Beyond Caravaggio and Simon Patterson: this week’s best UK exhibitions

The entrancing work of the 16th-century realist comes to Edinburgh, while one of Britain’s leading conceptual artists reassesses 25 years of his own output

The sensual immediacy of Caravaggio’s art pierces your mind like a shaft of light in a prison cell. This painter of sex and death, bright white flesh and the depths of night not only left behind some of the greatest paintings on Earth when he died in 1610, but also inspired followers Europe-wide to emulate his potent realism. Artemisia Gentileschi’s baroque feminism and the paintings of Caravaggio’s probable boyfriend Cecco are among the surprises in this entrancing show.
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, 17 June to 24 September

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