Exhibition of the week
Exposed: The Naked Portrait
Artists including David Hockney and Tracey Emin show how nudity can strip the soul bare.
• Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, until 3 March.
Also showing
Oceania
Last chance to experience this truly magical journey through the art and history of the Pacific.
• Royal Academy, London, until 10 December.
William Kentridge
Excellent survey of the drawings, films and installations of one of the most profound artists of our time.
• Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, until 3 March.
Mantegna and Bellini
There are plenty of Christmassy moments in this comparison of two great 15th-century artists with a stress on their religious works.
• National Gallery, London, until 27 January.
The Sun
With days at their shortest, this is a chance to warm yourself in the glow of our star and learn some fascinating science in the process.
• Science Museum, London, until 6 May.
Masterpiece of the week
The Nativity with Two Angels, c.1490s by Filippino Lippi
There’s a strangeness and unease to this nativity scene. The birth of Christ is set in a gnarled and sinister landscape with a walled town in the distance. The holy family look like true outsiders here, rejected by the human community but visited by angels. The old world is visibly dying, with bare dead branches against the cold blue sky suggesting nature itself cries out for a new age. The birth of the Messiah is in this painting an apocalyptic moment, the start of a series of cosmic events that will end history and usher in the new Jerusalem. Filippino Lippi’s home city, Florence, was convulsed by religious radicalism in the 1490s and this painting surely reflects that time, when people believed the year 1500 would see the end of days. It is a gem of Lippi’s fantastical style.
• Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh.
Image of the week
Antony Gormley’s Icon
GöteborgsOperans Danskompani paired the sculptor with choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui for this thrilling dance piece that over the course of an hour uses three tonnes of clay to explore how we mould and remould ourselves. Read the full story.
What we learned
Charlotte Prodger won the Turner prize with her search for identity
Lubaina Himid had a residency at the Guardian
Is there too much nudity in art?
Maasai tribespeople have taught Oxford about the cultural treasures they revere
… as Italy demands a sculpture back from the Getty
… and a Dutch court stirs the row over Nazi loot
This year’s colour is living coral
Cuban artists fear a crackdown after Tania Bruguera’s arrest
Can the Pirelli calendar change post-#MeToo?
Art Basel Miami wants to be more diverse
Guildhall researchers uncovered the remarkable story of a Victorian portrait’s child model
Radical sculptor Robert Morris liked creative bedlam
The National Gallery of Victoria has taken Escher to another level
Joe Roberts explained his hallucinogenic art
Tim Klein makes surreal jigsaws
Milein Cosman sketched musical greats
Sex was power in Sunil Gupta’s New York
Paul Reas’s Britain is all about class
Martin Creed’s Toast is suitably eclectic
There’s a prize for a portrait of humanity
Sometimes great photography is a question of timing
Bill Gates is lending Leonardo’s notebook to the British Library
Don’t forget
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