Many historical exhibitions tend to be collections of whatever the museum in question can get their hands on, loosely united around a period, a theme, or the name of a famous artist. The exhibition that has just finished at the Bunkamura "Money and Beauty: Botticelli and the Renaissance in Florence" was rather like that. If done well, this approach can still provide an entertaining and interesting show, but much more satisfying is a concept like that behind the show at the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum.
Titled "Leonardo da Vinci and The Battle of Anghiari: The Mystery of Tavola Doria," it is both an exhibition of Renaissance art and something of a detective mystery that brings together the two biggest artistic names of that period — Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.
The "detective" part of the show is an attempt to reconstruct two expansive battle paintings that Leonardo and Michelangelo are known to have worked on, using a number of suggestive fragments, sketches and copies by other artists.