Paul Gauguin in London and the discovery of Paris – the week in art

The French capital as seen through the eyes of Britain's 19th-century painters, plus subversive graphic art and a celebration of camp – all in your favourite weekly artistic roundup

Exhibition of the week: Collecting Gauguin

Is Paul Gauguin a great artist? His paintings can seem brittle, cold, histrionic. He was not as intense or as suffering as his friend Vincent van Gogh. Side by side, their works look very different and it is Van Gogh who usually looks more profound. But Gauguin has a special quality of ironic romanticism. Like the novels of Joseph Conrad, his pieces subtly take apart the mind of European 19th-century imperialism. They are haunting in the way early photographs are haunting. They take you to where he was, in an unsettling rhapsody. They strongly appealed to the collector Samuel Courtauld, which is why some of his best works are in London – as this show explains.
• Courtauld Gallery, London WC2R, from 20 June until 8 September

Other exhibitions this week

Keep Your Timber Limber
Saucy drawings galore in this show, which celebrates graphic art as a personal and subversive activity. Tom of Finland is in it – say no more.
• ICA, London SW1Y, from 19 June until 8 September

The Discovery of Paris
Paris is revealed here as it was seen by British artists who went there in the early 19th century.
• Wallace Collection, London W1U, from 20 June until 15 September

Notes on Neo-Camp
A group of 21st-century artists, including the excellent Pablo Bronstein, who are influenced by 20th-century camp.
• Studio Voltaire, London SW4, until 20 July

Through American Eyes
The landscape art and sea scenes of Frederic Church bring American romanticism to Edinburgh.
• Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, until 8th September

Masterpiece of the week

Henri Rousseau's Surprised!, or Tiger in a Tropical Storm (1891)
This painting is a joyful fantasy of wild nature by an artist who never visited the jungles that filled his dreams. Rousseau creates a world that is totally self-enclosed and richly alive yet has no "realism" at all. It is a decoration with bite.
• National Gallery, London WC2N

Image of the weekWhat we learned this week

Why Broomberg and Chanarin were worthy winners of the Deutsche Börse prize

What Jeanette Winterson thinks of LS Lowry's rage against the machine

Red is the colour of money (when it comes to selling art)

Why Prism PowerPoint was the real horror of the NSA scandal

Defacing the Queen's portrait was a backhanded compliment

And finally …

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Paul GauguinPaintingArtLondonParisFranceJonathan Jones
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