The Independent Recommends: The Five Best Shows

Rembrandt by Himself (National Gallery, London)

The self-portraits. The first and most searching autobiography in paint. The great pictorial statements of honesty and mortality, of the human depths. To 5 Sept

Joseph Beuys (Royal Academy, London)

Beautiful and mysterious: 456 drawings (right) using blood, fat, pencil and gold leaf, offer clues to Beuys's mythology. To 16 Sept

Helen Chadwick (Graves Gallery, Sheffield)

Photographic pieces on nature, death and pleasure from her short career - animal skins, flowers, embryos, chocolate and Windolene. To 28 Aug

Notorious (MoMA, Oxford)

One hundred years after his birth, Alfred Hitchcock lives. Group show looks at his legacy in art, most cunningly in the Phoenix Tapes. To 3 Oct

As Dark As Light (Venues around Cornwall)

A countywide contemporary art festival, focusing on the solar eclipse. James Turrell's open-air sky-dome, The Elliptic Ecliptic, is the sight to see. To 20 Nov