1.
Kunsthistorisches Museum
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The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome, the term Kunsthistorisches Museum applies to both the institution and the main building. It is the largest art museum in the country and it was opened around 1891 at the same time as the Naturhistorisches Museum, by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary. The two museums have similar exteriors and face each other across Maria-Theresien-Platz, both buildings were built between 1871 and 1891 according to plans drawn up by Gottfried Semper and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer. The two Ringstraße museums were commissioned by the Emperor in order to find a shelter for the Habsburgs formidable art collection. The façade was built of sandstone, the building is rectangular in shape, and topped with a dome that is 60 meters high. The inside of the building is decorated with marble, stucco ornamentations, gold-leaf. It was featured in an episode of Museum Secrets on the History Channel and it had been the biggest art theft in Austrian history. Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós Media related to Kunsthistorisches Museum at Wikimedia Commons Official website Spherical panorama of entrance Hofburgs Armory - photo gallery in Flickr
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Vienna
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Vienna is the capital and largest city of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austrias primary city, with a population of about 1.8 million, and its cultural, economic and it is the 7th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union. Today, it has the second largest number of German speakers after Berlin, Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations and OPEC. The city is located in the part of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region, along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, apart from being regarded as the City of Music because of its musical legacy, Vienna is also said to be The City of Dreams because it was home to the worlds first psycho-analyst – Sigmund Freud. The citys roots lie in early Celtic and Roman settlements that transformed into a Medieval and Baroque city and it is well known for having played an essential role as a leading European music centre, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The historic centre of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque castles and gardens, Vienna is known for its high quality of life. In a 2005 study of 127 world cities, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the city first for the worlds most liveable cities, between 2011 and 2015, Vienna was ranked second, behind Melbourne, Australia. Monocles 2015 Quality of Life Survey ranked Vienna second on a list of the top 25 cities in the world to make a base within, the UN-Habitat has classified Vienna as being the most prosperous city in the world in 2012/2013. Vienna regularly hosts urban planning conferences and is used as a case study by urban planners. Between 2005 and 2010, Vienna was the worlds number-one destination for international congresses and it attracts over 3.7 million tourists a year. The English name Vienna is borrowed from the homonymous Italian version of the name or the French Vienne. The etymology of the name is still subject to scholarly dispute. Some claim that the name comes from Vedunia, meaning forest stream, which produced the Old High German Uuenia. A variant of this Celtic name could be preserved in the Czech and Slovak names of the city, the name of the city in Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian and Ottoman Turkish has a different, probably Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in the area. Slovene-speakers call the city Dunaj, which in other Central European Slavic languages means the Danube River, evidence has been found of continuous habitation since 500 BC, when the site of Vienna on the Danube River was settled by the Celts. In 15 BC, the Romans fortified the city they called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north
3.
Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx
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Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx is a painting by the Flemish Northern Renaissance artist Joachim Patinir. 1515–1524, it is in the Museo del Prado of Madrid, landscape with Charon Crossing Styx fits into common Northern Renaissance and early Mannerist trends of art. The 16th century witnessed a new era for painting in Germany, many artists, including Patinir, traveled to Italy to study and these travels to the south provided new ideas, particular concerning representations of the natural world. Patinirs religious subjects, therefore, incorporate precise observation and naturalism with fantastic landscapes inspired by the traditions of Bosch. It depicts the subject related by Virgil in his Aeneid and Dante in the Inferno at the centre of the picture within the Christian traditions of the Last Judgment. The larger figure in the boat is Charon, who transports the souls of the dead to the gates of Hades. The passenger in the boat, too minute to distinguish his expressions, is a human soul deciding between Heaven, to his right, or Hell, to his left, the river Styx divides the painting down the centre. It is one of the four rivers of the underworld that passes through the deepest part of hell, on the paintings left side is the fountain of Paradise, the spring from which the river Lethe flows through Heaven. On the right side of the composition is Patinirs vision of Hell, in front of the gates is Cerberus, a three-headed dog, who guards the entrance of the gate and frightens all the potential souls who enter into Hades. The soul in the boat ultimately chooses his destiny by looking toward Hell, Patinir utilised a Weltlandschaft composition with a three-colour scheme typical of his work, moving from brown in the foreground, to bluish-green, to pale blue in the background). This format, which Patiner is widely acknowledged as popularising, provides a view over an expansive landscape. Furthermore, the painting uses colour to visibly depict heaven and hell, good, to the viewers left is a heavenly place with bright blue skies, crystal blue rivers with a luminous fountain and angels accenting the grassy hills. On the far right of the painting is a dark sky engulfing Hell, the foreground of the painting consists of brown rocks in Heaven and brown burnt trees in Hell. In the middle-ground is the river and the grasslands in bright hues of blue, the background, which is cut off by the horizon line of the darker blue river, is a pale blue sky highlighted with white and gray clouds
4.
Museo del Prado
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The Prado Museum is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. Founded as a museum of paintings and sculpture in 1819, it contains important collections of other types of works. El Prado is one of the most visited sites in the world, and it is considered one of the greatest art museums in the world. The collection currently comprises around 8,200 drawings,7,600 paintings,4,800 prints, and 1,000 sculptures, in addition to a large number of other works of art and historic documents. As of 2012, the museum displayed about 1,300 works in the buildings, while around 3,100 works were on temporary loan to various museums. The museum received 2.8 million visitors in 2012 and it is one of the largest museums in Spain. The best-known work on display at the museum is Las Meninas by Velázquez, Velázquez and his keen eye and sensibility were also responsible for bringing much of the museums fine collection of Italian masters to Spain, now the largest outside of Italy. The museum is planning a 16% extension in the nearby Salón de Reinos and their efforts and determination led to the Royal Collection being enriched by some of the masterpieces now to be seen in the Prado. In addition to works from the Spanish royal collection, other holdings increased and enriched the Museum with further masterpieces, such as the two Majas by Goya. Among the now closed museums whose collections have been added to that of the Prado were the Museo del la Trinidad in 1872, in addition, numerous legacies, donations and purchases have been of crucial importance for the growth of the collection. Upon the deposition of Isabella II in 1868, the museum was nationalized and acquired the new name of Museo del Prado, the building housed the royal collection of arts, and it rapidly proved too small. The first enlargement to the museum took place in 1918, particularly important donations include Barón Emile dErlangers gift of Goyas Black Paintings in 1881. Between 1873 and 1900, the Prado helped decorate city halls, new universities, during the Second Spanish Republic from 1931 to 1936, the focus was on building up provincial museums. The art had to be returned across French territory in night trains to the museum upon the commencement of World War II, during the early years of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, many paintings were sent to embassies. The main building was enlarged with short pavilions in the rear between 1900 and 1960, in 1993, an extension proposed by the Prados director at the time, Felipe Garin, was quickly abandoned after a wave of criticism. In the late 1990s, a $14 million roof work forced the Velázquez masterpiece Las Meninas to change galleries twice, in 1998, the Prado annex in the nearby Casón del Buen Retiro closed for a $10 million two-year overhaul that included three new underground levels. In 2007, the finally executed Rafael Moneos project to expand its exposition room to 16,000 square meters. A glass-roofed and wedge-shaped foyer now contains the shops and cafeteria
5.
Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting
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Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting represents the 16th century response to Italian Renaissance art in the Low Countries. Antwerp was the most important artistic centre in the region, many artists worked for European courts, including Bosch, whose fantastic painted images left a long legacy. Jan Mabuse, Maarten van Heemskerck and Frans Floris were all instrumental in adopting Italian models and incorporating them into their own artistic language. Pieter Brueghel the Elder, with Bosch the only artist from the period to remain widely familiar, may seem atypical, dutch and Flemish painters were also instrumental in establishing new subjects such as landscape painting and genre painting. Like the world landscapes, these represented a typically Mannerist inversion of the normal decorum of the hierarchy of genres, Italian Renaissance influences begin to show on Early Netherlandish painting around 1500, but in many ways the older style was remarkably persistent. Antwerp Mannerism is a term for painters showing some Italian influence, hieronymus Bosch is a highly individual artist, whose work is strange and full of seemingly irrational imagery, making it difficult to interpret. The Romanists were the phase of influence, adopting Italian styles in a far more thorough way. The Fall of Icarus, although highly atypical in many ways and it hints at the renewed interest for antiquity, but the hero Icarus is hidden away in the background. The main actors in the painting are nature itself and, most prominently, the peasant, Brueghel shows man as an anti-hero, comical and sometimes grotesque. Northern Renaissance Art,1985, Harry N. Abrams, ISBN 0-13-623596-4 Orenstein, Nadine M. ed. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Drawings and Prints
6.
