This morning, the Royal Academy of Arts announced its exhibition programme for 2013. With such a remarkable year behind it, including the blockbuster David Hockney exhibition, expectations for the coming year’s exhibitions are high. So what can art lovers look forward to?

The 2013 programme will be a world tour of art, with exhibitions by artists from Japan, France, USA, Mexico  and Australia, as well as the UK. Upcoming exhibitions include:

• Constable, Gainsborough, Turner and the Making of Landscape: Explore the development of British landscape painting through work by three of the greatest British landscape painters. 8 Dec-17 Feb
• Mariko Mori: Rebirth: A solo exhibition of work by New York-based Japanese artist Mariko Mori, showing sequential work centred on the death and birth of a star. Includes photography, sound work, sculpture and immersive installations.13 Dec-17 Feb
• Manet: Portraying Life: A major exhibition of Edouard Manet’s portraiture, examining the relationship between his portrait painting and themes of modern life. 26 Jan-14 Apr
• George Bellows (1882-1925): The first ever retrospective of American realist painter George Bellows. Although not well known in the UK, at the time of his death he was considered to be one of the greatest American artists. 16 Mar- 9 Jun
• Mexico: A Revolution in Art, 1910-1940: An exhibition examining the intense 30 year period of artist creativity that took place in Mexico at the beginning of the 20th Century. 6 Jul-29 Sep
• Australia: A survey covering 200 years of Australian art, including more than 180 paintings, prints, drawings, watercolours, photographs and multimedia works. 21 Sep- 8 Dec

Find out more about the exhibitions

The play is split into 23 short scenes, fragments of the artist’s memories, much like a retrospective exhibition. The mesmerising Dido’s Lament begins and concludes each half of the play. Other musical excerpts are used throughout, and are mostly appropriate, although occasionally reminded me of the Famous Five storybooks on cassette!

We meet Turner as a young man in 1799, obsessive and strange, as he is starting out his career as an artist.  Lenkiewicz decides to focus on the artist’s emotions and reactions, only touching on his fascinating body of work a little. Turner’s painful relationship with his vicious mother and his awkwardness with women dominates much of the story. He is loved but seems unable to love anything apart from the glorious seascapes and landscapes that he paints. It’s a moving account with strong performances from the whole cast.

As we left, a brave girl stood by the door playing the accordion and singing a lilting Edith Piaf song with great gusto. It was beautiful, and a lovely end to a very memorable evening. I wish the new Arcola the best of luck and look forward to visiting again when they have the central heating working!

The Painter continues until 12 February 2011, book tickets here.

The Royal Academy’s Treasures from Budapest: European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele opens on Saturday and I went along for a sneak preview.

The stunning exhibition is composed of work from one of the finest art collections in Central Europe, The Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, along with loans from the Hungarian National Gallery. Many of the pieces were collected by the Esterházy family, who’s various generations developed the collected works.

The tremendous breath of work includes religious painting, mythological work, landscapes and contemporary masterpieces. Among the 200 works are paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Claude Monet, Egon Schiele, Rembrandt and Pablo Picasso, covering treasures from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries.

Standing in front of a wall which sees Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Bridge at Argenteuil, and Monet’s Three Fishing Boats next to Hungarian artist Mihály Munkácsy’s Dusty Road II, curator Professor David Ekserdijan said:

“The relationships between artists most of us are very familiar with, such as Monet, Renoir, [Eduoard] Manet and [Camille] Pissarro, and the Hungarian artists will prove very fascinating for everybody.”

This statement sums the exhibition up to a tee. It’s a captivating mix of work by the Old Masters, latter-day European greats, and Hungarian artists who have incorporated the styles of these artists into their own work. For example, you only need to glance at Munkácsy’s Dusty Road II to see the J.M.W. Turner influences.

Highlights of the exhibition include the striking Peter Paul Rubens’ Mucius Scaevola before Lars Porsena, Schiele’s erotic Two Women Embracing, and detailed chalk sketches by Leonardo da Vinci. Arguably the greatest work, however, is Raphael’s Esterházy Madonna, a stunning example of Renaissance painting at its finest.

Treasures from Budapest: European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele opens on Saturday until 12 Dec.

Last week, Tate Britain re-opened its Clore Galleries following a major re-hang of its Romantics collection.

We couldn’t think of a better showcase for Great Britain in our World In London series than this stunning collection, featuring more than 170 paintings exploring British romantic art.

JMW Turner, John Constable, William Blake and Samuel Palmer are among the greats whose work is on display and entry is completely free.

You can even see a few romantic representations of London as I spotted a painting of Greenwich Park by Turner and of Hampstead Heath by Constable.

Romantics at Tate Britain until 31 December 2012

Do you have any other suggestions for seeing something classically British in London? Add your thoughts to the comments below.