Emphasis on Italy

Many of the standout shows focused on artists from-or inspired by-this sunny strip of Europe

- KAREN WILKIN

The most spectacular exhibition of the year is unquestionably "Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Jan. 26, 2025). Focusing on Siena's pre-eminent painters of the 14th century, Duccio di Buoninsegna, Simone Martini, Pietro Lorenzetti and his brother Ambrogio, the show reassembles and contextualizes long-separated, important works, including panels detached from Duccio's masterpiece, the "Maestá"-an enormous altarpiece with scenes from the life of Christ. We can savor Duccio's originality, noting the tender exchange between Mother and Child in all his Madonnas, and ponder his formation, thanks to a rigid Byzantine icon and a fluid little ivory Madonna, made in France, and brought to Siena by pilgrims. We can feast on biblical stories enacted by agile figures against gold grounds and stylized architecture. (Don't miss Simone's distraught Magdalen, in red, in the reunited sections of his Orsini polyptych.) And much, much more. The never-to-be-repeated assembly of stellar works expands our knowledge of early Renaissance painting and the world in which it was made. Repeat visits required.