The best shows, the biggest news – the year in art

Top exhibitions of 2011 Leonardo da Vinci : Painter at the Court of Milan This is not the definitive Leonardo da Vinci exhibition simply because there can be no such thing. It is a great show because it is passionate and honest – curator Luke Syson comes out from behind the mask of objective scholarship and champions the Leonardo he personally loves. It is a beautiful event that will inspire many people to look in new and rich ways at this supreme artist. • At National Gallery, London WC2N, until 5 February 2012 Gerhard Richter: Panorama There are some easy cliched views of this powerful modern painter . He debunks painting, he blurs photographic certainties, he rejects the metaphysical. None of those pat explanations of his art survive this brilliant retrospective that reveals the abundance and curiosity of his approach . It is simply a stupendous encounter with an exemplary artist of our time. • At Tate Modern, London SE1, until 8 January 2012 Martin Creed The throwaway luxury of providing many-coloured marble stairs for drinkers and shoppers and tourists to tread on their way between Edinburgh's Old Town and Waverley Station is a daring piece of public art. So modest that it almost refuses to be art at all, and so generous that it serves as a utopian call for a better civic life, this is a radical and beautiful work. • At the Scotsman Steps, Edinburgh The Cult of Beauty The stuffy old Victorians, you say? Actually they were hedonists, experimentalists and decadent subversives, according to this mind-changing revelation of 19th-century cultural daring . The V&A's resurrection of the Aesthetic Movement was a remarkable event that blew away the cobwebs from the age of Ruskin and Morris. • At V&A, London SW7 Joan Miró In an excellent run of exhibitions at Tate Modern, this was a dazzling jewel of abstract energy. It strove to see Miró as a deeply political artist which is fair enough, but the glory of the exhibition lay in seeing his evolution from an intense visionary of his native Catalan landscapes to a free poetic dreamer of the minds's remote voids. • At Tate Modern, London SE1 Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters It was not the perfect Twombly exhibit but this comparison of the great American painter's sensuous lyrics of misty pigment with the classicism of Poussin was fated to become a historic event. Cy Twombly died during its run and the show, in a gallery designed by John Soane that includes a mausoleum, gave those of us who loved his paintings a place to mark the passing of a giant. • At Dulwich Picture Gallery, London SE21 The story of art in 2011 Ai Weiwei was detained in China , and fans came to his aid with money and nudity Leonardo was a sold out showstopper , with Lady with an Ermine, two Virgins of the Rocks, winding queues and threats of staff strikes Tanks and candlemen melting into eternity turned heads at the Venice Biennale Martin Boyce took the Turner , and Charles Saatchi castigated the art world Tracey Emin had a hit show looking back , and got a new job at the Royal Academy to look forward to We lost some of the art world's biggest wave-makers – Lucian Freud , Richard Hamilton and Cy Twombly Miró and Magritte brought fans of fine lines and floating bankers flocking to London and Liverpool New art spaces were named after old stars – Hepworth and Turner – the Scottish Portrait Gallery reopened, and we celebrated 10 years of free museum entry What to look forward to in 2012 Yoko Ono uploading the world's smiles for a summer Serpentine show Seeing Lucian Freud's final portrait at the National Portrait Gallery Two new Frieze weeks English National Ballet taking up residence at the Tate alongside Picasso Liverpool welcoming the Water Lilies to these shores The Hayward getting hilarious with Jeremy Deller and David Shrigley Seeing the Bigger Picture with David Hockney at Royal Academy Damien Hirst's crystal skull filling the Tate Turbine Hall during the London Olympics