El Greco to Velazquez to Goya: sublime visions from Spain – the week in art

Exhibition of the week – Renaissance to Goya: prints and drawings from Spain Spain is one of the great artistic nations of Europe yet art here evolved in a unique and unusual way. It did not look in the 1400s as if Spanish art was going to soar. That century saw the expulsion of the Moors and with them the loss of the arts that created the mosques and palaces of medieval Andalucía . Could the new exclusively Catholic Spain rival the beauty of medieval Islam? It took an immigrant from Crete, the ethereal genius El Greco, to give 16th century Spain truly great paintings . In fact, his religious intensity pointed the way to the personal visions that would soon make Spanish art sublime. In the 1600s, the art of Spain explodes into power, from the unrivalled realism of Velázquez (see below) to the poetic Catholicism of Zurbarán . By the late 1700s, raw native originality was blending with European portrait styles in the precociously modern art of Goya . This free exhibition reveals the story of Spanish art through rarely-seen prints and drawings. • British Museum, London WC1E 7JW, 20 September to 6 January 2013 Other exhibitons this week Liverpool Biennial The art collectors' yachts are lined up in the Albert Dock for two months of global art including a homage to the late Franz West . • Liverpool venues, 15 September to 25 November Giuseppe Penone Drawings by the Arte Povera artist, who also has a powerful installation at the Whitechapel Gallery. • Haunch of Venison (Eastcastle St), London W1W 8EB, until 6 October John Golding Abstract paintings by the late artist and critic who was an authority on abstraction's history. • Annely Juda , London W1S 1AW, until 6 October Rita Ackermann Expressive, splashy New York paintings – the 1980s can't come back, you say... • Hauser & Wirth (Piccadilly), London W1J 9DY, 18 September to 3 November Masterpiece of the Week Philip IV of Spain, about 1656, by Diego Velázquez The ruler of Spain is a haggard and exhausted man in this troubled portrait. Velázquez is an artist of unforgiving realism. At once grand and tragic and down to earth, his people are seen without flattery. Velázquez began his career in Seville, where he painted street people and servants with acute lifelike compassion. This Spanish Caravaggio soon caught the eye of the court and spent the rest of his life as a royal painter in Madrid. His style became more velvety and rich without ever losing its truthful authority . He is an artist of invincible intelligence and this painting sees Philip as honestly as a mirror. • National Gallery , London WC2N 5DN Image of the week Five things we learned this week • The world's thinnest house will measure 120cm at its widest point • The Victorians were a saucy lot • How painter Walter Kershaw "tattooed" Lancashire houses in the 1970s • In the 60s and 70s, nothing stayed still for long • You never know what you might find at a flea market And finally … • September's Share your Art theme is dance and movement. Throw some shapes, on a page • Post your images to the Guardian Art and Design Flickr • Check out our Tumblr • Follow us on Twitter • Guardian Jobs: Turner Contemporary in Margate are looking for a press and media officer . For more visual arts roles, click here