Exhibition of the week
Meditations on Love
Develop Collective explore the ecstasy and the agony of love through a passionate library of photobooks.
• Photographers’ Gallery, London, until 22 September
Also showing
Yoshida: Three Generations of Japanese Printmaking
The story of a remarkable family of artists from the 1800s to now, starting with the rewnowed Yoshida Hiroshi.
• Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, from 19 June until 3 November
Alison Wilding: By the Mark – and the Line Below the Loaf
A small survey of drawings by this subtle and surprising abstract sculptor.
• Heong Gallery, Cambridge, until 22 September
Summer Exhibition 2024
This tired and tiresome show suggests the Royal Academy is running out of ways to enliven its annual exhibition.
• Royal Academy, London, from 18 June until 18 August
Peter Mitchell: Nothing Lasts Forever
Deadpan colour images of dilapidated industrial sites, housing and funfairs by the famed photographer of Leeds and its history.
• Leeds Art Gallery, until 6 October
Image of the week
While it’s safe to say that this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition hasn’t exactly been as well received as it might, there is one room – a mesmerising “museum of making” – curated by Turner-prize winners Assemble that is worth a visit. Read the full story.
What we learned
Dennis Severs gave bogus tours of his London house by day – and by night held epic orgies
The Portrait of Humanity winners capture us at our bravest and most vulnerable
Photographer Miles Astray won a prize for AI images with a paltry human effort
After 30 years of trying, one artist has finally made the Royal Academy show
Treasures of Spanish Renaissance have escaped Madrid
US photographer Daniel Kramer, known for his Dylan portraits, has died aged 91
A Michael Landy installation is aiming to revive Cockney rhyming slang
Trailblazing female impressionist Mary Cassatt is celebrated in an extraordinary new show
Fourteen years of Tory rule has (miss)shaped the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
Masterpiece of the week
Landscape with Narcissus and Echo by Claude, 1644
The French painter Claude Gellée spent most of his life in Rome, feasting his eyes on its landscapes and ruins and light. Here, he immerses your senses and imagination in a green Italian idyll caressed by golden sunshine. There’s a crumbling castle on a hilltop, sailing ships on the misty sea, a bridge over the river that cuts deep through velvet woods. In the foreground, a rustic pool is the setting for a scene from ancient mythology as Narcissus gazes in rapture at his own reflection, sentenced to fall in love with himself after he spurned the nymph Echo. But here, he seems to be rejecting a whole bunch of female admirers. Echo and another lovestruck woman watch him from the woods. In the foreground, a nude is trying to attract his attention by posing at the water’s edge. Still Narcissus has eyes only for his face in the water.
• National Gallery
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