Rubens and His Legacy: crass analogies, bad ideas – and barely any Rubens

Rubens was so great he managed to invent nudes, portraits, rainbows and even Jesus Christ – or so the Royal Academy would have us believe in its sloppy and simplistic new exhibition, Rubens and His LegacyThe irritation started when I entered the first room of the Royal Academy’s much-touted epic exhibition Rubens and His Legacy and my eyes fell on a painting by John Constable. It is hard to think of a painter who has less in common with Rubens. But the curators have spotted one connection I