Leonardo, Goya and Ai Weiwei – the week in art

Jonathan Jones's top shows to see this week Leonardo da Vinci, Painter at the Court of Milan No exhibition can entirely encompass the many-sided genius of Leonardo da Vinci . The daring of this one is to attempt the nearly impossible, to reunite his rare paintings. Most exhibitions focus instead on the marvellous abundance of his drawings: here those drawings are shown to enrich our view of his works in oil on wood. It was a foolhardy project – and it has come off: every single painting, murals aside, from his years as court artist to Ludovico Sforza has been lent to this stupendous show. It boggles the mind . • At National Gallery, London WC2, 9 November to 5 February 2012 Building the Revolution Once again, capitalism is under scrutiny and the modern economy is seen as profoundly flawed, so perhaps this is a timely exhibition in more ways than one. A reconstruction of Tatlin's utopian tower , visual icon of the Russian revolution, in the RA courtyard announces an exhibition that explores the imagination of early Soviet art that campaigned for a communist future. Yet such relics must also serve as mementos of that revolution's great historical failure. • At Royal Academy , London W1, to 22 January 2012 Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination In the same week that Leonardo's drawings are unveiled beside his paintings, here is an exploration of the world of exquisite medieval manuscript making out of which his illustrated notes bloomed. And in an age when books are evolving beyond print, here is what they looked like before it. • At British Library , London N1, from 11 November to 13 March 2012 David Nash Last chance to see the work of a richly natural sculptor in a gallery close to the Snowdonia national park. • At Oriel Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno, Wales, to 13 November The First Actresses From Restoration naughtiness to the grandeur of Sarah Siddons in Shakespeare, here is a fascinating glimpse of British cultural history. • At National Portrait Gallery , London WC2, to 8 January 2012 Up close: five works in detail Goya, Singing and Dancing, c1819-20 Goya is at once an accurate student of popular sports and pastimes, and a dark satirist to whom even the most innocent dance can look insane and bestial. • At Courtauld Gallery, London WC2, on view in The Spanish Line there to 15 January 2012 Picasso, Head of a Woman – Fernande, 1909 Picasso's fingers dig under the surface of the world, as if turning his lover's portrait inside out, revealing a secret inner core of her being, in this phenomenally physical and hauntingly metaphysical work, a revolutionary cubist masterpiece that revealed the young painter's genius for sculpture. • At Tate Modern, London SE1 Max Ernst, Le Grand Amoureux, 1926 This work – "The Great Lover" in English – expresses the basic drive of the surrealist movement that flourished in 1920s Paris. The surrealists believed that Sigmund Freud's ideas about sexuality and dreams could liberate art and politics in a revolution of desire. Ernst is one of the movement's most intense, authoritative artists. • At Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh Richard Wilson, 20:50, 1987 A sleek lake of oil acts as a perfect mirror, doubling the room it fills, creating an eerie sense of vertigo as space seems to fall away beneath you – and then a claustrophobia too as the smell and viscosity of the black stuff surround you in the steel walkway through the impossible world Wilson creates. A modern British masterpiece. • At Saatchi Gallery, London SW3 Cézanne, Still Life with a Teapot, 1902-6 The intense scrutiny Cézanne gives the world, the tactile power of his art to grasp the solidity of objects and his disdain for the old conventions of picture-making (which kept reality fixed behind a smooth oiled surface) make him one of the most courageous and profound artists who ever lived. • At National Museum of Wales, Cardiff What we learned this week How EVA & ADELE landed their time machine in Berlin just before the wall fell in 1989 – and subsequently invented their own sex What Ai Weiwei's finances look like Why the English National Ballet are going to be hanging out at Tate Britain so much next year Why football fans should flock to Sotheby's Why flouted sell-by dates have helped James Kendall in the name of art Image of the week Your art weekly Have you seen any of these shows? What have you enjoyed this week? Give your review in the comments below or tweet us your verdict using #artweekly and we'll publish the best ones. Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook