France's brilliant sextet

The politics are over and the art is here. The Royal Academy show which a month ago appeared doomed (until the British government capitulated - or found a solution, depending on your point of view) opens tomorrow. While some of the Russian work is dull and provincial, the show includes several French masterpieces that are simply stupendous. Run, don't walk - for that matter, hop on the next plane to London. To put it bluntly, compared with what you've seen in countless reproductions, seeing these works 'in the flesh' will be as different as reading about a famous person you admire and then sleeping with them. This is life-changing stuff. I have chosen six worth the entrance fee alone. Apart from Manet's Man in Bar, which belongs to the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, the other five can normally be found at the Hermitage in St Petersburg.
Martha Richler