The Independent Recommends: The Five Best Shows

Monet in the 20th Century (Royal Academy)

The gardens and ponds at Giverny dissolve into elemental visions: fiery lights, haze, liquid reflections, voids and depths. The strange last works of Impressionism. To 18 Apr

Andreas Gursky (Serpentine Gallery)

Photographs 1994-98: wide-vision, high-finish, micro-detailed vistas of our world - stock-exchange floor, cityscape, airport, alpine valley - images filled with more than the eye can see. To 7 Mar

Bridget Riley (Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal)

Retrospective of the top British abstractionist's career, from shimmering monochromes to colour, stripes, diagonals, and curves (right). To 31 Jan

Disasters of War (Wolverhampton Art Gallery)

Three ages of war through etchings by Goya, Jacques Callot and Otto Dix. Black-and-white visions from the blackest of times. To 20 Mar

Willie Doherty (MOMA, Oxford)

Contemporary Irish artist, using photos and video to reflect on the imagery of terror and security - the road-block, the surveillance camera... To 4 Apr