Art Around the World - The Flemish Masters (Series)

Zoom Tour

Art Around the World - Flemish Masters

Expert: Luca Pietrosanti, Art Historian and Expert Guide

Fees: Purchase the entire 4-part series for $100. Two family members living in the same household may join a single Zoom window. 

Doing Good: 10% of net proceeds benefit Book-Cycle Rome

Itinerary

Art Around the World - Flemish Masters

“Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.” ― René Magritte

In this +With Friends series we travel virtually to Flanders, in modern day Belgium, to learn about the birth and evolution of the Northern Renaissance.

We will start in Bruges, the major center for trade in northern Europe, nodal point for merchants from England, the Baltic, Italy, and France in the 15th century. Under the enlightened rule of Duke Philip the Good, Jan Van Eyck, the father of all the Flemish Masters took painting to new heights with his precise observation and natural rendering of reality together with his brilliant use of colors and mastery of oils.

Then we’ll Zoom to Brussels on the footsteps of Pieter Bruegel, the enigmatic master who is largely responsible for the creation of Flanders’ national psyche and collective consciousness as “hard working yet bon vivant.” In his paintings of landscapes and picturesque villages bustling with life the boundary between real and fantastic is blurred in his apocalyptic religious and mythical visions.

In Antwerp, on the River Scheldt, which became the heart of Catholic Flanders after the separation from the seven reformed Northern Provinces, we’ll meet Pieter Paul Rubens, the greatest Flemish Master of the 17th century. As a court painter and diplomat, he traveled extensively throughout a Europe shaken by the Thirty Years’ War and religious turmoil, expressing the contrasts of the age in his intense religiously charged yet sensual baroque masterpieces.

Back to Brussels we’ll visit the Magritte Museum, the world's largest collection of the renowned surrealist artist René Magritte, the last of the great Flemish Masters. Inspired by the mysterious and dreamy visions of his “ancestors” Bruegel and Bosh and influenced by Sigmund Freud’s speculations on the subconscious mind, he gave birth so some of the most enigmatic and fascinating paintings of the 20th century.

Let’s explore!

WEEK 1: The Flemish Masters — Renaissance to Modernity Jan Van Eyck @ Bruges

• Iconic Art Work: The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, 1432 
• Check out Bruges: 48 Hours in Bruges, An Insider Guide to Belgium’s City on the Water 
• List of Works 

WEEK 2: The Flemish Masters — Renaissance to Modernity Pieter Brueghel (The Elder) @ Brussels

• Iconic Art Work: The Fall of the Rebel Angels, 1562
• Check out Brussels: Why Brussels is the New Berlin 
• List of Works 

WEEK 3: The Flemish Masters — Renaissance to Modernity Pieter Paul Rubens @ Antwerp

• Iconic Art Work: Descent from the Cross, 1612-1614
• Check out Antwerp: 23 Best Things to Do in Antwerp Blog 
• List of Works 

WEEK 4: The Flemish Masters — Renaissance to Modernity René Magritte @ Brussels (& Houston)

• Example Art Work: The Dominion of Light, 1954
• Check out Houston: Memories of a Voyage: The Late Work of René Magritte 
• List of Works 

Resources

• Travel - Flanders State of the Art - Flemish Masters
• Museums - Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium

Images by wikimedia.org

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