Exhibition of the week
From Life
The tradition of drawing from life is explored through history and in the art of today, including a life class staged by Jeremy Deller with Iggy Pop as nude model.
• Royal Academy, London, 11 December to 11 March.
Also showing
Cecily Brown
Drawings of shipwrecks inspired by Théodore Géricault’s 1819 masterpiece of nautical suffering The Raft of the Medusa.
• The Whitworth, Manchester, until 15 April.
Astronomy Photographer of the Year
Remarkable photographs of nebulae, galaxies and the aurora borealis.
• Royal Observatory, London, until 22 July.
Soutine’s Portraits
Faces you will never forget in an exhibition of intense and enduring humanity by a Jewish expressionist in 1920s Paris.
• Courtauld Gallery, London, until 21 January.
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov
A magical mystery tour through immersive installations that fill you with delight until you contemplate their underlying message of historical horror.
• Tate Modern, London, until 28 January.
Masterpiece of the week
The Brazen Serpent, c 1635-40, by Peter Paul Rubens
A swirl of suffering, a fleshy sea of pain ripples through this painting. The children of Israel have been afflicted by God with a plague of serpents. A snake bites into a woman’s arm as she writhes in terror while others clutch their wounds, desperately try to protect their babies or lie on the earth, dead or dying. In their hour of torture Moses calls them to look at the brazen serpent he has set up on a pole, for seeing it will cure them. This painting was probably made with the help of assistants, reflecting the huge success of Rubens as the most in-demand painter of 17th-century Europe and therefore one who needed a big team to fulfil all of his commissions. Yet its horribly real vision of an entire community sharing in affliction is profound and moving. Surely this collective sickness reflects the plagues that regularly tore through the world in which Rubens lived. It also functions as a symbol of all communal disasters from war to genocide.
• National Gallery, London.
Image of the week
A Fashionable Marriage, 1987, by Lubaina Himid
The 63-year-old artist became the oldest – and first woman of colour – to win the Turner prize, after the award’s upper age limit of 50 was dropped.
• Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, until 7 January.
What we learned this week
Lubaina Himid wonders what she might have achieved if she’d won the Turner prize sooner
… while UK city of culture Hull had mixed feelings about the show
Charles II exhibition reveals how he tackled “the king’s evil”
Leonardo’s record-breaking Salvator Mundi will go on show at the Louvre Abu Dhabi
New York’s Metropolitan Museum was accused of voyeurism
Art helped Yorkshire Ripper victim Mo Lea turn the tables on her trauma
The Royal Society promotes science through photography
Irish sculptor Dorothy Cross is a sorcerer
The young artist who died in the Grenfell Tower fire will have a posthumous exhibition
Chilean artist Juana Gomez embroiders her family history
LA’s Museum of Failure has a shelf reserved for the president
Fine art is outpacing wine as an investment
Emile Zola’s photos are up for sale
Fashion has a place at the culture table
Winnie the Pooh is visiting the V&A for Christmas
Sydney commuters have a new reason to slow down
Arizona is a fascinating place, as David Hurn proved
Oxford’s Ashmolean will be visited by Americans
We remembered pre-Raphaelite art historian Virginia Surtees
Get involved
Our A-Z of Art series continues – share your art with the theme Z is for zero. And check out the entries we selected for the theme Y is for yearning.
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