Elsewhere, though, there has been an unprecedented crop of high-quality exhibitions. Francis Bacon and Mark Rothko, real painters both, displayed the value of the moderns at London's two Tates; Hadrian and Babylon at the British Museum and Byzantium at the Royal Academy glitteringly represented the distant past; and the haunting Renaissance Faces at the National Gallery showed that pictures from art's most hallowed period still have the power to spring surprises.

The fact that these exhibitions are so special has rather obscured the presence of a clutch of other fine shows currently drawing to the end of their runs. If you have any gallery-going stamina left, several are well worth a visit. Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque: Aimé Maeght and his Artists at the Royal Academy (until 2 January) tells the story of the galeristes Aimé and Marguerite Maeght, whose support helped create some of the biggest names in postwar art. The title of the exhibition is somewhat misleading; the Maeghts made their name through their close contact with first Bonnard and then Matisse (the bedridden artist's experiments with papier coupé were championed by Aimé when critics derided them) and only when they were established did they move on to Miró, Calder et al. The 100 pictures here are tightly hung, as they are at their regular home, the Fondation Maeght near Nice, and together they represent not just a fine eye but the belief that art could counterbalance the darkness of much of the history of the 20th century.

A tranche of that darkness is on stark display at the Barbican with This is War!, an exhibition of the work of the photographers, colleagues and lovers Robert Capa and Gerda Taro (until 25 January). The pair, both committed anti-fascists, came to prominence in the Spanish Civil War and, of course, Capa's picture of The Falling Soldier remains the defining, if contentious, image of war photography. Taro's work has been overshadowed by Capa's but it nevertheless reveals a striking sense of composition and a love of dynamic camera angles. They clearly thrived on conflict: there is a shot here of Taro crouching by a wall during the battle for Córdoba and staring at the planes passing overhead; the look on her face is not one of fear, however, but of euphoria. It was Capa who claimed that "if your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough" and it was a maxim that claimed them both: Capa died in 1954 after stepping on a landmine during the war in Indochina; Taro, the first woman to photograph from within a battle, was also the first woman photographer to die in action, at Brunete, near Madrid, in 1937.