Exhibition of the week
Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo
These gothic fantasies and nature studies by the author of Les Misérables transport you to a surreal, seductive inner world. Read the full review.
• Royal Academy, London, until 29 June
Also showing
Here is a Gale Warning: Art, Crisis & Survival
Art that addresses “a world in perpetual crisis”, by Rose Finn-Kelcey, Cecilia Vicuña, Tomashi Jackson and more. Don’t panic!
• Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, from 22 March until 29 June
Discovering Jewish Country Houses
Photographs by Hélène Binet explore how Jewish families including the Rothschilds, challenged the image of the country house as a mono-ethnic emblem of Englishness.
• Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, from 26 March until 22 June
Ian Hamilton Finlay
Survey of the provocative conceptual artist whose masterpiece is his garden Little Sparta.
• Modern Two, Edinburgh, until 26 May
A Place for Modernism
The abstract styles and social ideals of 20th-century modernism, revisited by 21st-century American artists including Carrie Moyer and Arlene Shechet.
• Pilar Corrias, London, until 10 May
Image of the week
As the sun rose over Bodmin Moor on spring equinox morning, a Cornish bagpipe struck up and Kerdroya, a giant piece of land art, five years in the making and built to last four millennia, was officially opened. Read the full story.
What we learned
Edvard Munch was the master of jealousy, neurosis and despair
Italian iconoclast Mario Cresci played mind-bending tricks
Arpita Singh remembered the beautiful chaos of India’s tumultuous past
Astonishing revelations cast Paul Gauguin in a new light
José María Velasco’s landscapes redefined perceptions of Mexico
Cornwall is not just known for piracy and pasties. It’s also a surfer’s paradise
Pop-art pioneer Allen Jones feels his fetish furniture may have hampered his career
An artist traced Manchester’s links to slavery on a blue cotton gown
Masterpiece of the week
A River Scene by Henri-Joseph Harpignies, c.1850-70
This ghostly, melancholic landscape is like an ink blot that has been teased into an image. Reflections in the still mirror of a small lake create eerie symmetries of black and green trees. The place could be anywhere: it seems unconnected with any wider world or context. The tiny people by the water might be lovers or friends or united in grief. In fact, it depends on your own state of mind: a painting as ambiguous and strange as this is a looking-glass for the viewer’s emotions. It is an unfinished story for you to narrate, an incomplete song to sing. Nor does it fit into the history of art very well. Instead of belonging to one of the art movements that competed in 19th-century France, this painter ploughs a quirky furrow of his own. The same pleasure this work takes in tranquil water with reflective depths would later infuse Monet’s equally timeless paintings of his water-lily pond.
• National Gallery, London
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