Britain's 2005 Cultural Bonanza

This is going to be another good year for visiting culture vultures. As might be expected London has a plethora of interesting exhibitions lined up.

The year started off with a bang at the Royal Academy. Turks; A Journey of a Thousand Years, celebrates the rich cultural heritage of the once powerful Ottoman Empire whose influence once stretched from the embattled bastions of Europe to the waters of the Nile in Africa, and the Orient. The exhibition explores the development of Ottoman influence throughout the Levant with a cornucopia of historical riches and craftsmanship; carpets, tapestries, manuscripts, calligraphy, and some unexpectedly vibrant and compelling art.

In March we are promised another Academy blockbuster exhibition with Matisse; His Art and His Textiles, followed by an exhibition of French Impressionists in June. Elsewhere in the R.A., the annual Summer Exhibition will bring together a potpourri of fine art and sculpture from a cross section of the British art scene from early June through August.

The British Museum has delved deep into its vaults for its year long exhibition Africa 05. The curators have brought out into the light some of the Museum's remarkable repository of African treasures garnered from that unhappy continent in the course of British exploration and empire building during the 19th century, when France, Germany, Belgium and Britain vied for colonial supremacy there.

Across the Thames at their South Bank gallery, the Haywood adds an interesting comment to the British Museum exhibition with Africa Remix; an exuberantly colourful show of the contemporary African art scene.

Over at the National Gallery fronting onto the new Trafalgar Square piazza we have two exiting exhibitions to look forward to. In February it opens its doors for an exhibition exploring the later years of the impassioned painter Caravaggio. Later, in the autumn the Gallery celebrates the work of Rubens in what will surely be the definitive exhibition of this great master's work: Rubens; From Italy to Antwerp.

Tate Britain celebrates 2005 with two blockbuster exhibitions comparing trios of artists that will surely draw the crowds. In May we shall see Turner, Whistler, Monet and in October Degas, Sickert, Toulouse-Lautrec .

North of the border in Edinburgh, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art opens its doors to an exhibition of the work of Francis Bacon, (June 4), while the Royal Scottish Academy mounts a strong exhibition of the work of Gauguin, examining the artist's work in the context of his contemporaries, (6 July).

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