History painting
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History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than artistic style. History paintings usually depict a moment in a story, rather than a specific and static subject. The term is derived from the senses of the word historia in Latin and Italian, meaning story or narrative. Most history paintings are not of scenes from history, especially paintings from before about 1850, History paintings almost always contain a number of figures, often a large number, and normally show some type of action that is a moment in a narrative. The genre includes depictions of moments in religious narratives, above all the Life of Christ, as well as scenes from mythology. These groups were for long the most frequently painted, works such as Michelangelos Sistine Chapel ceiling are therefore history paintings, History painting may be used interchangeably with historical painting, and was especially so used before the 20th century. Where a distinction is made historical painting is the painting of scenes from secular history, in the 19th century historical painting in this sense became a distinct genre. In phrases such as historical painting materials, historical means in use before about 1900 and he placed emphasis on the ability to depict the interactions between the figures by gesture and expression. This view remained general until the 19th century, when artistic movements began to struggle against the establishment institutions of academic art, which continued to adhere to it. Scenes from ancient history had been popular in the early Renaissance, and once again became common in the Baroque and Rococo periods, and still more so with the rise of Neoclassicism. In some 19th or 20th century contexts, the term may refer specifically to paintings of scenes from history, rather than those from religious narratives. Scenes from ancient history and mythology were also popular, artists continued for centuries to strive to make their reputation by producing such works, often neglecting genres to which their talents were better suited. The large works of Raphael were long considered, with those of Michelangelo, un Peintre qui ne fait que des portraits, na pas encore cette haute perfection de lArt, & ne peut prétendre à lhonneur que reçoivent les plus sçavans. He who produces perfect landscapes is above another who only produces fruit, a painter who only does portraits still does not have the highest perfection of his art, and cannot expect the honour due to the most skilled. By the late 18th century, with religious and mytholological painting in decline, there was an increased demand for paintings of scenes from history. Classical history remained popular, but scenes from national histories were often the best-received, the unheroic nature of modern dress was regarded as a serious difficulty. When, in 1770, Benjamin West proposed to paint The Death of General Wolfe in contemporary dress and he ignored these comments and showed the scene in modern dress. Although George III refused to purchase the work, West succeeded both in overcoming his critics objections and inaugurating a more historically accurate style in such paintings. M. W, conveniently their clothes had been worn away to classical-seeming rags by the point the painting depicts
7.
Landscape painting
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In other works, landscape backgrounds for figures can still form an important part of the work. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather is often an element of the composition, detailed landscapes as a distinct subject are not found in all artistic traditions, and develop when there is already a sophisticated tradition of representing other subjects. The two main traditions spring from Western painting and Chinese art, going well over a thousand years in both cases. Landscape views in art may be imaginary, or copied from reality with varying degrees of accuracy. If the primary purpose of a picture is to depict an actual, specific place, especially including buildings prominently, within a few decades it was used to describe vistas in poetry, and eventually as a term for real views. However the cognate term landscaef or landskipe for a patch of land had existed in Old English. The earliest pure landscapes with no figures are frescos from Minoan Greece of around 1500 BCE. The frescos from the Tomb of Nebamun, now in the British Museum, are a famous example. These were frequently used, as in the illustrated, to bridge the gap between a foreground scene with figures and a distant panoramic vista, a persistent problem for landscape artists. The Chinese style generally showed only a distant view, or used dead ground or mist to avoid that difficulty, aesthetic theories in both regions gave the highest status to the works seen to require the most imagination from the artist. They were often also poets whose lines and images illustrated each other, a revival in interest in nature initially mainly manifested itself in depictions of small gardens such as the Hortus Conclusus or those in millefleur tapestries. The frescos of figures at work or play in front of a background of trees in the Palace of the Popes. Several frescos of gardens have survived from Roman houses like the Villa of Livia, a particular advance is shown in the less well-known Turin-Milan Hours, now largely destroyed by fire, whose developments were reflected in Early Netherlandish painting for the rest of the century. Landscape backgrounds for various types of painting became prominent and skilful during the 15th century. The Italian development of a system of graphical perspective was now known all over Europe. Indeed, certain styles were so popular that they became formulas that could be copied again and again, after the publication of the Small Landscapes, landscape artists in the Low Countries either continued with the world landscape or followed the new mode presented by the Small Landscapes. The popularity of landscape scenes can be seen in the success of the painter Frans Post. Salvator Rosa gave picturesque excitement to his landscapes by showing wilder Southern Italian country, there are different styles and periods, and subgenres of marine and animal painting, as well as a distinct style of Italianate landscape
8.
Flanders
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Flanders is the Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium, although there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, language, politics and history. It is one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, the demonym associated with Flanders is Fleming, while the corresponding adjective is Flemish. The official capital of Flanders is Brussels, although Brussels itself has an independent regional government, in historical contexts, Flanders originally refers to the County of Flanders, which around AD1000 stretched from the Strait of Dover to the Scheldt estuary. In accordance with late 20th century Belgian state reforms the area was made two political entities, the Flemish Community and the Flemish Region. These entities were merged, although geographically the Flemish Community, which has a cultural mandate, covers Brussels. Flanders has figured prominently in European history, as a consequence, a very sophisticated culture developed, with impressive achievements in the arts and architecture, rivaling those of northern Italy. Belgium was one of the centres of the 19th century industrial revolution, geographically, Flanders is generally flat, and has a small section of coast on the North Sea. Much of Flanders is agriculturally fertile and densely populated, with a density of almost 500 people per square kilometer. It touches France to the west near the coast, and borders the Netherlands to the north and east, the Brussels Capital Region is an enclave within the Flemish Region. Flanders has exclaves of its own, Voeren in the east is between Wallonia and the Netherlands and Baarle-Hertog in the consists of 22 exclaves surrounded by the Netherlands. It comprises 6.5 million Belgians who consider Dutch to be their mother tongue, the political subdivisions of Belgium, the Flemish Region and the Flemish Community. The first does not comprise Brussels, whereas the latter does comprise the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Brussels, the political institutions that govern both subdivisions, the operative body Flemish Government and the legislative organ Flemish Parliament. The two westernmost provinces of the Flemish Region, West Flanders and East Flanders, forming the central portion of the historic County of Flanders, a feudal territory that existed from the 8th century until its absorption by the French First Republic. Until the 1600s, this county also extended over parts of France, one of the regions conquered by the French in Flanders, namely French Flanders in the Nord department. French Flanders can be divided into two regions, Walloon Flanders and Maritime Flanders. The first region was predominantly French-speaking already in the 1600s, the latter became so in the 20th century, the city of Lille identifies itself as Flemish, and this is reflected, for instance, in the name of its local railway station TGV Lille Flandres. The region conquered by the Dutch Republic in Flanders, now part of the Dutch province of Zeeland, the significance of the County of Flanders and its counts eroded through time, but the designation remained in a very broad sense. In the Early modern period, the term Flanders was associated with the part of the Low Countries
9.
Wallonia
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Wallonia is a region of Belgium. Wallonia is primarily French-speaking, and accounts for 55% of the territory of Belgium, unlike Flanders, the Walloon Region was not merged with the French Community of Belgium which is the political entity that is responsible for matters related mainly to culture and education. The German-speaking minority in the east forms the German-speaking Community of Belgium, during the industrial revolution, Wallonia was second only to the United Kingdom in industrialization, capitalizing on its extensive deposits of coal and iron. This brought the wealth, and, from the beginning of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century. Since World War II the importance of industry has greatly diminished. Wallonia now suffers high unemployment and has a significantly lower GDP per capita than Flanders. The economic inequalities and linguistic divide between the two are major sources of conflict in Belgium and is a major factor in Flemish separatism. The capital of Wallonia is Namur but the city with the greatest population is Charleroi, most of Wallonias major cities and two-thirds of its population lie along the Sambre and Meuse valley, the former industrial backbone of Belgium. To the north lies the Central Belgian Plateau, which, like Flanders, is relatively flat, in the south-east lie the Ardennes, hilly and sparsely populated. Wallonia borders Flanders and the Netherlands in the north, France to the south and west, Wallonia has been a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie since 1980. The term Wallonia can mean different things in different contexts. One of the three regions of Belgium is still constitutionally defined as the Walloon Region, but the regions government has renamed it Wallonia. In practice, the difference between the two terms is small and what is meant is usually clear, based on context, the root of the word Wallonia, like the words Wales, Cornwall and Wallachia, is the Germanic word Walha, meaning the strangers. Wallonia is named after the Walloons, the population of the Burgundian Netherlands speaking Romance languages, in Middle Dutch, the term Walloons also included the French-speaking population of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège or the whole population of the Romanic sprachraum within the medieval Low Countries. Julius Caesar conquered Gaul in 57 BC, the Low Countries became part of the larger Gallia Belgica province which originally stretched from southwestern Germany to Normandy and the southern part of the Netherlands. The population of territory was Celtic with a Germanic influence which was stronger in the north than in the south of the province. The ancestors of the Walloons became Gallo-Romans and were called the Walha by their Germanic neighbours, the Walha abandoned their Celtic dialects and started to speak Vulgar Latin. The Merovingian Franks gradually gained control of the region during the 5th century, the language border began to crystallize between 700 under the reign of the Merovingians and Carolingians and around 1000 after the Ottonian Renaissance
10.
