Famous and Not-So-Famous Belgians

Ever played the parlour game in which you have to name 10 famous Belgians? Art lovers shouldn't have too much trouble, as long as we're counting Flemish painters from the days before Belgium actually became a country in its own right in 1830. And there are dozens of artists on show in Rare and Indispensable: Masterpieces from Flemish Collections at the Museum aan de Stroom in Antwerp. (There are some pieces by non-Belgians as well!)

This exhibition brings together around 100 objects out of more than 1,000 designated by the Flemish regional government as being of major cultural significance -- snappily referred to as topstukken in Dutch. Such works -- in museums in Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp and locations right across Flanders -- enjoy official protection as being "indispensable" and consequently can't be taken outside the region without permission. They started the list 20 years ago, hence this anniversary show in a modern museum that's assumed a certain cachet of its own in Antwerp's historic docklands. 

It's a show that's got some familiar and a fair bit of unfamiliar art. Rubens, van Dyck, Magritte, Ensor and Spilliaert are all represented, but there are some real surprises. And it's jam-packed. Even on a very wet Friday afternoon in November. Almost as busy as Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum.

One artist you won't be able to name in the 10-famous-Belgians game is Gustave Van de Woestyne. He gets two paragraphs in the English-language Wikipedia and there doesn't seem to be any work by him in British public collections. But his striking Two Springs is the poster image for the Antwerp show. 

With an alternative title of The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, the painting contrasts two young women. The town mouse is clad in fashionable black; her eyes are obscured by an enormous hat with a veil and a truly outsize red feather. Her pale complexion is offset by a lipstick that matches the feather. The country mouse has no make-up but also wears scarlet, her dress gaping open at the bust, not revealingly, but ill-fittingly. 

Van de Woestyne comes in towards the end of this show, which is arranged more or less chronologically. And the earliest object to really catch your eye is this Head of Christ, preserved in the main church in Tongeren in eastern Belgium. 

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It was carved in walnut around 1060-70. That's right, in the decade when William the Conqueror was invading England. An astonishing survival. His furrowed forehead is a wonderful detail. 

And just a few metres away, René Magritte: 

It's the only work by the Surrealist in the show, but then there are only two Magrittes on the Flemish masterpiece list, compared with eight Van de Woestynes. Surprised? Well, Magritte was a French-speaker from Wallonia and spent most of his life in Brussels, which houses the Magritte Museum and is governed separately from Flanders and Wallonia. 

Bizarrely, there's no explanation at all in the show of this picture, entitled Perspective II. Manet's Balcony. It's a reworking of Edouard Manet's The Balcony, with the four characters in the painting replaced by coffins. We weren't at all aware that Magritte had recreated a series of famous pictures with coffins instead of people; a couple of days later we came across a sculpture in Antwerp's Fine Arts Museum with a coffin in place of Jacques-Louis David's Madame Récamier. 

The Magritte is oddly positioned at the end of a corridor next to a small room showing an interesting but not very audible video about the Flemish Masterpieces project. Part of the audibility problem was due to a woman annoyingly giving a guided tour at the top of her voice, a voice that seemed to carry throughout the building.

There are some superb things to see in this show, but it's honestly one of the most badly laid-out exhibitions we've been to in some time. A dozen small religious objects were crammed into a tiny space with scarcely room to turn around, and the background walls are largely a very dark grey, making it quite oppressive. And badly positioned proximity sensors beep constantly even though people are nowhere near exhibits. It's all a bit exhausting. 

But persevere and get to some of the superb early Renaissance art on show: Jan Provoost's Death and the Miser, a memento mori whose exact meaning is uncertain; a carved Passion by Jan Borman, with the ladder on which Jesus has been taken down from the Cross leaning protruding out towards the viewer; and the stunning colours of Hugo van der Goes' Death of the Virgin. 

