“Nowadays London’s Royal Academy, for all its clever rebranding as friend to the Hirst generation, is a silly place: its summer show a trite exercise, its courting of the rich and famous (the newly restored rooms at its home, Burlington House, have been named after the man who gave the most money) a little crass, its style always tending to the posh and the phony. Yet the opening display from its art collection in the Fine Rooms is a powerful reminder that the Royal Academy once mattered, that it was once revolutionary.”