Antwerp
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Antwerp is a city in Belgium, the capital of Antwerp province in the region of Flanders. With a population of 510,610, it is the most populous city proper in Belgium and its metropolitan area houses around 1,200,000 people, which is second behind Brussels. Antwerp is on the River Scheldt, linked to the North Sea by the Westerschelde estuary, the Port of Antwerp is one of the biggest in the world, ranking second in Europe and within the top 20 globally. Antwerp has long been an important city in the Low Countries, the inhabitants of Antwerp are nicknamed Sinjoren, after the Spanish honorific señor or French seigneur, lord, referring to the Spanish noblemen who ruled the city in the 17th century. The city hosted the 1920 Summer Olympics, according to folklore, notably celebrated by a statue in front of the town hall, the city got its name from a legend about a giant called Antigoon who lived near the Scheldt river. He exacted a toll from passing boatmen, and for those who refused, he severed one of their hands, eventually the giant was killed by a young hero named Silvius Brabo, who cut off the giants own hand and flung it into the river. Hence the name Antwerpen, from Dutch hand werpen, akin to Old English hand and wearpan, a longstanding theory is that the name originated in the Gallo-Roman period and comes from the Latin antverpia. Antverpia would come from Ante Verpia, indicating land that forms by deposition in the curve of a river. Note that the river Scheldt, before a period between 600 and 750, followed a different track. This must have coincided roughly with the current ringway south of the city, however, many historians think it unlikely that there was a large settlement which would be named Antverpia, but more something like an outpost with a river crossing. However, John Lothrop Motley argues, and so do a lot of Dutch etymologists and historians, aan t werp is also possible. This warp is a hill or a river deposit, high enough to remain dry at high tide. Another word for werp is pol hence polders, historical Antwerp allegedly had its origins in a Gallo-Roman vicus. Excavations carried out in the oldest section near the Scheldt, 1952–1961, produced pottery shards, the earliest mention of Antwerp dates from the 4th century. In the 4th century, Antwerp was first named, having been settled by the Germanic Franks, the name was reputed to have been derived from anda and werpum. The Merovingian Antwerp was evangelized by Saint Amand in the 7th century, at the end of the 10th century, the Scheldt became the boundary of the Holy Roman Empire. Antwerp became a margraviate in 980, by the German emperor Otto I, in the 11th century Godfrey of Bouillon was for some years known as the marquis of Antwerp. In the 12th century, Norbert of Xanten established a community of his Premonstratensian canons at St. Michaels Abbey at Caloes
11.
Low Countries
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Most of the Low Countries are coastal regions bounded by the North Sea or the English Channel. The countries without access to the sea have linked themselves politically and economically to those with access to one union of port. The Low Countries were the scene of the northern towns, newly built rather than developed from ancient centres. In that period, they rivaled northern Italy for the most densely populated region of Europe, all of the regions mainly depended on trade, manufacturing and the encouragement of the free flow of goods and craftsmen. Germanic languages such as Dutch and Luxembourgish were the predominant languages, secondary languages included French, Romance-speaking Belgium, the Romance Flanders, and Namur. Governor Mary of Hungary used both the expressions les pays de par deça and Pays dEmbas, which evolved to Pays-Bas or Low Countries, today the term is typically fitted to modern political boundaries and used in the same way as the term Benelux, which also includes Luxembourg. The name of the country the Netherlands has the same meaning. The same name of countries can be found in other European languages, for example German Niederlande, French, les Pays-Bas, and so on. In the Dutch language itself no plural is used for the name of the modern country, so Nederland is used for the modern nation and de Nederlanden for the 16th century domains of Charles V. In Dutch, and to an extent in English, the Low Countries colloquially means the Netherlands and Belgium, sometimes the Netherlands. For example, a Derby der Lage Landen, is an event between Belgium and the Netherlands. Belgium was renamed only in 1830, after splitting from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, politically, before the Napoleonic wars, it was referred to as the Southern, Spanish or later Austrian Netherlands. It is still referred to as part of the low countries, the region politically had its origins in Carolingian empire, more precisely, most of it was within the Duchy of Lower Lotharingia. After the disintegration of Lower Lotharingia, the Low Countries were brought under the rule of various lordships until they came to be in the hands of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy. Hence, a part of the low countries came to be referred to as the Burgundian Netherlands also called the Seventeen Provinces up to 1581. Even after the secession of the autonomous Dutch Republic in the north. The Low Countries were part of the Roman provinces of Gallia Belgica, Germania Inferior and they were inhabited by Belgic and Germanic tribes. In the 4th and 5th century, Frankish tribes had entered this Roman region and they came to be ruled by the Merovingian dynasty, under which dynasty the southern part was re-Christianised
12.
World landscape
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The subject of each painting is usually a Biblical or historical narrative, but the figures comprising this narrative element are dwarfed by their surroundings. The compositional type was taken up by a number of other Netherlandish artists, there was a parallel development by Patinirs contemporary Albrecht Altdorfer and other artists of the Danube school. The treatment of landscape backgrounds in Early Netherlandish painting was admired in Italy. The backgrounds to many of Albrecht Dürers early prints were appropriated by a number of Italian artists and he typically uses three base colours to articulate his compositions, with a brownish foreground, a blue-green middle zone, and blues in the distance. The horizon-line is relatively high on the picture plane, Patinir came from Dinant on the Meuse where, in a startlingly un-Netherlandish landscape, there are dramatic rock cliffs and free-standing crags along the river. These are frequently recalled in his paintings, and came to form a feature of works by other artists. Both Kenneth Clark and Simon Schama see these as the last survivors of the landscape of symbols, relating them to medieval, jerome at Prayer anticipate the new style. In most respects the paintings retain the same elements as many 15th-century treatments of the same subjects but show, in modern cinematic terms, some paintings by Jan Sanders van Hemessen place genre figures in the foreground of paintings on religious or moral subjects. In the 17th century all these areas became established as independent genres in Dutch and Flemish painting. Patinirs invention was developed by Herri met de Bles, who was probably his nephew and he took the type into the new style of Northern Mannerism. Other artists were Lucas Gassel, the Brunswick Monogrammist, and Cornelis Massys, Patinir increasingly left the larger figures in his works to other masters, and also seems to have had a large workshop or circle of followers in Antwerp. The style was adopted and made more natural in the landscapes of Pieter Brueghel the Elder and they are larger than most previous works, with a genre scene with several figures in the foreground, and the panoramic view seen past or through trees. Bruegel was also aware of the Danube landscape style through prints, the Danube school was a contemporary group of German and Austrian artists who were also pioneers of landscape painting, and the first to regularly paint pure landscapes without figures. Other innovative works showed close-up views of dense forest with hardly any distant view or even sky and it is probable that at least Altdorfer had seen a Patinir by about 1531, one was in Augsburg from 1517. This extraordinary painting shows a view right across the Mediterranean, with a mass of tiny figures fighting a battle in the foreground. They are in modern Turkey, and the view extends beyond the island of Cyprus to the coast of Egypt and the Sinai peninsula, the painting originally formed one part of a set of historical paintings in the same format. Both the Netherlandish and Danubian approaches to painting were greatly influential for later artists. Though Rubens rapidly outgrew his influence, in some of his landscapes, such as the Summer, Peasants going to Market
13.
Dinant
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Dinant is a Walloon city and municipality located on the River Meuse in the Belgian province of Namur. It is around 90 kilometres south-east of Brussels,30 kilometres south-east of Charleroi,30 kilometres south of Namur and 20 kilometres north of Givet. The municipality includes the old communes of Anseremme, Bouvignes-sur-Meuse, Dréhance, Falmagne, Falmignoul, Foy-Notre-Dame, Furfooz, Lisogne, Sorinnes, Dinant is positioned in the Upper Meuse valley at a point where the river cuts deeply into the western Condroz plateau. During the 19th century the former Île des Batteurs to the south was attached directly to the town when a branch of the river was filled in, Dinant has been enriched by the agricultural opportunities presented by the fertility of the land on the plateau that overlooks it. The name Dinant comes from the Celtic Divo-Nanto, meaning Sacred Valley or Divine Valley, the Dinant area was already populated in Neolithic, Celtic, and Roman times. In 870, Charles the Bald gave part of Dinant to be administered by the Count of Namur, the part by the bishop of Tongeren. In the 11th century, the emperor Henry IV granted several rights over Dinant to the Prince-Bishop of Liège, including market, from that time on, the city became one of the 23 ‘‘bonnes villes’’ of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. The first stone bridge on the Meuse and major repair to the castle, the citys economic rival was Bouvignes, downriver on the opposite shore of the Meuse. Henri Pirenne gained his doctorate in 1883 with a thesis on medieval Dinant, in the 16th- and 17th-century wars between France and Spain, Dinant suffered destruction, famine and epidemics, despite its neutrality. In 1675, the French army under Marshal François de Créquy occupied the city, Dinant was briefly taken by the Austrians at the end of the 18th century. The whole Bishopric of Liège was ceded to France in 1795, the dinanderies fell out of fashion and the economy of the city now rested on leather tanning and the manufacture of playing cards. The famous couques de Dinant also appeared at that time, the city suffered devastation again at the beginning of the First World War. On the 15 August 1914, French and German troops fought for the town in the Battle of Dinant, on 23 August,674 inhabitants were summarily executed by Saxon troops of the German Army — the biggest massacre committed by the Germans in 1914. Within a month, some five thousand Belgian and French civilians were killed by the Germans at numerous similar occasions, the citys landmark is the Collegiate Church of Notre Dame de Dinant. It was rebuilt in Gothic style on its old foundations after falling rocks from the adjacent cliff partially destroyed the former Romanesque style church in 1227. Several stages for a pair of towers on the west end were completed before the project was abandoned in favour of the present central tower with an onion dome. Above the church rises the vertical flank of the rocher surmounted by the fortified Citadel of Dinant that was first built in the 11th century to control the Meuse valley, the Prince-Bishops of Liège rebuilt and enlarged it in 1530, the French destroyed it in 1703. Its present aspect, with the stairs, is due to rebuilding in 1821
14.
Quentin Matsys
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Quentin Matsys was a painter in the Flemish tradition and a founder of the Antwerp school. He was born at Leuven, where legend states he was trained as an ironsmith before becoming a painter, Matsys was active in Antwerp for over 20 years, creating numerous works with religious roots and satirical tendencies. Most early accounts of Matsys life are composed primarily of legend, according to J. Molanus Historiae Lovaniensium Matsys is known to be a native of Leuven with humble beginnings as an ironsmith. One of four children, Matsys was born to Joost Matsys, documented donations and possessions of Joost Matsys indicate that the family had a respectable income and that financial need was most likely not the reason Matsys turned to painting. During the period in which Matsys was active in Antwerp he took only four apprentices, Arian van Overbeke, Willem Muelenbroec, Eduart Portugalois and it is widely believed that Joachim Patinir studied with Matsys at some point during his career and contributed to several of his landscapes. Lack of guild records during this time leaves Matsys travels to Italy, for the most part, foreign influences on Matsys are inferred from his paintings and are considered to be a large portion of the artists training during the 16th century. During the greater part of the 15th century, the centres in which the painters of the Low Countries most congregated were Tournai, Bruges, Ghent, Leuven gained prominence toward the close of this period, employing workmen from all of the crafts including Matsys. Not until the beginning of the 16th century did Antwerp take the lead which it afterward maintained against Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, as a member of Antwerps Guild of Saint Luke, Matsys is considered to be one of its first notable artists. Although the roots of Matsys training are unknown, his style reflects the qualities of Dirk Bouts. When Matsys settled at Antwerp at the age of twenty-five, his own style contributed importantly to reviving Flemish art along the lines of Van Eyck, Matsys departed from Leuven in 1491 when he became a master in the guild of painters at Antwerp. He also painted altarpieces and triptych panels, the most famous of which was built for the Church of Saint Peter in Leuven. Matsys work is considered to contain strong religious feeling—characteristic of traditional Flemish works—and is accompanied by a realism that often favored the grotesque, Matsys works generally reflect earnestness in expression, minutely detailed renderings, and subdued effects in light and shade. Like most Flemish artists of the time he paid a great deal of attention to jewelry, edging of garments, strenuous effort is devoted to the expression of individual character. A satirical tendency may be seen in the pictures of merchant bankers, revealing their greed and avarice. His other impulse, dwelling on the feelings of tenderness, may be noted in two replicas of the Virgin and Child at Berlin and Amsterdam, where the ecstatic kiss of the mother seems rather awkward. An expression of acute despair may be seen in a Lucretia in the museum at Vienna, the remarkable glow of the colour in these works, however, makes the Mannerist exaggerations palatable. Matsys had considerable skill as a portrait painter and his Ægidius which drew from Thomas More a eulogy in Latin verse, is but one of many, to which one may add the portrait of Maximilian of Austria in the gallery in Amsterdam. In this branch of his practice, Matsys was greatly influenced by his fellow countryman Jan Mabuse, Matsys portraiture exhibits highly personal and individual emotional characteristics that reflect his adherence to realism as a technique
15.
Albrecht Altdorfer
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Albrecht Altdorfer was a German painter, engraver and architect of the Renaissance working in Regensburg. As an artist also making small intricate engravings he is seen to belong to the Nuremberg Little Masters, Altdorfer was born in Regensburg or Altdorf around 1480. He acquired an interest in art from his father, Ulrich Altdorfer, at the start of his career, he won public attention by creating small, intimate modestly scaled works in unconventional media and with eccentric subject matter. He settled in the imperial city of Regensburg, a town located on the Danube River in 1505, eventually becoming the town architect. His first signed works date to c,1506, including engravings and drawings such the Stygmata of St. Francis and St. Jerome. His models were niellos and copper engravings from the workshops of Jacopo de Barbari, from 1513 he was at the service of Maximilian I in Innsbruck, where he received several commissions from the imperial court. During the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation, he dedicated mostly to architecture, paintings of the period, showing his increasing attention to architecture, in 1529 he executed The Battle of Alexander at Issus for Duke William IV of Bavaria. In the 1520s he returned to Regensburg as a wealthy man and he was also responsible for the fortifications of Regensburg. In that period his works are influenced by such as Giorgione and Lucas Cranach. In 1535 he was in Vienna and he died at Regensburg in 1538. This production extends at least over the period 1504–1537 and he signed and dated each one of his works. Altdorfer was the painter of pure landscape, making them the subject of the painting, as well as compositions dominated by their landscape. He believed that the figure should not disrupt nature. His Landscape with Footbridge of 1518–1520 is claimed to be the first pure landscape in oil, in this painting, Altdorfer places a large tree that is cut off by the margins at the center of the landscape, making it the central axis and focus within the piece. He uses anthropomorphism to give the human qualities such as the drapery of its limbs. He also made many fine finished drawings, mostly landscapes, in pen, the drawing opens at ground level on a clearing surrounding an enormous tree that is placed in the center, dominating the picture. It poses and gesticulates as if it was human, splaying its branches out in every corner, halfway up the tree trunk, hangs a gabled shrine. At the time, a shrine like this might shelter an image of the Crucifixion or the Virgin Mary, at the bottom of the tree, a tiny figure of a seated man, crossed legged, holds a knife and axe, declaring his status in society/occupation
16.
Herri met de Bles
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Herri met de Bles was a Flemish Northern Renaissance and Mannerist landscape painter, native of Bouvignes or Dinant. Very little is known about the artist. He is believed to be identical to a certain Herry de Patenir who joined Antwerps Guild of St. Luke in 1535 as a painter and he may have been related to the landscape painter Joachim Patinir, although he may not have trained under him because of the age difference. He may have visited Italy but there is no evidence for this. His work was popular in Italy, where he was known as ‘Civetta’ because of the owl that often appears in his paintings. The 17th-century biographer Karel van Mander regarded this motif as his signature, the name Herri met de Bles translates literally from Dutch as Herri with the blaze and was reportedly given him because of his characteristic white forelock. They both painted landscapes seen from a viewpoint and rocky masses. They did not aim to create a realistic depiction but an atmospheric effect, Herri met de Bles always included a few small figures involved in mining activities, a religious episode or everyday activities such as agriculture or trade. His landscapes are different from those of Patinirs in various aspects, de Bles work shows more foreground landscapes and his choice of colours is generally less rich than that of Patinir. In Richard Powerss novel, The Gold Bug Variations, one of the characters is working on a dissertation whose subject is Herri met de Bles. The obscurity of the painter as well as the weirdness of his works into the motifs of the novel. Norman E. Muller, Herri met de Bles, Studies, brepols, Turnhout 1998, ISBN 0-943012-25-2 Michel Weemans. Herri met de Bless sleeping peddler, an exegetical and anthropomorphic landscape, Herri Met de Bless Way to Calvary, A Silenic Landscape, Art History,32,2, 307-331. Long note on Landscape with the Conversion of Saul on the Road to Damascus,1545, Oberlin College Web Gallery of Art, Paintings by Herri met de Bles
17.
The Flight into Egypt
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The flight into Egypt is a biblical event described in the Gospel of Matthew. The episode is shown in art, as the final episode of the Nativity of Jesus in art. Within the narrative tradition, iconic representation of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt developed after the 14th century, when the Magi come in search of Jesus, they go to Herod the Great in Jerusalem and ask where to find the newborn King of the Jews. Herod becomes paranoid that the child will threaten his throne, Herod initiates the Massacre of the Innocents in hopes of killing the child. But an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and warns him to take Jesus, after a time the holy family returns from Egypt. The text states that Herod had died, Herod is believed to have died in 4 BC, and while Matthew does not mention how, the Jewish historian Josephus vividly relates a gory death. It is, however, to Judah that they are described as initially returning, although upon discovering that Archelaus had become the new king, they went instead to Galilee. Historically, Archelaus was such a violent and aggressive king that in the year 6 AD he was deposed by the Romans, in response to complaints from the population. Galilee was ruled by a much calmer king, Herod Antipas, Matthew 2,15 cites Hosea 11,1 as prophetically fulfilled in the return of Joseph, Mary and Jesus from Egypt. and out of Egypt I called My son. Matthews use of Hosea 11,1 has been explained in several ways, a sensus plenior approach states that the text in Hosea contains a meaning intended by God and acknowledged by Matthew, but unknown to Hosea. A typological reading interprets the fulfillment as found in the history of Israel. Matthews use of typological interpretation may also be seen in his use of Isaiah 7,14 and 9,1, the Septuagint reading may be explained as having been made to conform to the plurals of Hosea 11,2, they and them. See also Hermeneutics and Jewish exegesis, in these later tales the family is joined by Salome as Jesus nurse. The most important of these is the church of Abu Serghis, the Gospel of Luke does not recount this event, relating instead that the Holy Family went to the Temple in Jerusalem, and then directly home to Nazareth. Followers of the liberal and unorthodox Jesus Seminar thus conclude that both Lukes and Matthews birth and infancy accounts are fabrications, a theme of Matthew is likening Jesus to Moses for a Judean audience, and the Flight into Egypt illustrates just that theme. The Flight into Egypt was a subject in art, showing Mary with the baby on a donkey, led by Joseph. Before about 1525, it formed part of a larger cycle, whether of the Nativity. The family are often accompanied by angels, and in earlier images sometimes an older boy who may represent James the Brother of the Lord, interpreted as a son of Joseph, by a previous marriage
18.
Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp
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The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp is a museum in Antwerp, Belgium, founded in 1810, houses a collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries. This collection is representative of the production and the taste of art enthusiasts in Antwerp, Belgium. The museum is closed for renovation until the end of 2017, the neoclassical building housing the collection is one of the primary landmarks of the Zuid district of Antwerp. The majestic building was designed by Jacob Winders and Frans van Dijk, built beginning in 1884, opened in 1890, the building stands in gardens bounded by the Leopold de Waalplaats, the Schildersstraat, the Plaatsnijdersstraat, and the Beeldhouwersstraat. The museums collection began with the artworks owned by the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke, when the guild disbanded, its gallery of paintings went to the Academy of Fine Arts, which had been founded in 1663 with the involvement of David Teniers. The gallery had works by Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, during French occupations in 1794 and 1796, art was looted from churches and other buildings in Antwerp, the pieces that were later recovered became part of the museums collection. By 1817 the museum listed 127 items in its catalogue, mostly dating to the mid-16th and 17th centuries, william I of the Netherlands helped the museum in various ways. In 1823 he donated three paintings, including a work by Titian—Pope Alexander IV presents Jacopo Pesaro to Saint Peter—which became the museums first foreign piece. He decreed a grant of 20,000 guilders to build the collections contemporary art in 1827, only in 1873 did the museum begin to acquire living artists works. A significant bequest from a mayor of Antwerp, Florent van Ertborn. Van Ertborn had collected Early Netherlandish art at a time when it was out of favour and these works included Jan van Eycks Saint Barbara and Madonna at the Fountain and Rogier van der Weydens Portrait of Philip de Croy and the Seven Sacraments Altarpiece. Also in the bequest were paintings by Hans Memling, Dieric Bouts, Joachim Patinir, Quinten Massys, Jean Fouquet, Simone Martini, Antonello da Messina, at the end of 2011 the museum closed to the public for major renovations
19.
Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
20.
Guild of Saint Luke
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The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the saint of artists. One of the most famous such organizations was founded in Antwerp and it continued to function until 1795, although by then it had lost its monopoly and therefore most of its power. In most cities, including Antwerp, the government had given the Guild the power to regulate defined types of trade within the city. Guild membership, as a master, was required for an artist to take on apprentices or to sell paintings to the public. Similar rules existed in Delft, where members could sell paintings in the city or have a shop. The guild of Saint Luke not only represented painters, sculptors, and other artists, but also—especially in the seventeenth century—dealers, amateurs. In traditional guild structures, house-painters and decorators were often in the same guild, however, as artists formed under their own specific guild of St. Luke, particularly in the Netherlands, distinctions were increasingly made. In general, guilds also made judgments on disputes between artists and other artists or their clients, in such ways, it controlled the economic career of an artist working in a specific city, while in different cities they were wholly independent and often competitive against each other. Although it did not become an artistic center until the sixteenth century, Antwerp was one of, if not the first. It is first mentioned in 1382, and was given privileges by the city in 1442. The registers, or Liggeren, from the guild exist, cataloging when artists became masters, who the dean for each year was, what their specialities were, and the names of any students. Perhaps because of this link, for a period they had a rule that all miniatures needed a tiny mark to identify the artist, only under special privileges, such as court artist, could an artist effectively practice their craft without holding membership in the guild. Membership also allowed members to sell works at the guild-owned showroom, Antwerp, for example, opened a market stall for selling paintings in front of the cathedral in 1460, and Bruges followed in 1482. Guilds of St. Luke in the Dutch Republic began to reinvent themselves as cities there changed over to Protestant rule, many St. Luke guilds reissued charters to protect the interests of local painters from the influx of southern talent from places like Antwerp and Bruges. Many cities in the republic became more important artistic centres in the late sixteenth. Amsterdam was the first city to reissue a St. Lukes charter after the reformation in 1579, and it included painters, sculptors, engravers, for example, Gouda, Rotterdam, and Delft, all founded guilds between 1609 and 1611. On the other hand, these distinctions did not take effect at that time in Amsterdam or Haarlem, in the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, however, a strict hierarchy was attempted in 1631 with panel painters at the top, though this hierarchy was eventually rejected
21.
Gerard David
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Gerard David was an Early Netherlandish painter and manuscript illuminator known for his brilliant use of color. Only a bare outline of his survives, although some facts are known. He may have been the Meester gheraet van brugghe who became a master of the Antwerp guild in 1515 and he was very successful in his lifetime and probably ran two workshops, in Antwerp and Bruges. His reputation diminished in the 17th century until he was rediscovered in the 19th century and he was born in Oudewater, now located in the province of Utrecht. His year of birth is approximated as c.1460 on the basis that he looks to be around 50 years in the 1509 self-portrait found in his Virgin among the Virgins and he spent his mature career in Bruges, where he was a member of the painters guild. Upon the death of Hans Memling in 1494, David became Bruges leading painter and he moved to Bruges in 1483, presumably from Haarlem, where he had formed his early style under Albert van Oudewater, and joined the Guild of Saint Luke at Bruges in 1484. He became dean of the guild in 1501, and in 1496 married Cornelia Cnoop, David was one of the towns leading citizens. Ambrosius Benson served his apprenticeship with David, but they came into dispute around 1519 over a number of paintings and drawings Benson had collected from other artists, because of a large debt owed to him by Benson, David had refused to return the material. Benson pursued the matter legally and won, leading to David serving time in prison and he died on 13 August 1523 and was buried in the Church of Our Lady at Bruges. Davids surviving work consists of religious scenes. They are characterised by an atmospheric, timeless, and almost dream like serenity, achieved through soft, warm and subtle colourisation and he is innovative in his recasting of traditional themes and in his approach to landscape, which was then only an emerging genre in northern European painting. His ability with landscape can be seen in the foliage of his Triptych of the Baptism. In his early work David followed Haarlem artists such as Dirk Bouts, Albert van Oudewater and Geertgen tot Sint Jans, to this early period belong the St John of the Richard von Kaufmann collection in Berlin and the Saltings St Jerome. In Bruges came directly under the influence of Memling, the master whom he followed most closely and it was from him that David acquired a solemnity of treatment, greater realism in the rendering of human form, and an orderly arrangement of figures. He visited Antwerp in 1515 and was impressed with the work of Quentin Matsys, who had introduced a greater vitality and intimacy in the conception of sacred themes. Only a few of his works have remained in Bruges, The Judgment of Cambyses, The Flaying of Sisamnes and the Baptism of Christ in the Groeningemuseum, even in his best work he had only given newer variations of the art of his predecessors and contemporaries. His rank among the masters was renewed, however, when a number of his paintings were assembled at the seminal 1902 Gruuthusemuseum, several of his drawings also survive, and elements from these appear in the works of other painters and illuminators for several decades after his death. At the time of Davids death, the glory of Bruges and its painters was on the wane, of Davids pupils in Bruges, only Isenbrant, Albert Cornelis and Ambrosius Benson achieved importance
22.
