Francis Bacon's painting gloves are going to auction – praise be!

The paint-splattered gloves are proof that we worship artists’ relics – from Turner’s paintbox to Pollock’s brushes – as traces of genius in their own right

Is art a modern religion? It’s like the joke about sex being dirty: it is if you’re doing it properly. At its most powerful, art can offer a cosmic sense of place that for many of us religion no longer provides. The other day, I visited the latest incarnation of the Mark Rothko room at Tate Modern. No matter how much Tate moves it about (right now it’s with Monet), this imposing installation of black, purple and red paintings of dark portals always takes me out of myself and makes me think about the bigger things.

Related: Calm, chaos, canvas: the studios of Picasso, Monet and Koons – in pictures

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