military, economic and diplomatic history.

Why isn’t this important exhibition being shown at the NGV?

Creative Australia’s word salad defence can’t hide its failures

Eric Smith: The Metaphysics of Paint, Macquarie University Art Gallery, Sydney, until August 1.

The Archibald judges never fail to surprise in their instinct for mediocrity. It wasn’t clear which picture they would settle on as this year’s winner; they tend not to choose the most photographically vulgar works — they leave those to the packing room — nor the more grotesque outsider pieces.

Review of: Cao Fei: My City is Yours, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, until April 14.

The Renaissance, as a wall label in Reimagining the Renaissance reminds us, began in Italy six centuries ago but its historiography has evolved across this time and especially from the second half of the 19th century, when it became an academic subject in the resurgent universities of western Europe and Britain. (Universities had relatively little intellectual traction in the Enlightenment and are perhaps losing ground again today except in the hard sciences.)