Bruges
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Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country. The area of the whole city amounts to more than 13,840 hectares, including 1,075 hectares off the coast, the historic city centre is a prominent World Heritage Site of UNESCO. It is oval and about 430 hectares in size, the citys total population is 117,073, of whom around 20,000 live in the city centre. The metropolitan area, including the commuter zone, covers an area of 616 km2 and has a total of 255,844 inhabitants as of 1 January 2008. Along with a few other canal-based northern cities, such as Amsterdam and Stockholm, Bruges has a significant economic importance thanks to its port and was once one of the worlds chief commercial cities. Bruges is well known as the seat of the College of Europe, the name probably derives from the Old Dutch for bridge, brugga. Also compare Middle Dutch brucge, brugge, and modern Dutch bruggehoofd, the form brugghe would be a southern Dutch variant. The Dutch word and the English bridge both derive from Proto-Germanic *brugjō-, Bruges was a location of coastal settlement during prehistory. This Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement is unrelated to medieval city development, in the Bruges area, the first fortifications were built after Julius Caesars conquest of the Menapii in the first century BC, to protect the coastal area against pirates. The Franks took over the region from the Gallo-Romans around the 4th century. The Viking incursions of the century prompted Count Baldwin I of Flanders to reinforce the Roman fortifications, trade soon resumed with England. Bruges received its city charter on 27 July 1128, and new walls and canals were built, in 1089 Bruges became the capital of the County of Flanders. Since about 1050, gradual silting had caused the city to lose its access to the sea. A storm in 1134, however, re-established this access, through the creation of a channel at the Zwin. The new sea arm stretched all the way to Damme, a city became the commercial outpost for Bruges. Bruges had a location at the crossroads of the northern Hanseatic League trade. They developed, or borrowed from Italy, new forms of merchant capitalism, whereby several merchants would share the risks and profits and they employed new forms of economic exchange, including bills of exchange and letters of credit. The city eagerly welcomed foreign traders, most notably the Portuguese traders selling pepper and other spices, the citys entrepreneurs reached out to make economic colonies of England and Scotlands wool-producing districts
23.
Genoa
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Genoa is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015,594,733 people lived within the administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of Genoa, over 1.5 million people live in the wider metropolitan area stretching along the Italian Riviera. Genoa has been nicknamed la Superba due to its glorious past, part of the old town of Genoa was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2006. The citys rich history in notably its art, music. It is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, Niccolò Paganini, Giuseppe Mazzini, Genoa, which forms the southern corner of the Milan-Turin-Genoa industrial triangle of north-west Italy, is one of the countrys major economic centres. The city has hosted massive shipyards and steelworks since the 19th century, the Bank of Saint George, founded in 1407, is among the oldest in the world and has played an important role in the citys prosperity since the middle of the 15th century. Today a number of leading Italian companies are based in the city, including Fincantieri, Selex ES, Ansaldo Energia, Ansaldo STS, Edoardo Raffinerie Garrone, Piaggio Aerospace, the Genoa area has been inhabited since the fifth or fourth millennium BC. In ancient times this area was frequented and inhabited by Ligures, Phoenicians, Phocaeans, Greeks, and Etruscans. The city cemetery, dating from the 6th and 5th centuries BC, testifies to the occupation of the site by the Greeks, but the fine harbour probably saw use much earlier, perhaps by the Etruscans. In the 5th century BC was founded the first oppidum at the foot of the today called the Castle Hill which now is inside the medieval old town. The ancient Ligurian city was known as Stalia, so referred to by Artemidorus Ephesius and Pomponius Mela, Ligurian Stalia was overshadowed by the powerful Marseille and Vada Sabatia, near modern Savona. Stalia had an alliance with Rome through a foedus aequum in the course of the Second Punic War, the Carthaginians accordingly destroyed it in 209 BC. The town was rebuilt and, after the Carthaginian Wars ended in 146 BC. it received municipal rights, the original castrum thenceforth expanded towards the current areas of Santa Maria di Castello and the San Lorenzo promontory. Trades included skins, wood, and honey, goods were shipped to the mainland, up to major cities like Tortona and Piacenza. Among the archeological remains from the Roman period, an amphitheatre was also found, another theory traces the name to the Etruscan word Kainua which means New City and still another from the Latin word ianua, related to the name of the God Janus, meaning door or passage. The latter is in reference to its position at the centre of the Ligurian coastal arch. The Latin name, oppidum Genua, is recorded by Pliny the Elder as part of the Augustean Regio IX Liguria, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Ostrogoths occupied Genoa
24.
Adriaen Isenbrandt
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Adriaen Isenbrandt was a Flemish Northern Renaissance painter, who from documentary evidence was clearly a significant artist of his period, but to whom no specific works can be clearly documented. As hypothesised by art historians, he ran a large workshop specializing in subjects and devotional paintings. He was believed by Georges Hulin de Loo to be the person as the anonymous Master of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin or Pseudo-Mostaert. Other art historians doubt that any works can be attributed to him. It is possible that he was born in Haarlem or even in Antwerp about 1490 and it is not known where or with which painter he served his apprenticeship. He is named for the first time in 1510, when he came to Bruges, in November of the same year he already became master in the painters Guild of St. Luke and the goldsmiths guild of St. Elooi. He was later elected nine times as a deacon and twice the governor of the guild, soon he had an important workshop, probably in the Korte Vlaminckstraat in Bruges. This was close to the workshop of Gerard David, at the Vlamijncbrugghe, Bruges, at that time, was one of the richest towns in Europe. Rich traders and merchants ordered diptychs and portraits for personal use, Isenbrandt painted mainly for private clients. However, there were paintings that were created without any particular commission. He had enough work to put out work to other painters in Bruges, as a legal suit from 1534 by Isenbrandt against Jan van Eyck for non-delivery of paintings he had ordered. He was also appointed the agent in Bruges of the painter Adriaan Provoost, contemporary sources therefore mention Isenbrandt as a famous and well-to-do painter. He married twice, the first time with Maria Grandeel, daughter of the painter Peter Grandeel, after her death in 1537, he married again in 1547 with Clementine de Haerne. This second marriage resulted in two daughters and a son and he also had an extramarital daughter with the innkeeper Katelijne van Brandenburch. When he died, at Bruges, in 1551, he was buried alongside his first wife at the cemetery of the St. Jacob church there, his children inherited no less than four houses with surrounding property. Along with Albert Cornelis and Ambrosius Benson, a painter from Lombardy, he worked in the workshop of Bruges leading painter Gerard David, Isenbrandt is mentioned in the book De Brugensibus eruditionis fama claris libri duo of the priest Antonius Sanderus, published in Amsterdam in 1624. This writer refers to texts of the Florentine Lodovico Guicciardini, the Schilderboeck of Karel van Mander, the latter, who had spent several years in Bruges about 1550, mentions Isenbrandt as a disciple of the old Gerard David, who excelled in nudes and in portraits. He may have travelled to Genoa in 1511 together with Joachim Patinir, the influence of Gerard David shows clearly in the composition and the landscape background of the works attributed to Isenbrandt
25.
Hieronymus Bosch
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Hieronymus Bosch was a Dutch/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter from Brabant. He is widely considered one of the most notable representatives of Early Netherlandish painting school and his work is known for its fantastic imagery, detailed landscapes, and illustrations of religious concepts and narratives. Within his lifetime his work was collected in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, little is known of Boschs life, though there are some records. He spent most of it in the town of s-Hertogenbosch, where he was born in his grandfathers house, the roots of his forefathers are in Nijmegen and Aachen. His pessimistic and fantastical style cast a wide influence on art of the 16th century. His paintings have been difficult to translate from a point of view. Today he is seen as a hugely individualistic painter with deep insight into humanitys desires, attribution has been especially difficult, today only about 25 paintings are confidently given to his hand along with 8 drawings. Approximately another half dozen paintings are attributed to his workshop. His most acclaimed works consist of a few triptych altarpieces, the most outstanding of which is The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymus Bosch was born Jheronimus van Aken. He signed a number of his paintings as Jheronimus Bosch, the name derives from his birthplace, s-Hertogenbosch, which is commonly called Den Bosch. Little is known of Boschs life or training, nothing is known of his personality or his thoughts on the meaning of his art. Boschs date of birth has not been determined with certainty and it is estimated at c.1450 on the basis of a hand drawn portrait made shortly before his death in 1516. The drawing shows the artist at an age, probably in his late sixties. Bosch was born and lived all his life in and near s-Hertogenbosch and his grandfather, Jan van Aken, was a painter and is first mentioned in the records in 1430. It is known that Jan had five sons, four of whom were also painters, Boschs father, Anthonius van Aken, acted as artistic adviser to the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady. It is generally assumed that either Boschs father or one of his uncles taught the artist to paint, Bosch first appears in the municipal record on 5 April 1474, when he is named along with two brothers and a sister. In 1463,4,000 houses in the town were destroyed by a catastrophic fire and he became a popular painter in his lifetime and often received commissions from abroad. In 1488 he joined the highly respected Brotherhood of Our Lady, a religious group of some 40 influential citizens of s-Hertogenbosch
26.
