D'oh! ... Pastry Chef, by Jason Pierce Williams, nominated for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait prize. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery. Click to enlarge
Exhibition of the week: Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait prize
The photograph dominates our idea of portraiture. Even when we look at art from previous centuries, the portraits we admire are often those with a "photographic" clarity such as Holbein's pictures of the Tudor elite or Vermeer's nameless women. Centuries before the invention of photography , people who posed for a painted portrait wanted a photograph – without knowing it. When Rembrandt's sitters complained, as they did, that he was not accurate enough, they were seeking a precise visual record, rather than the visionary masterpieces he created. His early supporter, the Dutch courtier Constantijn Huygens, fell out with Rembrandt over this issue: a portrait of Huygens by Thomas de Keyser has the photographic sheen he preferred . People have always wanted their portraits to look like them, and what is more accurate than a photo? So it is no surprise that photographs are now loved as the most truthful, moving way to register someone's appearance and personality. This prize offers a wide survey of what photographers are doing with the portrait now.
• National Portrait Gallery, London WC2, from 8 November until 17 February 2013
Hockney to Hogarth
David Hockney's series of prints The Rake's Progress draws on Hogarth to recount a young artist's discovery of gay America at the start of the 1960s.
• Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester M15 until 3 February 2013
Threads of Silk and Gold
This is the first exhibition of the rich textiles of Japan's Meiji era (1868-1912) ever to be staged outside Japan.
• Ashmolean Museum, Oxford OX1, from 9 November until 27 January 2013
Cathy Wilkes
Everyday objects are the stuff of this former Turner prize contender's art.
• Modern Institute, Glasgow G1, until 24 November
Chris Steele-Perkins
There were 12,640 centenarians living in the UK in 2010, compared with a mere 2,500 in 1980. With that startling statistic in mind, the powerful Magnum photojournalist turns his eye on age, taking portraits of Britain's growing population of the 100-plus.
• University Gallery, Newcastle NE1 until 23 November
Masterpiece of the week
Photograph: The National Gallery, London Giovanni Bellini, Doge Leonardo Loredan, 1501-2
This is the male Mona Lisa. Just before Leonardo da Vinci started his smiling portrait of a merchant's wife in Florence in 1503, the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini – regarded at the time as Leonardo's peer – created this wonderfully rounded, solid yet tender image in which the Doge's smiling face is embraced by warm light. The Doge was the elected leader of Venice, chosen by a council of the city's oldest and richest families. Part of being Doge was having your portrait painted to be exhibited in the republic's main meeting hall and carried in processions: seeing this picture held aloft, 16th-century witnesses mistakenly attributed its genius to the young and romantic art hero Giorgione. That was an understandable error, because it is a revolutionary work, one of the very first portraits that truly bring someone to life.
• National Gallery, London WC2N
Image of the week
Time After Time: Blow Up No 5, 2007, by Ori Gersht. Part of Seduced by Art: Photography Past and Present, National Gallery, London. What we learned this week
That trashed rooms, Nan Goldin's bed and exploding flowers are changing how we look at art
There is life beyond Rolf Harris
Tate are spreading their wings and focusing their attentions on Africa for the next two years
That Oscar Niemeyer, the 104-year-old architect, has created a line of trainers for Converse ... and they might be the most political kicks ever
Ai Weiwei is having to repay $1.3m, which his fans sent him by shaping the bills like aeroplanes and sailing them over his front gate
What would happen if Damien Hirst's new statue Verity went back to the future
And finally ...
• The new Share your art theme is government. With the US election this week, give it your best shot and submit your artworks now
• You can post your images to the Guardian Art and Design Flickr
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