Swap doomscrolling for treasured scrolls, human bodies in all their variety and love triangles in Bloomsbury squares – all in your weekly dispatch
Exhibition of the week
Constantinople to Istanbul: One City, Two Empires From the tulips and silks of the Ottoman court, back in time to the Emperor Constantine’s palace, this is a sumptuous and haunting mystery tour. V&A South Kensington, London, 7 November to 9 May
Also showing
Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant Two modern painters, one complex relationship in an exhibition that takes you to the heart of the early 20th century Bloomsbury Group. Tate Britain, London, from 12 November
Ida Applebroog Angry Birds of America, a series of animal images that updates Audubon for the Trump era, and naked portraits of people that celebrate human variety. Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until 11 February
Glenn Brown The superbly decadent contemporary painter takes on the luscious genius of Thomas Gainsborough. Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, until 18 April
Alexis Kyle Mitchell An exhibition about health inequalities and the way people’s bodies are judged. Site Gallery, Sheffield, until 21 March
Image of the week
The aficionados among you will immediately recognise this screenprint: Marilyn Monroe was recreated countless times with infinite variety by Andy Warhol. Only the very keenest cognoscente, however, will recognise that pop art’s king of reproduction has himself been reproduced here. Elaine Sturtevant’s Warhol Black Marilyn (2004) is just one example of a feedback loop the conceptual forger has created with artists such as Jasper Johns, Keith Haring and her beloved Warhol, by copying their work to such a degree that it makes us reflect on how meaning is created around art. Her exhibition is at Raven Row in London until 20 December.
What we learned
Comedian Andy Field drew a horse a day until he mastered it
Visiting art galleries is good for you but we do we need another self-optimisation prescription?
A rare Renaissance masterpiece hidden for 70 years could fetch £5m at auction
British modernist painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham is finally getting the recognition she deserves
CJ Reay is fighting the system with quilts
You can make great art by putting a traffic cone on your head
The Bloomsbury Group helped shape how we think about mental health – and illness
Art imitates life imitating art imitating life … if you consider Rocky art
Masterpiece of the week
The Virgin and Child by Giovanni Bellini, c1480-90
The Bellinis not only dominated Venetian art in the later 15th century but spanned east and west, linking Italy with Istanbul. Giovanni’s brother Gentile travelled to the capital of the Ottoman Empire and portrayed its Sultan – as seen in the V&A blockbuster Constantinople to Istanbul – as well as other places and people he saw in the eastern Mediterranean. Giovanni was more of a homebody but you couldn’t entirely avoid global influence in Venice, capital of a great trading empire, with its golden Byzantine mosaics in St Mark’s. Is there perhaps a hint of a Byzantine icon about this painting with its eerie spiritual calm and the subtly luxurious hanging behind the Virgin? You feel the air warming and vibrating around her, the stillness of those clouds, the rich veined purple marble of the parapet in front of her. Bellini makes you meditate with his music of colour. National Gallery, London
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