Prado
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The Prado Museum is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. Founded as a museum of paintings and sculpture in 1819, it contains important collections of other types of works. El Prado is one of the most visited sites in the world, and it is considered one of the greatest art museums in the world. The collection currently comprises around 8,200 drawings,7,600 paintings,4,800 prints, and 1,000 sculptures, in addition to a large number of other works of art and historic documents. As of 2012, the museum displayed about 1,300 works in the buildings, while around 3,100 works were on temporary loan to various museums. The museum received 2.8 million visitors in 2012 and it is one of the largest museums in Spain. The best-known work on display at the museum is Las Meninas by Velázquez, Velázquez and his keen eye and sensibility were also responsible for bringing much of the museums fine collection of Italian masters to Spain, now the largest outside of Italy. The museum is planning a 16% extension in the nearby Salón de Reinos and their efforts and determination led to the Royal Collection being enriched by some of the masterpieces now to be seen in the Prado. In addition to works from the Spanish royal collection, other holdings increased and enriched the Museum with further masterpieces, such as the two Majas by Goya. Among the now closed museums whose collections have been added to that of the Prado were the Museo del la Trinidad in 1872, in addition, numerous legacies, donations and purchases have been of crucial importance for the growth of the collection. Upon the deposition of Isabella II in 1868, the museum was nationalized and acquired the new name of Museo del Prado, the building housed the royal collection of arts, and it rapidly proved too small. The first enlargement to the museum took place in 1918, particularly important donations include Barón Emile dErlangers gift of Goyas Black Paintings in 1881. Between 1873 and 1900, the Prado helped decorate city halls, new universities, during the Second Spanish Republic from 1931 to 1936, the focus was on building up provincial museums. The art had to be returned across French territory in night trains to the museum upon the commencement of World War II, during the early years of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, many paintings were sent to embassies. The main building was enlarged with short pavilions in the rear between 1900 and 1960, in 1993, an extension proposed by the Prados director at the time, Felipe Garin, was quickly abandoned after a wave of criticism. In the late 1990s, a $14 million roof work forced the Velázquez masterpiece Las Meninas to change galleries twice, in 1998, the Prado annex in the nearby Casón del Buen Retiro closed for a $10 million two-year overhaul that included three new underground levels. In 2007, the finally executed Rafael Moneos project to expand its exposition room to 16,000 square meters. A glass-roofed and wedge-shaped foyer now contains the shops and cafeteria
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National Gallery
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The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the century to 1900. The Gallery is a charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media. Its collection belongs to the public of the United Kingdom and entry to the collection is free of charge. It is among the most visited art museums in the world, after the Musée du Louvre, the British Museum, unlike comparable museums in continental Europe, the National Gallery was not formed by nationalising an existing royal or princely art collection. It came into being when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein, after that initial purchase the Gallery was shaped mainly by its early directors, notably Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, and by private donations, which comprise two-thirds of the collection. It used to be claimed that this was one of the few national galleries that had all its works on permanent exhibition, the present building, the third to house the National Gallery, was designed by William Wilkins from 1832 to 1838. Only the façade onto Trafalgar Square remains essentially unchanged from this time, wilkinss building was often criticised for the perceived weaknesses of its design and for its lack of space, the latter problem led to the establishment of the Tate Gallery for British art in 1897. The Sainsbury Wing, an extension to the west by Robert Venturi, the current Director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi. The late 18th century saw the nationalisation of royal or princely art collections across mainland Europe, great Britain, however, did not emulate the continental model, and the British Royal Collection remains in the sovereigns possession today. In 1777 the British government had the opportunity to buy an art collection of international stature, the MP John Wilkes argued for the government to buy this invaluable treasure and suggested that it be housed in a noble gallery. The twenty-five paintings from that now in the Gallery, including NG1, have arrived by a variety of routes. This offer was declined and Bourgeois bequeathed the collection to his old school, Dulwich College, the collection opened in Britains first purpose-built public gallery, the Dulwich Picture Gallery, in 1814. The British Institution, founded in 1805 by a group of aristocratic connoisseurs, the members lent works to exhibitions that changed annually, while an art school was held in the summer months. However, as the paintings that were lent were often mediocre, some resented the Institution. One of the Institutions founding members, Sir George Beaumont, Bt, in 1823 another major art collection came on the market, which had been assembled by the recently deceased John Julius Angerstein. Angerstein was a Russian-born émigré banker based in London, his collection numbered 38 paintings, including works by Raphael, on 1 July 1823 George Agar Ellis, a Whig politician, proposed to the House of Commons that it purchase the collection. The appeal was given added impetus by Beaumonts offer, which came with two conditions, that the government buy Angersteins collection, and that a building was to be found
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Minneapolis Institute of Art
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The museum receives support from the Park Board Museum Fund, levied by the Hennepin County commissioners. Additional funding is provided by sponsors and museum members. It is one of the largest art museums in the United States, the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts was established in 1883 to bring the arts into the life of the community. This group, made up of business and professional leaders, organized art exhibits throughout the decade, in 1889, the Society, now known as the Minneapolis Institute of Art, moved into its first permanent space, inside the newly built Minneapolis Public Library. The institute received gifts from Clinton Morrison and William Hood Dunwoody, among others, a few days later the institute received a letter from Dunwoody, who got the ball rolling, Put me down for $100,000. A fundraising dinner a few days later brought in $335,500, the new museum, designed by the firm of McKim, Mead and White, opened in 1915. The building came to be recognized as one of the finest examples of the Beaux-Arts architectural style in Minnesota. The art historian Bevis Hillier organized the exhibition Art Deco at the museum, presented from July to September 1971, the building was originally meant to be the first of several sections, but only the front piece built. Several additions have subsequently been built according to plans, including a 1974 addition by Kenzo Tange. An expansion designed by Michael Graves was completed in June 2006, before the latest expansion, just 4 percent of the museums nearly 100,000 objects could be on view at the same time, now that figure is 5 percent. Target Corporation, for which the new wing is named, was the biggest donor, in 2015 the institute rebranded itself, dropping the final s from its name, to become the Minneapolis Institute of Art and encouraging the use of the nickname Mia instead of the acronym MIA. The museum features a collection of approximately 80,000 objects spanning 5,000 years of world history. Its collection includes paintings, photographs, prints & drawings, textiles, architecture, the Asian collection includes Chinese architecture, jades, bronzes, and ceramics. The institute owns the Purcell-Cutts House, just east of Lake of the Isles, the house was designed by Purcell & Elmslie and is a masterpiece of Prairie School architecture. It was donated to the museum by Anson B, cutts Jr. the son of its second owner. The house is available for tours on the weekend of each month. In order to encourage private collecting and assist in the acquisition of important works of art, the groups schedule lectures, symposia, and travel for members. The museum features a series of exhibitions that bring in traveling collections from other museums for display
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Triptych
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A triptych is a work of art that is divided into three sections, or three carved panels that are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works, the middle panel is typically the largest and it is flanked by two smaller related works, although there are triptychs of equal-sized panels. The form can also be used for pendant jewelry, despite its connection to an art format, the term is sometimes used more generally to connote anything with three parts, particularly if they are integrated into a single unit. The triptych form arises from early Christian art, and was a standard format for altar paintings from the Middle Ages onwards. Its geographical range was from the eastern Byzantine churches to the Celtic churches in the west, renaissance painters such as Hans Memling and Hieronymus Bosch used the form. Triptych forms also allow ease of transport, from the Gothic period onward, both in Europe and elsewhere, altarpieces in churches and cathedrals were often in triptych form. One such cathedral with an altarpiece triptych is Llandaff Cathedral, the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, Belgium, contains two examples by Rubens, and Notre Dame de Paris is another example of the use of triptych in architecture. One can also see the form echoed by the structure of many stained glass windows. Although strongly identified as a form, triptychs outside that context have been created, some of the best-known examples being works by Hieronymus Bosch, Max Beckmann. The then highest price paid for an artwork at auction was $142.4 million for a 1969 triptych, Three Studies of Lucian Freud. The record was broken in May 2015 by $179.4 million for Pablo Picassos 1955 painting Les Femmes d’Alger, the format has migrated and been used in other religions, including Islam and Buddhism. Likewise, Tibetan Buddhists have used it in traditional altars, a photographic triptych is a common style used in modern commercial artwork. The photographs are arranged with a plain border between them. The work may consist of images that are variants on a theme
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Cornelis Cort
