What to see this week

At the National Gallery, Sainsbury Wing, Trafalgar Square, London WC2 (www. nationalgallery.org.uk; 020–7747 2885)

Monochrome: Painting in Black and White, until February 18, 2018 Many painters have worked en grisaille at different times of their career and for a variety of reasons. This use of black-and-white pigments can have the effect of making a painting resemble sculpture and can focus attention on a particular subject or technique. Certain sacred images were painted ‘without colour’ in early religious art; more recently, monochrome has been used in response to prints and photographs. This is the first major exhibition to explore the subject from its beginnings in the Middle Ages, through the Renaissance and on to the present day. Paintings on a range of materials—including glass, vellum and silk —encompass works by Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Degas, Picasso and Albrecht Dürer (right, Head of a Woman, 1520).

Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael around 1500, until January 28, 2018 Eight works by the ‘triumvirate of the High Renaissance’ are brought together in this display centred around the Royal Academy’s Taddei Tondo, a carved relief of the Virgin and Child with the infant St John that is the only marble sculpture by Michelangelo in the UK. The Tondo was loaned to the National Gallery for its ‘Michelangelo and Sebastiano’ exhibition earlier this year and this provided the opportunity for it to be shown alongside contemporary works from its own collection. At the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1 (www. royalacademy.org.uk; 020–7300 8090)

Dalí/duchamp until January 3, 2018

For all their differences, Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), father of conceptual art, and the Surrealist Salvador Dalí (1904–89) shared interests such as optics, language, games and eroticism in art and were united by a longlasting friendship and mutual admiration. More than 80 works, including sculptures, ‘readymades’ and photographs, reveal their aesthetic, philosophical and personal connections and the irreverence and humour with which they challenged conventional views on life and art.

Jasper Johns: ‘Something Resembling Truth’ until December 10

A central, groundbreaking figure in American art, Jasper Johns (b.1930) is best known for his iconographic depictions of familiar things, through which he explored the idea of paintings as objects. He has experimented with sculpture, printmaking, graphic arts and collage, creating complex textures and incorporating pre-existing objects into his work, inspired by Duchamp. The exhibition spans more than six decades, including more conceptual pieces of the early 2000s and recent works