Exhibition of the week Courtauld Impressionists: from Manet to Cézanne

National Gallery, London WC2 (020-7747 2885, nationalgallery.org.uk). Until 20 January 2019

London’s Courtauld Gallery boasts one of the most astonishing hoards of impressionist and postimpressionist paintings in existence, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. And while the Courtauld’s premises in Somerset House are closed for renovation, highlights from this “sensational” collection will be on view down the road at the National Gallery, sharing wall space with that museum’s own “superb” holdings (many of them bought with funds donated by the textile magnate Samuel Courtauld). The result is a “coming together of two of the world’s best collections of 19th century French art” – a “blinding array” of brilliant paintings, from Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-bergère (1882) – surely “the greatest masterpiece of modern art” – to Seurat’s stunning pointillist scenes, to a clutch of “phenomenal” late works by Cézanne. It is “a clever, insightful” show that “makes for a display that may actually be better than visiting the Musée d’orsay in Paris”. This is an “A-list exhibition” of truly “revolutionary” works.

It’s certainly a “gorgeous” display, said Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times. Among the wonders are “a wall full of Renoirs”; “a line of Manets”; Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières (1884) and Daumier’s timeless Don Quixote (c.1855). Yet for all the manifest brilliance of the work, it’s an oddly “muted” event. Key pictures are missing, and the hang is distinctly “awkward”. Gauguin’s “Nevermore [1897], to my eyes his best and most haunting Tahiti painting”, is presented here as part of a parade of Gauguins that “feel curiously flat”. The premise of this show makes my hackles “rise slightly”, said David Lister in The Times. Given that the Courtauld’s works so rarely travel, it’s a shame they were sent just “a few hundred yards down the same London street”. “Was there really nowhere in Newcastle, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff or Glasgow that could have exhibited these masterpieces?”

Still, this is a chance to see a world-class display which offers some thrilling new perspectives on the art of the era, said Laura Cumming in The Observer. “The paintings talk to each other”: it’s clear that Toulouse-lautrec borrowed from Degas, and that early Cézanne works owe much to Manet. You can enjoy the “blazing exhilaration” of Van Gogh’s A Wheatfield, with Cypresses (1889); a “uniquely withdrawn” Cézanne self-portrait; and a “sumptuous” Renoir depicting a “strawberry blonde in chemise and stockings”. “What strikes, above all, is the extraordinary variety of picture-making during this revolution in art.” What a great exhibition.

The former head of the British Museum picks his favourite books. He will talk about his new book, Living with the Gods, at the Cheltenham Literature Festival on Saturday 6 October (cheltenhamfestivals.com)

Sword of Honour by Evelyn Waugh, 1965 (Penguin £14.99). Waugh is surely the greatest writer of English prose in the 20th century. Short sentences. Razor-sharp. Wounding and side-splitting. A world in a few bitter words. This story of one man’s Second World War shows us life ruled not by ideals but self-interest and fake news. Could be about now.

A Dictionary of the English Language: an Anthology

by Samuel Johnson, 1755 (Penguin £14.99). Odd to read a dictionary, but this is much more: one man’s heroic attempt to capture the whole of the English language as it was

spoken in the 1750s. As he illustrates meaning through quotes, you join Johnson on his huge journey through English literature, on which he disses the Scots (we love it, really) and mocks himself. A page-turner.

Metroland by Julian Barnes, 1980 (Vintage £8.99). For anybody who grew up in the 1950s or 1960s this is compulsive, hilarious reading. Adolescent affectations, tremulous romance, seedy reality. Reliving it with distance (and with Barnes) is pure pleasure.

This is the great novel of the Biafran war, and one of the great books of post-colonial Africa. What does it mean to be a citizen of a state created by the British out of very different peoples? Can even the most sympathetic European understand the complexities of Nigeria?

Saki: The Complete Short

Stories 1976 (Penguin £10.99). No one has ever dissected the pretensions and hypocrisies of the British with such brutal precision or such sure-fire humour. The best remedy against moments of gloom, especially late at night is: read Saki.