Major Artists On Now in London

"The word 'visionary' is done to death but the 17th-century Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán demands it: he paints supernatural things naturally and natural things supernaturally. Space becomes different in his world, melting distance and erasing the barrier between you and the picture."

The Guardian

"In Anderson's work, the natural world is almost ominously abundant. Greenery seems to suffocate man-made structures, which often appear dilapidated – like ruined temples in a jungle. The sense of melancholy this generates is offset by the pleasure that Anderson evidently derives from manipulating paint. His compositions – some of which flirt, ingeniously, with abstraction – are awash with attractive blotches and drips."

The Telegraph

"For the past 50 years, Hockney has flitted between these two modes, returning occasionally from noodling to remind us of his gift for direct communication (see his portrait of the performer Divine, the affecting drawings of his ageing mother, or his paintings of the Yorkshire landscape in the 2000s). But, sad to report, it is to the late stages of the jazz tendency that most of this exhibition belongs."

The Guardian

"I've never been a huge Baselitz fan: I found the whole upside down painting thing an affectation and I would have happily fronted a campaign to have all his work shown the right way up so we can see what it's really about. I also think he churned out the same painting for decades. But this is brutally emotional stuff."

The Guardian

"Walking into Tate Modern's huge Tracey Emin retrospective is like walking in on her crying, naked, sobbing and snotty, as if you have stumbled into something painfully private. Don't come here looking for a good time – you won't find it. But come looking for pure, unapologetic, undiluted, full-frontal love, grief, heartache and sadness, and you will end up feeling more feelings than you've probably felt for years."

The Guardian

"The rounded, white plaster objects are cut open to reveal deep blue interiors that seem immemorial, although Hepworth has simply painted them. Across the blue illusionistic depths, red-painted strings are tautly fixed. The red strings might suggest seaweed if, like me, you can't get nature out of your head looking at these abstract yet evocative works."

The Guardian

"Escher, this utterly traditional artist, makes you see that we walk a world we don't understand. We are his funny little people, going up and down the stairs, thinking we ascend or descend when we're on the flat, propping up our everyday lives with cosy assumptions to hide from the infinite, the impossible real."

The Guardian

"And she is magnificent — not merely critically, but commercially. Brown is among the most expensive living female painters in the world, her canvases commanding prices that would make lesser talents weep. The market, for once, is not wrong."

The Standard

"Others (like me) may be put off by his somewhat patrician perspective: a landowner surveying a plot in which everyone is busy at work, driving cows or ploughing fields. This small show at Hampstead's Burgh House offers something like an olive branch to Constable haters."

The Guardian

"Then, in 1865, Whistler suddenly paints the sea as if it was a piece of silk decorated with white lace and a ribbon. Green and Grey, Channel is a stunning declaration of artistic independence. He takes the sea, the element humans can't control, the roaring theme of Turner's visions, and makes it a painterly plaything."

The Guardian

"In an era when art often seems content with small, dry efforts, Kapoor soaks the Hayward in the blood and guts of his unfettered imagination."

The Guardian

"Tate's blockbuster show about this rightly beloved artist asks how and why she became an "icon". But I've never seen an exhibition about how Picasso got famous or the cultural invention of Rembrandt. We know they are great artists and how they were historically recognised is for scholars."

The Guardian

"In parts of the show, Moore's love of natural forms seems to run counter to the Victorian splendour of Kew. One of his bone-like pieces, Three Piece Sculpture: Vertebrae (1968-69), sits in front of the Palm House. Moore's irregular, undulating tripartite form seems to echo – or mock – the pane-glass and wrought-iron symmetry of the older building."

The Telegraph

"That's the trouble with art. It may set out to change the world, as Le Parc and his pals in GRAV did, but ends up as entertainment. This is a very enjoyable exhibition but its revolutionary impulse gets lost in the light."

The Guardian