Giorgione the tragic lover and Sarah Lucas's plaster parts – the week in art

The Royal Academy celebrates a Renaissance great, Patti Smith opens up about photography, plus let’s all move to Palm Springs – all in your weekly art dispatch

In the Age of Giorgione
The Renaissance artist Giorgione was a lutist, a lover and a tragic hero. He played his lute under Venetian balconies and spent his nights in Venetian bedrooms until he caught the plague from one of his many lovers. That’s the story told by Vasari in The Lives of the Artists, published in 1550, which made Giorgione one of the most glamorous figures in art. It helped that his paintings are so softly sensual. Then the modern scientific art scholars came along. One Giorgione after another got reattributed, often to Titian. Today, he is just the ghost of a great artist. Can this exhibition restore him to his rightful place?
• Royal Academy of Arts, London, 12 March-5 June.

Continue reading...