Exhibition of the week
Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance
The art of the German Renaissance is full of witches, werewolves and supermodels. Lucas Cranach the Elder painted nudes with a lanky, bony beauty – the Renaissance's answer to heroin chic. He makes Venus look truly sinful. Cranach was Martin Luther's best man, and responsible for burning several supposed witches – so his infatuation with dangerous desire has a dark side. He and his contemporaries mix medieval folklore with the new classical ideas coming out of Italy to create bizarrely compelling masterpieces. This ought to be fascinating.
• National Gallery, London WC2N, from 19 February until 11 May.
Other exhibitions this week
Germany Divided
German art exploded back into life during the cold war – and as this exhibition shows, Georg Baselitz and his generation admired and revived the printmaking tradition that goes back to the Renaissance.
• British Museum, London WC1B, until 31 August.
Joana Vasconcelos
This provocative Portuguese installationist is let loose in Manchester after recently staging a controversial show at no less a venue than Versailles: she was banned from exhibiting a candelabra made of tampons as part of a feminist homage to Marie Antoinette.
• Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester M2, from 15 February until 1 June.
Helen Frankenthaler and JMW Turner
The abstract expressionist movement to which Frankenthaler belonged admired Britain's great – and abstract? – Romantic artist. This is an encounter between two mighty painters.
• Turner Contemporary, Margate CT9, until 11 May.
Court and Craft
An exquisite handbag made in medieval Iraq is the centrepiece of the Courtauld's first ever exhibition of Islamic art.
• Courtauld Gallery, London WC2R, from 20 February until 18 May.
Masterpiece of the week
Albrecht Dürer – Rhinoceros (1515)
Albrecht Durer's woodcut of a rare and novel beast is a magnificent product of the curious, questioning Renaissance mind.
• British Museum, London WC1B.
Image of the week
What we learned this week
What the 10 sexiest artworks of all time are
The naked truth about the history of nudes in art
That Richard Rogers's flatpack homes for homeless people look exactly like a Monopoly hotel
That George Clooney's on an art rampage … first he wanted the Parthenon marbles to return to Greece – and now he's called for the Mona Lisa to be returned to Italy
That Richard Hamilton's mega Tate Modern exhibition is a true 20th-century variety show
That roving street photographers from Afghanistan have managed to capture a whole nation
Why Russia should ban Michelangelo and Caravaggio's gay 'propaganda'
And finally ...
Share your art about your holidays to offset the grim weather outside
