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Rembrandt's rise, China's internet and a McQueen retrospective – the week in art

Exhibition of the week

Young Rembrandt
Come face-to-face with the miller’s son from Leiden as he paints his way to fame, profundity and genius. Young Rembrandt could have gone to university but convinced his parents to let him study art instead. He soon set himself apart with audacious history paintings and searching self-portraits. A chance to see how one of art’s all-time greats started out.
Ashmolean, Oxford, until 1 November.

Also showing

Cao Fei
The history of the internet in China and the utopian possibilities of online life are explored in Blueprints, a retrospective of Beijing-based Cao Fei’s film, video, digital and performance art. It is staged in a surreal emporium of arcade games and archaic technology that enhances the dreamlike nature of her work. She’s unafraid to criticise Chinese society and embraces American pop culture.
Serpentine Gallery, London, until 13 September.

Johanna Unzueta
The horrific realities of exploitation and poverty in the global textile industry uneasily collide with sheer abstract beauty in the tense exhibition Tools for Life. Unzueta, born in Chile in 1974 and now based in New York, is fascinated by weaving, materials and clothes, but never loses sight of the realities of grinding, underpaid labour that make modern fashion possible.
Modern Art Oxford until 23 August.

Steve McQueen
This retrospective of the Oscar and Turner-winning film director and artist ranges from his early work on Super 8 to his latest projects including a homage to Paul Robeson. The boom in British video art in the 1990s promised crossovers with mainstream cinema, but only McQueen has managed to project a strong vision that’s as clear in your Odeon as it is here.
Tate Modern, London, until 6 September.

Nicolaes Maes
Long before the invention of cinema, this 17th-century Dutch artist told visual stories of voyeurism, sin and secrecy. Maes often depicts a conspiratorial woman smiling at us from the shadows of a stairwell or hall while she points to lovers in the cellar or a man and woman drinking together (the very thought). Is he judging or simply showing us this rich little world?
National Gallery, London, until 20 September.

William and Evelyn De Morgan
This artistic Victorian couple lived in the past – as was typical of British art in the age of Ruskin. Evelyn painted sensual, dreamy scenes inspired by the newly rediscovered art of Botticelli, while William made colourful ceramics that imitated Islamic and Renaissance styles. She gives a fresh, female perspective on Victorian love; he takes imitation to potty extremes.
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, until 26 September.

Ideas Depot
This free show that aims to engage a younger audience offers new perspectives on the museum’s excellent displays.
Tate Liverpool until 30 November 2021.

Image of the week

The Reis family arrived in Los Angeles from Brazil with a plan: to live in a converted yellow school bus with their three young children and chase the American dream. Photographer Dotan Saguy went along for the ride. See more images.

What we learned

How Notre-Dame, Big Ben and St Mark’s were stolen from the east

The Eternal City has one face for tourists and another for residents

Pink Floyd’s burning man ranks as Aubrey Powell’s best photograph

A nine-metre George Michael is set to adorn a London borough of Brent

Tate galleries has made half its commercial workforce redundant

Artists make a fierce point about animals at a new show in Liverpool

The Berlin nightclub Berghain opens to all for lockdown art exhibition

Monet’s spectacular water lilies will be loaned to the National Gallery

Marisa Culatto creates still lifes with frozen flower

A new project tells the hidden stories behind survivors’ tattoos

… while Grayson Perry is calling for all of us to make art

Talent abounds among the nominees for Australia’s Indigenous art prize

The great British art quiz visited London, Glasgow, East Sussex, Angus and Bangor, Wales

Masterpiece of the week

Weymouth bay
Weymouth bay

Weymouth Bay, 1816-17, by John Constable
In this summer of the staycation, Constable shows us how to enjoy British scenery and weather. The Suffolk-born landscape artist never left Britain, even when he got a medal from the French king. Weymouth on the south coast was about as far as he got from his familiar childhood places around Flatford Mill, so this is the holiday art of a supreme staycationer. Constable, who never painted a clear blue sky, delights in the rough windswept clouds flowing overhead. This is a quietly revolutionary painting. Constable captures the immediacy and ephemerality of what he sees. It would take French artists in the age of Monet to build on the freedom of this – and when they did, modern art would be born.
National Gallery.

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