Rubens, Rubens, everywhere

He was hailed as a painter of princes, battles, hunts and nudes. Ahead of a Royal Academy exhibition, Michael Prodger traces Rubens’ influence, from Mexican churches to Chinese porcelain, Velázquez to PicassoThere was, it seems, nothing that Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) couldn’t do: except, that is, find his way into British hearts. In Europe he has always been held in the highest esteem. The 19th-century French critic and historian Hippolyte Taine said of him that “the whole of human na