Too respectable or better than ever? The Turner Prize 2012 – the week in art

Exhibition of the Week: Turner Prize 2012 The exhibition that defines the state of the art returns for another season of debate and disagreement. Is it becoming too respectable? Too predictable? Or better than ever? This year's shortlisted artists are a sterling selection. The provocateur of the bunch, Spartacus Chetwynd , is guaranteed to raise a smile. Paul Noble draws a world of humour and imagination – is that too "traditional" to get him a Turner? If the jury believe the moving image is where it's at they may give the award to Elizabeth Price . And what about Luke Fowler 's filmed resurrections of the British radical past? Anyway, this promises to be a cracking exhibition with some genuinely original art in it. • Tate Britain , London SW1, from 2 October until 6 January 2013. Other highlights this week Carracci Freud The painting of Lucian Freud has a startling affinity for the Baroque art of Annibale Carracci and here they show side by side. • Ordovas , London W1, from 5 October until 15 December. Random International: Rain Room A walkthrough installation of rainfall that promises not to soak visitors. • The Curve, Barbican , London EC2, from 4 October until 3 March. Keith Coventry With titles like Looted Shop Front and Kebab Machine, the sculptures of Keith Coventry may shake sedate Salisbury. • New Art Centre , East Winterslow, Salisbury SP5, from 29 September until 18 November. Runa Islam Films that dwell on the facts of material existence. • White Cube Hoxton Square , London N1, until 3 November. Masterpiece of the Week Extreme Unction, 1637-40, by Nicolas Poussin Poussin once said that Caravaggio had come to destroy painting . The two artists are opposites. Where Caravaggio concentrates drama in an illuminated moment, a flash of truth, Poussin enfolds his dramatic moments in expansive fields that reveal the epic history and landscape in which an event becomes meaningful. He deliberately cools the action to invite thought. Here, the beholder is asked to consider the meaning of the Catholic sacrament of Extreme Unction . Poussin's theological masterpiece is on view at the National Gallery in support of the campaign launched by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to purchase it for the nation. It would hang well alongside that museum's terrifying Baroque treasure, Salvator Rosa's painting of the skeletal figure of Death approaching a new-born child . For Rosa, death is overwhelming dread. For Poussin, it is humanised through ritual: the dying person is not alone but supported by a community. • On view in Room 1, National Gallery , London WC2N, until 11 November • The Art Fund is running a campaign to help the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to secure this artwork. More details here . Image of the week Five things we learned this week • How the tides have turned around the British coastline • That the star of Maurizio Cattelan's Whitechapel show brings new meaning to the phrase 'still life' • How Nathan Coley's beacon of bulds lights up the capital of Kosovo • That the Cork Street art hub in Mayfair, London, is under threat from developers • What the shortlisted buildings for the RIBA Stirling prize look like – in 360 degrees And finally … • September's Share your art theme is dance and movement. Throw some shapes, on a page • Post your images to the Guardian Art and Design Flickr • Check out our Tumblr • Follow us on Twitter • The National Gallery is seeking a Designer (Digital Media) . To see more Visual Arts roles on Guardian Jobs click here