Flanders was wealthy in the mid-16th century, as evidenced by this couple, Jan van Eyewerve and Jacquemyne Buuck, painted by Peter Pourbus in Bruges. It's not just the richness of their costumes. Through the window that gives a view outside and which stretches across this pair of portraits, your eye is caught by the huge crane behind Jan, ready to move the goods traded through the city. 

In the following century, Antwerp was at the centre of an art boom, with new genres being developed, such as the kunstkamer, a picture that could capture the wealth and splendour of an entire art collection in a single image. 

Here's the collection of wealthy Antwerp merchant Cornelis van der Geest in all its glory, painted in 1628. Here van der Geest's fine artwork has attracted distinguished guests, including the Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella, rulers of the Spanish Netherlands, Rubens and the King of Poland. Willem van Haecht was the man who painted so many masterpieces in one go, most of which have been identified.

The museum walls get lighter towards the end of this show as we get to see more modern work. It proves a better backdrop to appreciate this delicate Portrait of Marguerite Van Mons, one of two paintings by Théo van Rysselberghe. 

A different style -- Flemish Expressionism -- can be seen in Frits Van den Berghe's portrait of Paul-Gustave Van Hecke and His Wife Norine De Schriijver. The huge, dark figure of the art collector and patron Van Hecke stands in sharp contrast with the slender frame of his wife, a fashion designer. Apparently lurking in the background are an elephant and a cat.  

As we said, it's not all Belgians in this show. There's a Francis Bacon, and right at the end, Henry Moore, with a sculpture he made not long after World War II when he visited Antwerp and drew inspiration from a piece of art made more than 600 years earlier. And here they are, in the final frame of the exhibition, Moore's King and Queen gazing across at Christ and St John. 

That's quite a climax. We enjoyed a lot in this show, but it was hard work. 

Practicalities

Rare and Indispensable: Masterpieces from Flemish Collections is on at the Museum aan de Stroom in Antwerp until February 25. It's open Tuesday to Sunday from 1000 to 1700. Full-price tickets to the museum including this exhibition cost 12 euros and, given the popularity of this show, it's probably advisable to book online in advance here. We spent two hours in the exhibition; there's a lot to see. The distinctive glass-and-brick building hosts a number of other exhibition spaces on themes related to the city, and there's also free access via a series of escalators to the roof terrace for a view over the River Scheldt and the many church towers in the historic city centre.

Elsewhere in Antwerp....

The best of the exhibitions we saw on our recent visit to Flanders was Turning Heads at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, looking at the portrait-like character studies of faces, often in costume, created by artists such as Rembrandt, Rubens and Vermeer. It's a really fun show and highly recommended. 

Several of the exhibits at the MAS come from the Museum Mayer van den Bergh, a fantastic and beautifully presented diverse choice of art assembled in the late 19th century by a wealthy collector. The absolute highlight: Pieter Bruegel the Elder's apocalyptic Mad Meg. 

Antwerp's churches are filled with impressive art and architecture. The soaring Gothic cathedral has altarpieces by Rubens, while St Charles Borromeo is a Baroque triumph. 

Images 

Gustave Van de Woestyne (1881-1947), Two Springs, 1910, KMSKA, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen. Collectie Vlaamse Gemeenschap
Unknown maker, Head of Christ, c. 1060-70, Teseum, Collection of the Basilica of Our Lady, Tongeren 
René Magritte (1898-1967), Perspective II. Manet's Balcony, 1950, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent
Peter Pourbus (1523/1524-1584), Portraits of Jan van Eyewerve and Jacquemyne Buuck, 1551, Musea Brugge. www.lukasweb.be Art in Flanders. Photographer: Dominique Provost
Willem van Haecht (1593-1637), The Art Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest, 1628, Rubenshuis, Antwerp 
Théo van Rysselberghe (1862-1926), Portrait of Marguerite Van Mons, 1886, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent
Henry Moore (1898-1986), King and Queen, 1952-53, Middelheimmuseum, Antwerp and Master Heinrich of Constance (attributed), Christ and St John, c. 1312, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp