Exhibition of the week
Between the Sheets: Turner’s Nudes
JMW Turner is famous for landscapes but he also loved to paint erotica. His secret stash of sensuality gets an airing at the house he designed for himself near his beloved River Thames.
• Turner’s House, London, from Saturday to 30 October
Also showing
Ingrid Pollard
Trenchant photographic investigations of landscape and history by one of the artists shortlisted for this autumn’s Turner prize.
• Turner Contemporary, Margate, from Saturday to 25 September
Living with Ghosts
Shadows of slavery and empire are confronted in a group show that includes Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Torkwase Dyson and Bouchra Khalili.
• Pace London, until 5 August
Daniel Silver
Expressionistic, brightly painted sculptures of the fragile human form.
• Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until 25 September
White Cube at Arley Hall
Artists from Jay Jopling’s gallery including Tracey Emin, Cerith Wyn Evans and Mona Hatoum turn up in the gardens of a stately home.
• Arley Hall, Cheshire, until 29 August
Image of the week
Lucian Freud’s paintings are on show until January at his famous grandfather’s house in London – including this one of the painter’s daughter feeding his grandson, with which which Sigmund Freud would no doubt have had a field day. Read our full review here.
What we learned
• David Hockney has painted Harry Styles
• Artist and sloganeer supreme Barbara Kruger spoke about Roe v Wade and other political battlegrounds
• Video artists the Otolith group want to reprogramme your neural networks
• Mhairi Killin’s new exhibition is about whales and the noise in the ocean
• Uta Kögelsberger has made a video art disaster movie
• An exhibition in New York is letting artists show their lighter sides
• Architect Bas Smets has revealed his plans for rebuilding the area around Notre Dame cathedral
• Early photography reveals life in late imperial Japan
• Winold Reiss is an underappreciated figure in modern art
• Just Stop Oil campaigners glued themselves to artworks in Britain’s major galleries
Masterpiece of the week
The Scale of Love by Jean-Antoine Watteau, c 1715-18
Turner was not the first artist to mix landscape and lust. It is a tradition that goes back at least to the Renaissance, when artists such as Titian and Correggio painted hedonist pastoral scenes. Here, the genius of French frippery Watteau creates a dreamy, softly yielding landscape where lovers linger in musical flirtation. Decorated with classical sculpture and full of shady nooks, the park is an unreal space crafted by and for Watteau’s amorous imagination.
• The National Gallery, London
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