Where to celebrate this year's art anniversaries in Europe

Rembrandt 350th, Amsterdam

The Rijksmuseum is celebrating 350 years since the death of Rembrandt van Rijn displaying all of its 22 paintings, 60 drawings and 300 engravings. All the Rembrandts is an homage to most famous chronicler of the Dutch Golden Age of epic proportions. Be dazzled by the sartorial sumptuousness of The Jewish Bride (1665), see the artist age across multiple self-portraits and be overcome by the sublime chaos of his masterpiece The Nightwatch (1642).

Bauhaus 100th, Weimar

Simplicity, functionality, modernity - these were the tenets of the revolutionary art school founded by German architect Walter Gropius in 1919 known as the Staatliches Bauhaus. In April 2019, a new museum opened in Weimar, the movement's birth place, to house temporary and permanent displays from the world’s oldest Bauhaus collection. Marcel Breuer's angular Wassily chair and Alma Siedhoff-Buscher's building blocks for children are some of the revolutionary objects designed to promote new Modernist ways of living on display.

If you're having trouble putting aside a weekend for Weimar, then celebrate the Bauhaus centenary right here in Britain through a tour of Bauhaus landmarks in London.

Leonardo da Vinci 500th, Paris, Milan and London

Museums across Europe are showing off their da Vinci collections to mark the fifth centenary since the Italian master’s death. Milan’s Ambrosiana art gallery and library have been celebrating ‘the year of Leonardo’ since December 2018 with various displays featuring his groundbreaking civil engineering studies and drawings from the Codex Atlanticus.

Da Vinci die-hards will also be glad to know that they don’t need to travel abroad to bear witness to one of these landmark shows, but they will, however, have to wait until 2020. The Royal Collection Trust are exhibiting their collection of 200 da Vinci drawings across 12 cities in the UK, culminating in an exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery in London from 24 May 2020 to 13 October 2020.

The colossus of these exhibitions is promised by the Louvre, who aim to bring as many paintings attributed to da Vinci (there are reputedly only between 14 to 17) as possible to display alongside five of their paintings in autumn. These vastly differing exhibitions speak to da Vinci's various and virtuosic skills as a painter, architect, inventor, and scientist. Discover the multitudinous talents of the exemplary Renaissance man.

Prado 200th, Madrid

El Museo Nacional del Prado opened to the public on 19 November 1819. Now Spain's cultural cradle, the Prado is home to masterpieces by the illustrious pantheon of Spanish painters including Velázquez, Ribera, Goya, and El Greco as well as works by many of the greats of the Italian and Northern European Renaissance.

The museum are putting on a string of blockbuster exhibitions inviting you to celebrate its bicentenary. Highlights include Fra Angelico and the Rise of the Florentine Renaissance (28 May to 15 September) which focuses on key works by the early Italian innovator. Art and Myth. The Gods in the Prado explores depictions of classical mythology across the museum’s collection (on until 6 January 2020) and Giacometti in the Museo del Prado explores the museum’s influence on the great Swiss sculptor, positioning 20 of his loaned works alongside Prado treasures (2 April to 7 July).

Bruegel 450th, Belgium

Pieter Bruegel the Elder never forgot his humble beginnings as a farmer’s son, continuously depicting rustic scenes of Flemish peasant life throughout his career. Head to Belgium to celebrate 450 years since the death of one of the most important artists of the Northern European Renaissance. In the regal setting of the city's Palace of Charles of Lorraine, the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) highlights how Bruegel’s prints brought him widespread fame in the 16th century in The World of Bruegel in Black and White (15 October 2019 to 16 February 2020).

If you have ever had dreams of wandering amongst Bruegel's fairy-tale landscapes, head to the city's Hallepoort (The Halle Gate), a medieval defensive wall, for an immersive virtual reality experience that allows you to step into Bruegel's universe (22 June 2019 to 21 June 2020).

Courbet 200th, Ornans

If you're a hiker, a mountain biker, or a lover of French realist painting, you've probably heard of the town of Ornans in Eastern France. One of those picturesque ‘little Venices’, Ornans is celebrating the bicentenary of the birth of the painter Gustave Courbet, who was born in the town on the banks of the River Loue.

Courbet's birth home is now a museum holding 80 of the artist’s works. The Musée Courbet has organised a string of special exhibitions to honour the painter, including an exhibition comparing his works with those of the famed Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler, a contemporary of Courbet's (31 October 2019 to 5 January 2020). Adventure-seekers and art aficionados will find plenty of reason to visit this rural region near the French alps with Musée Courbet's special cultural programme and two bike races held in the painter's honour in August.