Exhibition of the week
Tony Cragg
Wobbly cosmic abstract forms materialise around one of Britain’s most spectacular stately homes.
• Castle Howard, North Yorkshire, until 22 September
Also showing
Emma Stibbon: Melting Ice | Rising Tides
A personal project to observe the climate crisis, from the Arctic to British coasts, in drawing and photography.
• Towner Eastbourne, 9 May-15 September
Ranjit Singh: Sikh, Warrior, King
Art, weapons and armour bring to life Ranjit Singh, “Lion of the Punjab”, who established the Sikh empire in the early 1800s.
• Wallace Collection, London, until 20 October
Paul Maheke: To Be Blindly Hopeful
Immersive installation that includes X-ray like spectral images of selfhood.
• Mostyn, Llandudno, until 29 June
Simon Starling
Houseboat for Ho is Starling’s design for housing in a Danish community threatened with inundation by the sea.
• Modern Institute, Glasgow, until 25 May
Image of the week
Look familiar? You may recognise Yan Wang Preston’s delightfully subversive He from Manet’s Olympia. The UK-based Chinese photographer’s reworkings of famous artists’ works are clever, concise reversals that reveal the original’s assumptions and exclusions: rewriting art history, one liberated pair of buttocks at a time.
What we learned
The UK’s National Crime Agency is selling a Frank Auerbach painting for seven figures
Liberty shines brighter in France, after Delacroix’s iconic painting is restored
Miami is driving a craze for car-chitecture
Still life is more subversive than you think
Dean Sameshima celebrates the art of the sexual outlaw
Diana Matar’s latest photography series documents US deaths at the hands of police
Iranian artist – and Paralympian – Mohammad Barrangi explores disability and migration
Old pianos become art works in Bath
Grim relics of Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel have gone on show in New York
Britain’s museum of the year contenders were announced
Colonial imagery at the RIBA’s headquarters has been challenged by global artists
Masterpiece of the week
The Virgin and Child by Masaccio, 1426
This painting does not immediately look revolutionary to modern eyes. Yet when it was done 600 years ago it was challenging not only artistic traditions but human cognition itself. Look at the Virgin Mary’s throne and you can see it is pictured in deep, realistic perspective. This illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat painted panel was a scientific wonder in the early 1400s. Masaccio reveals the solidity and roundedness of physical existence with a precision artists before him had barely attempted. Once you see the perspective of the throne you can also see how full and lifelike the faces are. Yet it is a stern, severe work. Masaccio has a moral edge. Why does the Virgin’s throne resemble an ancient Roman building? When this was painted, Masaccio’s city state Florence was gripped by the ideal of reviving the civic virtue of the Roman republic. This masterpiece is not just religious but political.
• National Gallery, London
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