Exhibition of the week
Goya: The Portraits
The psychological penetration of Goya’s portraits is as unsettling as the acid colours of the flamboyant dresses and silk pantaloons of his 18th-century sitters are beguiling. At times, it seems the stylish Georgian portraitist Thomas Gainsborough has got together with the self-taught painter Henri Rousseau to produce pictures at once naive and sophisticated. Bold as brass and brave as a bullfighter, Goya sees people in full with humour, compassion and the force of truth. His portraits chronicle Spain from the optimism of the Enlightenment to the horror of the Peninsular war. Behold the rise and fall of reason.
• National Gallery, London, until 10 January 2016.
Other exhibitions this week
Giacometti: Pure Presence
No modern artist after Picasso saw human beings in a more forceful or thoughtful way than Alberto Giacometti.
• National Portrait Gallery, London, 15 October to 10 January 2016.
MC Escher
The fabulous fabricator of polymorphous perspectives reveals new worlds and impossible spaces in this encounter with a real mystery man.
• Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 14 October to 17 January 2016.
Frieze and Frieze Masters
The art world descends as the hugely successful art fairs take over Regent’s Park once again.
• Regent’s Park, London, 14-17 October.
Abraham Cruzvillegas
The latest grand scale commission in the Tate Turbine hall opens amid the glitz of “Frieze week”.
• Tate Modern, London, 13 October to 3 April 2016.
Masterpiece of the week
Still Life with Oranges and Walnuts (1772) by Luis Meléndez
A warm feeling of abundance emanates from this Spanish painting. Still life became a popular genre of painting of Spain in the age of Velázquez. This lovely picture shows that, in Goya’s time, it was very much flourishing, and – like Goya’s portraits – this picture of everyday things has a robust respect for the colours and masses of reality.
• National Gallery, London.
Image of the week
What we learned this week
That Goya’s portraits exhibition is a five-star showstopper
That America’s most original photographer, Alec Soth, has his first UK retrospective – and it’s the photography show of the year
That the “Renoir sucks at painting” protest movement has blown up
That Scotland Yard has spilled its darkest secrets
That the UK has its very own glow-in-the-dark skatepark
Ai Weiwei has discovered listening devices hidden in his Beijing studio
That Frank Auerbach has written a 60-year love letter to London
That naked dancers wearing Reebok Classics have taken over the Barbican centre in London
What life is like in the Cuba tourists never see
How a house in Essex revolutionised the National Trust
That Cy Twombly makes me want to plan the art heist of the century
That a rare blue period Picasso painting has a little secret
That Uri Geller has a bent spoon statue in Berkshire
And finally …
B is for Body: send your submissions for our A to Z of readers’ art now
