Towering trunks, disturbing dolls and deep-sea daydreams – the week in art

2 days ago 8

Exhibition of the week

Giuseppe Penone: Thoughts in the Roots
This veteran environmental artist has been celebrating trees for almost six decades. Does his bark still have bite?
Serpentine, London, 3 April to 7 September

Also showing

Dormitorium: The Film Décors of the Quay Brothers
Creepy dolls and east European atmosphere from the artists formerly known as the Brothers Quay. Watch out for the stag ejaculant.
Swedenborg Society, London, until 4 April

Textiles: The Art of Mankind
Ambitious global overview of textiles as art, from ancient times to our own era.
Fashion and Textile Museum, London, until 7 September

José María Velasco
Informative and scientifically observant views of 19th-century Mexico – but Velasco doesn’t rock. Read the full review here.
National Gallery, London, 29 March to 17 August

Undersea
Imaginary worlds of the sea from premodern monsters to contemporary daydreams, with Paul Delvaux and Michael Armitage.
Hastings Contemporary, 29 March to 14 September

Image of the week

If you don’t think this portrait looks much like Donald Trump, you and he are in agreement … bigly! With a laser-like focus on urgent domestic matters, the US president this week bemoaned that the painting hanging in the Colorado state capitol building didn’t flatter him and demanded it be taken down. He even found time to insult its creator, saying: “The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on [sic] me is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older.” Full story here. SAD.

What we learned

Grayson Perry has a new alter ego, who has her own alter ego

Spanish artist Joan Miró painted over his mother’s portrait

A new documentary about female war artists has a cringey title

New York’s Frick collection is reopening, and it’s teeming with masterpieces

Photographer and teacher Hicham Benohoud turned his students into art

A book about Picasso’s lovers might not be the feminist slam dunk it wishes

Burmese political prisoner and painter Htein Lin befriended his guards so he could smuggle in paint

American artist Thomas Kinkade was a proto-influencer who built a multimillion dollar brand

Masterpiece of the week

The Avenue at Middelharnis by Meindert Hobbema, 1689
Some of the most characterful trees in art soar above a road in this renowned landscape. These Dutch alders have a very distinctive appearance with their fluffy foliage crowns and branchless, but furry leaved, tall trunks. They resemble palm trees in Los Angeles, which might be one reason why David Hockney is fascinated by this work. What Hockney has spoken about and imitated in his own art, however, is Hobbema’s complex perspective that he claims has two vanishing points. This is also a highly symbolic view of a humanised landscape. The new Dutch Republic in the 17th century relied for its success, and even survival, on land reclaimed from the sea. The low-lying flat vista here evokes a Dutch world where human intervention shapes nature. It would be barren without the tended, manicured avenue of alders that leads gently into town in a harmonious ideal of nature governed wisely by its human regents.
National Gallery, London

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