By Howard Pousner

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

You needn’t be a da Vinci to understand why so many major exhibitions are opening in Atlanta over the next few weeks. As with performing arts presenters, the city’s museums and attractions try to put their best feet forward to start the fall season.

The half-dozen exhibits featured here today — from “Planet Shark: Predator or Prey” at the Georgia Aquarium to da Vinci himself at the High Museum of Art — have little in common beyond being big undertakings that are hungry to engage sizable audiences.

Here’s a sampling of visual treats heading this way starting this weekend ...

“Leonardo da Vinci: Hand of the Genius,” at The High Museum

The High’s three-year partnership with the Louvre museum in Paris recently concluded, but international art treasures continue to roll into the Midtown museum. “Leonardo da Vinci: Hand of the Genius,” opening Oct. 6, will feature 50 works, including more than 20 sketches and studies, by the ultimate Renaissance man. The exhibition explores da Vinci’s role in the development of Renaissance sculpture, his influences and the work of artists who followed him. Included are pieces by Donatello, Rubens, Verrocchio and Rustici, including the latter artist’s three monumental bronzes from the façade of the Baptistery in Florence that comprise “John the Baptist Preaching to a Levite and a Pharisee.” The recently restored work has never left that great art city. Organized by the High with the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, the show will run through Feb. 21. 404-733-4444, high.org .

‘Gold’ at Fernbank

Its appeal is elemental.

“Gold,” opening Saturday for a run through Jan. 3, explores this enduring and eternally coveted icon of wealth, beauty and power.

Exhibition highlights include some of the earliest gold coins minted in the ancient world, pre-Columbian jewelry and a gold box recovered from a 1715 Spanish treasure fleet that shipwrecked.

Fernbank has made two significant additions to this exhibit organized by New York’s American Museum of Natural History with the Houston Museum of Natural Science. “The Local Connection” highlights the vein running from the Dahlonega Gold Rush to the Capitol’s gold dome. Included in this complementary exhibit are glimmering Grammys loaned by André 3000 of OutKast, Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls and R.E.M.; gold records from the Georgia Satellites and Brenda Lee; and gold medals from the Atlanta Olympic Games.

Extending the local theme, the museum is also mounting “Georgia’s Heart of Gold,” a photography exhibit by Portfolio Center students picturing everything from North Georgia panners to “grillz” (gold teeth) modeled by hip-hop luminaries. 404-929-6300, fernbankmuseum.org .

Cuban art at Oglethorpe

The title of Oglethorpe University Museum’s exhibit opening Saturday carries a question mark: “What is Cuban Art?” That’s because collectors Shelley and Donald Rubin have acquired such widely varying pieces that the viewer might just wonder that.

The show attempts to provide some answers, not just in the 60 works of art by 28 contemporary Cuban artists, but in the thoughts of artists, critics, curators and collectors included as wall text.

Some of the included artists are well-known internationally, such as Manuel Mendive, Carlos Estévez, Elsa Mora and Sandra Ceballos, while others are almost unknown outside of Cuba.

To explore the complicated story of Cuban culture and provide context to the art, Oglethorpe will host a lecture series on topics such as the history of contemporary Cuban art, its hip-hop scene and cinema.

The Rubins are founders of New York’s Rubin Museum of Art, which showcases their Himalayan art collection that has also been showcased at Oglethorpe (Donald’s alma mater). Through Dec. 6. 404-364-8555, museum.oglethorpe.edu .

Bible pictures at Carlos

The history of art and the history of religion intersect in “Scripture for the Eyes: Bible Illustration in Netherlandish Prints of the Sixteenth Century,” opening at the Michael C. Carlos Museum on Oct. 17.

Organized by New York’s Museum of Biblical Art, the exhibit includes some 80 engravings and woodcuts by 16th-century Dutch and Flemish masters.

Works included in the exhibit by Lucas van Leyden, Maarten van Heemskerck, Dirck Volkertszoon Coornhert and Hieronymus Wierix illustrated the Bible and other spiritual themes at the same time as the religious turmoil of the Reformation.

The illustrations demonstrate how pictorial images “offered a clarifying lens through which the word of God was received, pondered and interpreted,” Emory art history professor Walter S. Melion said.

The run is through Jan. 24. 404-727-4282, carlos.emory.edu .

‘Shark’ at aquarium

Ever since “Jaws” scared moviegoers senseless in 1975, people have thought of sharks as merciless killers. Now, “Planet Shark: Predator or Prey,” an exhibit from Australia making its world premiere at the Georgia Aquarium on Oct. 3, asks us to take mercy on the animals whose numbers have been diminished by shark finning (the harvesting of fins while discarding the rest of the fish, often still alive, to sink to the ocean’s floor) and other overfishing practices.

The 10,000-square-foot interactive exhibit will include an extensive collection of real shark jaws, teeth and fossils, full-scale shark models, and shark cages and other artifacts from the filming of “Jaws.” But the talker promises to be a “frozen in time” display featuring a 10-foot frozen adult mako shark and its prey, a similarly iced 700-pound bluefin tuna.

Tickets for this “out of water” exhibit ($31.50, $26.25 for ages 65 and older, $23.50 ages 5-15) include aquarium admission, meaning visitors can also check out the downtown attraction’s growing shark collection, now numbering 70 in 14 species.

Lectures from shark experts and movies from the Blue Oceans Film Festival complement the show, whose run is open-ended. 404-581-4000, georgiaaquarium.org .

Curious George at Imagine It!

As fans of H.A. and Margret Rey’s classic books and the cute PBS cartoon series know, Curious George is one inquisitive monkey. Kids curious about George likely will go ape when “Curious George: Let’s Get Curious” opens at Imagine It! The Children’s Museum of Atlanta on Oct. 10.

Among other adventures, children can explore the Man in the Yellow Hat’s apartment building, play at a sidewalk produce stand, construct structures with a crane and take a George-like sojourn to the country, where they can build their own whirligigs and care for farm animals.

Lessons in math, science and engineering are wrapped subtly in the hands-on interactive play in this show developed by the Minnesota Children’s Museum.

The run is through Jan. 24. 404-659-5437, childrensmuseumatlanta.org .