A Room With a View: Art hounds curious about the history of landscape painting had a major treat with Monet, Renoir and the Impressionist Landscape, which showed at the National Art Gallery. The exhibit began with "the origins of the Impressionist landscape in the 1850s and 1860s, including early work by Claude Monet in the spirit of the Realist landscape style. It then explored the development of the genre in the 1870s to 1890s, represented by an outstanding group of paintings by Boudin, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, and Cézanne." The exhibition offered viewers the chance to see the work of a particularly influential group of painters over an extended period of time. Yummy.

On a Smaller Scale: While there were plenty of big shows crossing the country, many art lovers claimed that the true jewel of the year was Los Disparates, a series of prints by Francisco Goya. Considered to be the father of Modern Art, Goya started painting at the tail end of the Baroque period. Rather than follow the rules of his predecessors, Goya took a different tact. He decided to express what he was thinking and feeling frankly; and nowhere is this searing insight more apparent than his print series Los Disparates (The Follies). Completed in 1816, the series reflects an intense personal pessimism, as well as addressing the "civil and social chaos of 19th century Spain and provide a disturbing commentary on human nature. Each of the 18 etchings depicts isolated figures in dark, often nightmarish landscapes. While some plates appear harmlessly satirical, others depict gruesome monsters or attacks on innocents." Brilliant work, marvelously rendered.

Big Stinks: What would the art world be without a little controversy. In Toronto, it was generated by the Moose on the Loose, a lowbrow public art project that was supposed to generate tourism in the city. Look at the picture, and need I say more? Scuttlebutt claims that they're going to auctioning off the little critters next month. I wonder who's going to buy them? Will they be scaring bears in tony cottage country? Actually I'm going to miss the moose. To my mind, any kind of interest in art in a city that beats by the Bay Street fiscal pulse is a welcome addition. On the west coast, the Vancouver Art Gallery board tried to foist a Bryan Adams photo exhibit on the unsuspecting public back in April, leading to director Alf Bogusky's resignation, much infighting in the city's art community ... and then the subsequent resignations of a number of VAG board of directors. It took almost the full year to find a replacement for Bogusky, but last week's announcement that an American would fill the post is starting to annoy Vancouverites. More on this in 2001, I'm sure.

Keep on Rockin in the Art World! The biggest rock news in the art world was the giant Joni Mitchell exhibit at the Mendel Gallery in the singer's hometown of Saskatoon. The Mendel showed a comprehensive retrospective of Mitchell's career as a painter. Mitchell has always maintained that painting is what makes her happy, even though music is what made her rich and famous. Any of the major galleries in L.A. or N.Y. would have been thrilled to debut this show (it will tour next year to major cities), but the fact that Mitchell agreed to open in her hometown says volumes about the gal. This exhibit put the Mendel gallery on the map, after decades of fine work promoting the best of Canadian contemporary art. A real win-win show that opened a lot of eyes.

My Personal Favourites:

Best Idea: Kudos to OCAD instructor and painter Catherine Beaudette for putting together the Loop collective. Beaudette and her partner rented a storefront, got a group of artists together and have been showing new work by mid-career artists once a month over the course of the last year. Not every show has been stellar, but Loop's a great idea from an indefatigable supporter of the arts. (Plus she's a durned fine painter too.)

Best Show: Double Cross: The Hollywood Films of Douglas Gordon wins hands down. If you want to know more, check out the review. I can't get this Scot's work out of my mind. He's completely turned me on to the perplexities of video installation.

Second Best Show: Holly King at the Leo Kamen Gallery came in a close second. King manipulates the photographic medium, adding elements of sculpture and landscape painting to create the eeriest and simultaneously most beautiful photographs I saw all year. Some pieces were reminiscent of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. Others evoked Turner. And several made me feel like I was creeping about Shakespeare's magical garden in A Midsummer Night's Dream, expecting to see Puck peek out at any moment.

Got anything to add? What was your favourite exhibit of the new millennium? Come on, share with the group in our Visual arts forum

More from our year-end review:

Fine Tuning: You'd think that broadcasters would realize that anybody watching TV on Dec. 25 isn't sitting down to a big turkey dinner and would probably prefer to escape the seasonal depression disorder with some non-Christmas entertainment. But most of the TV sked is packed tonight with syrupy seasonal fare. Thank goodness for CBC Newsworld, which is airing repeats of Castaway 2000 (a cold, miserable British version of Survivor, 8 p.m. ET), and Canada: A People's History (first five episodes, running every night this week, 10 p.m. ET).