Beguiling beauties, designs to be sat on and giant corn dollies – the week in art

Gwen John: Strange BeautiesThis excellent and moving encounter with the Welsh modern painter, touring from Wales’s National Museum, takes you deep into John’s silent, poetic world. Modern Two, Edinburgh, from 1 August until 4 January

Also showing

The Pattern of Life: Enid Marx and Modern British Design Creator of the London Underground’s seat coverings and other classic fabrics, Marx is presented here as a major modern designer. Compton Verney, Warwickshire, until 3 January

East of the Aldgate Pump A survey of contemporary artists working in east London, including Rene Mati? and Denzil Forrester. Whitechapel Gallery, London, until 6 September

LR Vandy: RiseGiant corn dolly-like sculptures arranged round a Maypole offer a draft of rural gothic for summer. Yorkshire Sculpture Park, until 13 September

Ranti Bam: Sacred GrovesThe mysterious power of clay to connect nature with the human body is explored by this British Nigerian artist. South London Gallery, until 23 August

Image of the week

Era-defining photographs from the likes of Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothea Lange and this image from uptown Manhattan in 1960 by Saul Leiter showcase the US cityscape, from midnight crime scenes to gloomy corridors. They are part of a major new show in London. See our full gallery

What we learned

The fight to save the world’s only women’s sculpture park from becoming a generic space for VIP events and cocktails is on

Gunter von Hagens died this week, but his plastinated horrors will endure

Nearly 20 Georgia O’Keeffe works inspired by her New Mexico will show in the UK for the first time

Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s iconic Glasgow School of Art faces ‘curated decay’

Startling unseen work by the late Brett Whiteley has been found at his studio

Kyiv wants to erect a statue of a Cossack chief in place of ‘enemy of humanity’ Lenin

Artists find creative haven in Côte d’Ivoire’s ‘calm and soothing’ Grand Bassam

Masterpiece of the week

The Water Cistern (‘La Fontaine’) by Jean-Siméon Chardin, 1733 or later

We can’t see this young woman’s face as she bends to release water from a bronze tank into a wooden bucket. She’s dressed in simple clothes and doing exhausting work so we assume she’s a servant in a grand house or on a farm. That’s as much of a story as you can extract from Chardin’s painting, for it expands one moment in time, the little drama of the water splashing from the tap and the silent attentiveness of the servant. Life, in the eyes of this early 18th-century painter of the humble and factual, is made up of such moments. This painting is in a line of quietness observed that leads from Vermeer’s Milkmaid to Gwen John’s portraits of women reading in solitude. As the maid fills her bucket, we notice a red and white slab of meat hanging in the shadows: this hunk of flesh might add a carnal hint to the scene, or make you think of mortality. For this peaceful routine takes place, the slaughtered animal reminds us, in a world of violence and desire that always threaten to destroy Chardin’s treasured calm. National Gallery, London

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