Rubens and his legacy: Van Dyck to Cezanne

Disappointing exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at how later artists have been inspired by Rubens.

I say disappointing because a lot of the publicity has implied that this a big Ruben’s show but they isn’t actually a huge amount of his work in the show. It’s far more about his legacy which is really interesting but the narrative of the show doesn’t flow very well.

After a couple of rooms I worked out you needed to find the Rubens in the room then work out from it to what came after. Often the Rubens is not the first thing you see in a room and it takes some hunting and pushing against the flow. I also found some of the room introduction boards were in odd places and didn’t lead you into the narrative. For example in the first room you read the board and naturally turn to your right where you find a Constable. Until you’ve looked at the Rubens you are not sure why you are looking at a Constable!

There were some fascinating works and things to learn. I loved the drawings for the Rubens “Garden of Love” and was really interested to learn they had been owned by one of Watteau’s patrons so you can see a direct link. I was also interested to see what later artists had written about Rubens works such as Van Gogh’s comments on one of the religious works.

The final room of contemporary work curated by Jenny Saville was really refreshing on the eye with some interesting comparisons however as ever in contemporary shows I am going to say put the label by the picture don’t make me hunt for it! It’s a long show I’m tired and grumpy by this stage!

Generally I felt the narrative of the show would have worked better as a good lecture with slides. Although it’s great to see the real pictures the nature of the rooms and how they had to be hung broke up the narrative. I’d realised what I was getting and have quite a good visual knowledge of Rubens so I worked it out but listening to some of the people around me I’m not sure they knew what it was about.

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