A flamingo frenzy, Matisse's personal stash and a Warhol in the attic – the week in art

Edinburgh fizzes for the festival, a bio-artist makes books bloom with bacteria and low-riders enter high art – all in your weekly dispatch
Still Life with Shell, by Henri Matisse, 1940. Gouache, coloured pencil, and charcoal on cut paper, and string, pinned to canvas, Photograph: © Succession H Matisse/DACS 2017

Jonathan Jones

Exhibition of the week

Matisse in the Studio
The diverse world art collection of Henri Matisse is recreated by an exhibition that explores how it shaped his vision.
• Royal Academy, London, 5 August to 12 November.

Also showing

Shadows of War
The Victorian war photography of Roger Fenton preserves haunting images of the Crimean war.
• Queen’s Gallery, Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, 4 August to 26 November.

Douglas Gordon
The most literary-minded of contemporary Scottish artists explores the legacy of national poet Robert Burns.
• Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, 29 July to 29 October.

Bobby Niven
A temporary sculpture workshop for craft and conversation about art, politics and plants.
• Johnston Terrace wildlife garden, part of Edinburgh art festival, until 27 August.

Beyond Caravaggio
Take a break from theatre and comedy at the Edinburgh fringe to see this outstanding exhibition dominated by Caravaggio’s brilliant late Renaissance art.
• Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, until 24th September.

Masterpiece of the week
An Allegory (Vision of a Knight), by Raphael, circa 1504. Photograph: Heritage Images/National Gallery

There is a fairytale sweetness to this early painting by the gifted Raphael. A knight in brightly coloured clothes and shiny armour slumbers in a dreamy landscape with a hilltop castle and blue distant hills. Two women stand over him, one proffering a flower, the other a book and sword. The flower suggests courtly love, the book and sword the virtue of a Christian knight. A true gentleman can have it all, chivalry, religion and love – like Raphael himself, who became both the pope’s favourite artist and a legendary hedonist.
• National Gallery, London.

Image of the week

Little Electric Chair, by Andy Warhol
Rock star Alice Cooper forgot he had an Andy Warhol classic worth millions. But he’s found it now, in a cardboard tube. Read all about it.

What we learned this week

The contenders for Astronomy photographer of the year are out of this world

… while the World Illustration awards contain hidden surprises

Britain’s best-loved artwork is a Banksy

… which says a lot about the country’s artistic sensibilities

Kitsch is everywhere this year

Tech giants are competing to make giant pleasure palaces

Bacteria bloom into bio-art through Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Subversive conceptual artist Rose Finn-Kelcey was a true original

Artists are shaping new worlds for video games

An NPG portrait shows Jack O’Connell in a different light

Liverpool is celebrating LGBT art

Grandad’s old travel photos took one family on a world tour of discovery

David Newell-Smith turned newspaper photography into an art form

Masahisa Fukase’s genius is much missed

Low-rider cars have become high art

Even on a pilgrimage, you need a bath

Get involved

Our A-Z of Readers’ Art series continues – please submit your artworks on the theme of U Is for Underwater.

Don’t forget

To follow us on Twitter: @GdnArtandDesign.