Exhibition of the week
Joseph Wright and the Lure of Italy
The great Derby artist Joseph Wright was entranced by Italy and, like many culturally aspiring 18th-century people, he made the journey there. Wright painted fireworks in Rome, sea caves on the Mediterranean shore and no fewer than 30 depictions of Mount Vesuvius erupting. This exhibition is part of The Grand Tour, a constellation of events across the region this spring that remember the cultural pilgrimage undertaken by Wright and his contemporaries and update it to modern Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
• Derby Museum and Art Gallery, 18 March-12 June.
Also showing
Simon Starling
The Turner prize-winning artist of environment, landscape and conceptual journeys meditates on the industrial revolution and its legacy as part of the east Midlands Grand Tour.
• Nottingham Contemporary, 19 March-26 June.
A Grand Tour of the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth
The European travels of the Devonshire family, including Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire’s 18th-century exile, are brought to life in one of Britain’s most spectacular stately homes. Great place for an Easter outing.
• Chatsworth, Derbyshire, 19 March-23 October.
Bonheur de Vivre
A celebration of the joy of life – and why not? – with colourful works by Matisse, Miró, Calder, Motherwell and others.
• Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, until 27 May.
Laura Ford
Cats and other creatures prowl the grounds and creep indoors in Ford’s gothic installations.
• Abbott Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria, until 25 June
Masterpiece of the week
This gorgeous and fragile glass treasure with its white relief of divine beings against a deep blue body has influenced British culture since the 18th century and has been in the British Museum since 1810. It was purchased by the connoisseur Sir William Hamilton, then copied by Josiah Wedgwood. In 1845, it was smashed by a drunken vandal and had to be reassembled. What is the obsessive power of that dark blue glass?
• British Museum, London
Image of the week
What we learned …
Perhaps Chris Evans should not have apologised for Top Gear’s cenotaph stunt
What it’s like to pose for the late great US photographer Paul Strand
Why Justine Frischmann is happier making art than music these days
Where Generation Y’s revolutionary artists and punks have got to
Who the best new architects in Britain are – and what their work looks like
That photographer Richard Billingham hated growing up in a tower block
But JG Ballard’s High-Rise vision is still scarily relevant today
And London’s social housing divide has winners ... and losers
Two rare Francis Bacon self portraits have unexpectedly gone up for sale
Why Ed Ruscha considers Marcel Duchamp ‘a guiding light’
No matter how many times you watch an Omer Fast film, there’s more to see
Why an artist sculpted a broccoli-eating cat out of sand in Brockley
If you like War and Peace, you’ll like the Russians at the National Portrait Gallery
The selection process for the London’s garden bridge designer was ‘unfair’
... and what author Will Self makes of the bridge’s glossy new advert
The story of Imprint 93, the ‘mail art’ project that popped YBA art in the post
How performance artist Nando Messias responded to beaten being up
The bouquets behind history’s most famous handshakes
Syria’s got mail: Grayson Perry and Ken Loach’s postcards for Syria
Adriatic holidaymakers look like tiny dancers from above
Tacita Dean is not the only British artist obsessed with cloudy weather
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