A French revolution in science, Japanese art remixed and Everest re-ascended – the week in art
NEWS | 16 December 2024
Exhibition of the week Versailles: Science and Splendour The palace of the Sun King was the birthplace of the modern world, says this blockbuster. Science Museum, London, 12 December-21 April Also showing Everest Revisited Haunting images and stories of Everest mark the centenary of Mallory and Irvine’s disappearance in a doomed summit attempt. Rheged, Penrith, until 23 February Japanese Art History à la Takashi Murakami A cheeky pop reworking of the classics of Japanese art. Hokusai is spinning in his grave. Gagosian Grosvenor Hill, London, 10 December-8 March Dürer to Van Dyck Drawings from the Devonshire Collection with a focus on northern European artists of the Renaissance and baroque periods. Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, until 23 February The Traumatic Surreal The great Swiss surrealist Meret Oppenheim is among the German-speaking women in this show. Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, until 16 March Image of the week View image in fullscreen Photograph: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Music blares from a Ford Escort draped in a giant doily in Jasleen Kaur’s Turner prize-winning show. Our critic confesses that he’s wanted her to get the award since first seeing and hearing it. Read his full review What we learned A major show of Romantic genius Caspar David Friedrich opens in New York in 2025 Artists across the world expressed their fears about the second Trump presidency Parmigianino’s Vision of St Jerome is a wild religious masterpiece Queensland’s Asia Pacific Triennial is an explosion of colour and optimism A rediscovered Elizabethan portrait may have been a love token for Sir Walter Raleigh An enthralling new show traces art’s love-in with technology back to 1950 A shocking period of upheavals caused India’s artists and activists to innovate A lost masterpiece by Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla is on show again after 134 years Masterpiece of the week The Coronation of the Virgin, 1407-09, by Lorenzo Monaco View image in fullscreen Photograph: © The National Gallery, London. You’d hardly believe art was about to be revolutionised in Florence from looking at this gothic scene, painted for the city’s San Benedetto fuori della Porta Pinti monastery at the start of the 1400s. Lorenzo Monaco cleaves to a style created by Giotto a century earlier. His Virgin Mary is characterful and human, set under a realistic canopy, but there’s also an abstract formality to it all, as she modestly leans forward to be crowned above a gathering of angels. Other heavenly hosts are depicted on the many side panels that flank this central scene – all on view in the new medieval room at the National Gallery. The feelings Monaco aims at are simple, humble and reverent. Anyone could relate to his piety. Soon, Florentine artists would start experimenting with new ideas about perspective and classical proportion that made art more complex and rich – yet less accessible to the people. National Gallery, London Sign up to the Art Weekly newsletter If you don’t already receive our regular roundup of art and design news via email, please sign up here. Get in Touch If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com
Author: Jonathan Jones.
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