Exhibition of the week
Caravaggio’s Cupid
The shock of the old hits London as Caravaggio’s most confrontational and mind-boggling masterpiece goes on free display. Prepare to be dazzled and traumatised.
The Wallace Collection, London, 26 November to 12 April
Also showing
Bridget Riley
One of Britain’s greatest artists ever takes your eyes on a rollercoaster ride in a show that gives Margate a new Dreamland. Read the review.
Turner Contemporary, Margate, 22 November to 4 May
Howardena Pindell
The beauty and the rage of Pindell’s paintings and political art bear witness to the US.
White Cube Bermondsey, London, until 18 January
Turner and Constable
After the celebrations for his 250th birthday year, JMW Turner must face his great rival once again.
Tate Britain, London, 27 November to 12 April
Lewis Miller
Paintings inspired by doll’s houses create a world both realist and dreamlike.
The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until 14 January
Image of the week
A 1940 self portrait by famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has sold for $54.7m (£41.8m) at a New York art auction, setting a new top sale price for a work by any female artist. The Dream (The Bed), which depicts Kahlo asleep in a bed with a smiling skeleton wrapped in dynamite on the canopy above her, sold on Thursday night at a Sotheby’s auction of surrealist art. But as Fridamania reaches new heights, we ask where are her “missing” masterpieces? Read the full story.
What we learned
A man in Norfolk found an old Rembrandt in a drawer
Visitors to a new Italian art exhibition should be ready for a 7,546ft climb
A Gustav Klimt portrait, once looted by the Nazis, sold for $236.4m
Maggi Hambling and Sarah Lucas are friends, but their art doesn’t mix well
Wes Anderson’s archives are as meticulously detailed as his films
Harold Offeh’s new show includes his impersonations of R&B and disco stars
Edmund de Waal is obsessed with unsettling potter Axel Salto
after newsletter promotion
An Austrian sociologist who died in 1945 had a major impact on pop iconography
The young Turner drew a startling quantity of pornographic sketches
Masterpiece of the week
Cupid Complaining to Venus by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1529
When Caravaggio painted his Cupid, there was already a long tradition of Renaissance artists depicting the ancient love god in provocative ways. Parmigianino painted a nude adolescent Cupid sharpening his bow, Bronzino depicted him pleasuring his mother, Venus. This is one of several paintings in which Cranach portrays the mischievous deity as a naughty boy who has got stung by bees while stealing honey. The meaning is none too subtle: love hurts. It has a darker sting than we might give it, though, because Cranach was a religious radical and Martin Luther’s best man. So it is sin that aches. But, in a daring twist, Cranach paints Venus erotically and seductively. So you too are stung by his art, should this nude happen to prompt any sinful thoughts.
National Gallery, London
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