You are kindly invited
to
the
press conference of
the
exhibition
Venetian
and
Flemish
Masters
Bellini,
Tiziano,
Canaletto - Van Eyck, Bouts,
Jordaens
Thursday 10th of February at
11am
Centre for Fine
Arts
Entrance
Rue
Ravensteinstraat 23, 1000
Brussels
In the presence of
the
curator Giovanni
Federico Villa
and the artist Berlinde De
Bruyckere.
Interviews are possible on demand by
leen.daems@bozar.be.
We would like to
welcome
you for a drink after the press
conference.
Thank you for
confirming
your presence by mail
to
leen.daems@bozar.be
before 3rd of
February.
Venetian and Flemish
Masters
Bellini, Titian, Canaletto – Van Eyck,
Bouts,
Jordaens
11 February 2011 – 8 May
2011
Some fifty outstanding works from
the
Accademia Carrara in Bergamo will be on view in the Brussels Centre
for
Fine Arts, where they can be compared and contrasted with
fifteen
masterpieces from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp
(KMSKA).
This
ambitious exhibition, bringing together masterpieces from the
Accademia Carrara in Bergamo
and
the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp
(KMSKA),
shows the interdependency of the Flemish and Venetian schools. Lombardy
and
Flanders are being reunited at the heart of the European Union
to illustrate four centuries of contact
and
reciprocal influence that not only contributed greatly
to
shaping Western art, but also, it could be said, to the development of
a
European identity. Giovanni Bellini came across the works of Rogier van
der
Weyden and vice versa; Peter Paul Rubens is known to have looked at
the
works of Titian and Veronese. This diffusion of works and collections
would
have been impossible without the fruitful
maritime, commercial, and political exchanges between the North and
the
South.
While
other regions of Italy also had an undeniable, even fundamental
influence
over the same period, only the
Venetian
Republic maintained such regular and frequent contacts over such a
long
period. Whereas in the 15th century Flanders
and
Venice looked to each other, their paths subsequently diverged,
with
Flanders turning increasingly to Rome and that city's tradition
of
painting. In the 17th century, however, it rediscovered
Venice
via Rubens.
An exhibition in four
sections
The
Venetian and Flemish
Masters
exhibition, presented in four
sections,
takes us through four key centuries
for
European painting (from the 15th to the
18th
century) and illustrates the many points of contact and mutual
influences
involved in the relations between Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp, and Venice
in
terms of training and
emulation:
·
the quattrocento,
highlighting the birth of the portrait and devotional painting,
contrasting
the work of Pisanello and
Giovanni Bellini with that of
other
masters such as Rogier van der
Weyden;
· the cinquecento,
landscapes and devotional works, including Titian,
Palma il Vecchio, and
Veronese, presented alongside
their
Flemish
colleagues;
· the seicento
–
the sacred and the profane – when Rubens,
Padovanino, and
Tiepolo
made an appeal to the senses in their depictions of both sacred and
profane
subjects;
·
genre scenes and views
from
the settecento, presenting
the
parallels between Canaletto,
Francesco
Guardi, and Pietro
Longhi
and the Northern masters who, on occasion, preceded and influenced
them.
The artist Berlinde de
Bruyckere's
intervention in the exhibition
The
internationally renowned Ghent artist Berlinde de
Bruyckere
(born in Ghent in 1964) works on, sculpts, interrogates, and
illustrates
the human body in particular. Looking at history and humanity from a
global
perspective, her art draws its
inspiration
primarily from painting, both early and modern. Taking
her
references for the most part from German and Italian painting, she
accepted
our invitation to engage with a
number
of works from Venetian and Flemish
Masters
: she will present two of her own works in the
exhibition.
Bergamo and Antwerp: outstanding
museums
Founded
in 1796 by Giacomo Carrara,
the Accademia Carrara – which
today
is Italy's fifth most important collection – has no fewer than 2,000
works,
many of which are undisputed
masterpieces of Italian painting, from the Renaissance to the
18th
century. The museum is located in Bergamo (Lombardy),
which
served for a long time as the mainland capital of the Serenissima
Repubblica of Venice, as a result of which it is home to a
large
number of major works of the great Venetian school.
From
Giovanni Bellini's Virgin with
Child
to Titian's moving Madonna,
surrounded by a harmonious and serene landscape, and Raphael's famous
Saint Sebastian, a number
of
masterpieces bear witness to the extraordinary artistic richness of
the
Bergamo
museum.
The
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone
Kunsten
Antwerpen (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp), situated in
the
heart of the city, is the Flemish Community's most important museum.
It
possesses an impressive collection of key
works
that present an overview of
the
history of art in the Southern Netherlands and Belgium.
In
addition to an outstanding selection of Flemish primitives and
baroque
works by Rubens and his contemporaries, the museum also features the
fashionable
painters of the 19th century and the modernists James Ensor
and
Rik Wouters. Its Ensor
collection is the most important in the world and it has the
largest
collection of the works of Rik
Wouters. As well as presenting local artists the museum
contains
works by great foreign artists such as Jean Fouquet,
Titian,
Frans Hals, Auguste Rodin, and Amedeo
Modigliani. The permanent collection is momentarily closed
to
the public for renovation
works.
Curator: Giovanni Federico
Villa
Coproduction: BOZAR EXPO, Comune di Bergamo – Accademia
Carrara,
COBE Direzionale
S.p.A.
In collaboration with: Koninklijk Museum voor Schone
Kunsten
Antwerpen
With the Support of: Regione Lombardia,
Comune
di Bergamo, Vlaamse
gemeenschap
Main Sponsor: ENI
s.p.a.
Support: Banco Popolare, Fondazione
Credito
Bergamasco
Visitor
information
Venetian and Flemish
Masters
Bellini, Titian, Canaletto – Van Eyck,
Bouts,
Jordaens
Exhibition
venue
BOZAR
- Centre for Fine
Arts
Koningsstraat/rue
Royale
10
1000
Brussels
Dates
11
February 2011 – 8 May
2011
Opening
times
Tuesday
> Sunday, 10 am > 6
pm
Thursday,
10 am > 9
pm
Tickets
€
10
(Discounts on www.bozar.be)