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Cornelis Cort was a Dutch engraver and draughtsman. He spent the last 12 years of his life in Italy, born in Hoorn or Edam, Cort may have been a pupil of Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert in the 1550s in Haarlem. His first known engravings were published in Antwerp around 1553, though it is thought that he remained working in the Northern Netherlands, the publisher was Hieronymous Cock, under whom Cort may have apprenticed as well. A letter of 1567 from Dominicus Lampsonius to the artist Titian described Cock as Corts master, plates, which Cort produced for Cock were inscribed with Corts name only after he left his apprenticehip with Cock. Cort moved to Venice and lived in the house of Titian in 1565 and 1566 and he produced engravings based on Titians works. Among these are the well-known copperplates of St Jerome in the Desert, the Magdalen, Prometheus, Diana and Actaeon, and Diana and Calisto. From Italy he wandered back to the Netherlands, but he returned to Venice soon after 1567, proceeding thence to Bologna and Rome, before visiting Italy, Cort had been content to copy Michael Coxcie, Frans Floris, Heemskerk, Gillis Mostaert, Bartholomeus Spranger and Stradanus. In Italy he gave circulation to the works of Raphael, Titian, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Baroccio, Giulio Clovio, Muziano and he visited Florence between 1569 and 1571 probably working for the Medici family. He returned to Titian in Venice in 1571-1572 and he spent the last year of his life in Rome, where he died. His connection with Cock and Titian is pleasantly illustrated in a letter addressed to the latter by Dominick Lampson of Liège in 1567, Cort is said to have engraved upwards of one hundred and fifty-one plates. The art collector George Cumberland wrote in 1827 that This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Drawings and Prints, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which includes material on Cornelis Cort
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Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
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The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium are a group of art museums in Brussels, Belgium. In 1845 it is decided by royal Decree that a museum is to be founded with works of art of deceswed and this is accorded by Minister Sylvain van de Weyer a national Commission is founded to select important works of art. This commission is presided by the First president Count de Beaufort, other members are, Gustaf Wappers, President of the Royal Museum of Antwerpen. François-Joseph Navez, President of the Académie royale des beaux-arts de Bruxelles, guillaume Geefs Eugène Simonis Tilman-François Suys, professor at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. Much of the members were active in the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium. The museums are situated in the capital Brussels in the area on the Coudenberg. There are six museums connected with the Royal Museum, and two of them, are in the main building, the Royal Museum contains over 20,000 drawings, sculptures, and paintings, which date from the early 15th century to the present. The museum has a collection of Flemish painting, among them paintings by Bruegel and Rogier van der Weyden, Robert Campin, Anthony van Dyck. The museum is also proud of its Rubens Room, which more than 20 paintings by the artist. The painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, long-attributed to Brueghel, is located here and forms the subject of W. H. Audens famous poem Musée des Beaux Arts, named after the museum. The chief curators of the museum have been or are, from 1961 till 1984, balat was the kings principal architect, and this was one part of the kings vast building program for Belgium. The building was completed in 1887, and stands as an example of the Beaux-Arts architecture use of themed statuary to assert the identity, the finial, gilded Genius of Art was also designed by de Groot. The two bas-relief panels are Music by Thomas Vincotte and Industrial Arts by Charles Brunin, the two bronze groups on pedestals represent The Crowning of Art by Paul de Vigne, and The Teaching of Art by Charles van der Stappen. On the side of the building, a memorial commemorates five members of the Mouvement National Royaliste, a resistance group, killed during the liberation of Brussels on 3–4 September 1944
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Louvre
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The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
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Metropolitan Museum of Art
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially the Met, is located in New York City and is the largest art museum in the United States, and is among the most visited art museums in the world. Its permanent collection contains two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, on the edge of Central Park along Manhattans Museum Mile, is by area one of the worlds largest art galleries. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains a collection of art, architecture. On March 18,2016, the museum opened the Met Breuer museum at Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side, it extends the museums modern, the Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, Indian, and Islamic art. The museum is home to collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, as well as antique weapons. Several notable interiors, ranging from first-century Rome through modern American design, are installed in its galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870. The founders included businessmen and financiers, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day and it opened on February 20,1872, and was originally located at 681 Fifth Avenue. The Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, the museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. A number of interiors, ranging from 1st century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Mets galleries. In addition to its permanent exhibitions, the Met organizes and hosts traveling shows throughout the year. The director of the museum is Thomas P. Campbell, a long-time curator and it was announced on February 28th,2017 that Campbell will be stepping down as the Mets director and CEO, effective June. On March 1st,2017 the BBC reported that Daniel Weiss shall be the acting CEO until a replacement is found, Beginning in the late 19th century, the Met started to acquire ancient art and artifacts from the Near East. From a few tablets and seals, the Mets collection of Near Eastern art has grown to more than 7,000 pieces. The highlights of the include a set of monumental stone lamassu, or guardian figures. The Mets Department of Arms and Armor is one of the museums most popular collections. Among the collections 14,000 objects are many pieces made for and used by kings and princes, including armor belonging to Henry VIII of England, Henry II of France, Rockefeller donated his more than 3, 000-piece collection to the museum. The Mets Asian department holds a collection of Asian art, of more than 35,000 pieces, the collection dates back almost to the founding of the museum, many of the philanthropists who made the earliest gifts to the museum included Asian art in their collections
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Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
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Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. It is located at the Museumpark in the district Rotterdam Centrum, close to the Kunsthal and it houses the collections of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. In the collection, ranging from medieval to contemporary art, are works of Rembrandt, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, in 2013, the museum had 292,711 visitors and was the 14th most visited museum in the Netherlands. The museum was established in 1849 as Museum Boymans with the collection of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans, the painter and art dealer, Arie Johannes Lamme, was named the museums first Director. Much of the original collection was destroyed in a fire in 1864. The collection of businessman Daniël George van Beuningen was added in 1958, the spelling was changed to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in 1996. The museum has a diverse collection ranging from medieval to contemporary art, much of the collection came to the museum through the two private collections mentioned above, but many others have contributed throughout the years. The collection also includes one of the richest assembly of works on paper in the world from the Middle Ages to the present times, aRTtube is a website with videos about art and design. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen produces, together with TV Rijnmond, a series on art. Boijmans TV is based on an idea by Wilfried de Jong, Boijmans TV is created by a team of creative specialists in different disciplines. It is more than an art magazine, apart from the artists, the visitor, the attendant. Each episode of Boijmans TV can be viewed on ArtTube after it has been broadcast, sjarel Ex has been the museum director since 2004. The museum had 292,711 visitors in 2013 and that year it was the most visited museum in Rotterdam and the 14th most visited museum in the Netherlands. It had an estimated 270,000 visitors in 2015, media related to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen at Wikimedia Commons Official website
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Saint Christopher
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Saint Christopher is venerated by several Christian denominations as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd-century Roman Emperor Decius or alternatively under the Roman Emperor Maximinus II Dacian. There appears to be due to the similarity in names Decius. He may be the figure as Saint Menas. Therefore, he is the saint of travelers, and small images of him are often worn around the neck, on a bracelet, carried in a pocket. There are several associated with the life and death of Saint Christopher which first appeared in Greece and had spread to France by the 9th century. The 11th-century bishop and poet, Walter of Speyer, gave one version, according to the legendary account of his life Christopher was initially called Reprobus. He was a Canaanite,5 cubits tall and with a fearsome face, while serving the king of Canaan, he took it into his head to go and serve the greatest king there was. He went to the king who was reputed to be the greatest, on thus learning that the king feared the devil, he departed to look for the devil. He came across a band of marauders, one of whom declared himself to be the devil, but when he saw his new master avoid a wayside cross and found out that the devil feared Christ, he left him and enquired from people where to find Christ. He met a hermit who instructed him in the Christian faith, Christopher asked him how he could serve Christ. When the hermit suggested fasting and prayer, Christopher replied that he was unable to perform that service, the hermit then suggested that because of his size and strength Christopher could serve Christ by assisting people to cross a dangerous river, where they were perishing in the attempt. The hermit promised that service would be pleasing to Christ. After Christopher had performed this service for time, a little child asked him to take him across the river. During the crossing, the river became swollen and the child seemed as heavy as lead, so much that Christopher could scarcely carry him, when he finally reached the other side, he said to the child, You have put me in the greatest danger. I do not think the world could have been as heavy on my shoulders as you were. The child replied, You had on your shoulders not only the whole world, I am Christ your king, whom you are serving by this work. Christopher later visited Lycia and there comforted the Christians who were being martyred, brought before the local king, he refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods. The king tried to win him by riches and by sending two beautiful women to tempt him, Christopher converted the women to Christianity, as he had already converted thousands in the city
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El Escorial
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It is one of the Spanish royal sites and functions as a monastery, basilica, royal palace, pantheon, library, museum, university and hospital. It is situated 2.06 km up the valley from the town of El Escorial, El Escorial was, at once, a monastery and a Spanish royal palace. Originally a property of the Hieronymite monks, it is now a monastery of the Order of Saint Augustine and it is also a boarding school. Philip engaged the Spanish architect, Juan Bautista de Toledo, to be his collaborator in the design of El Escorial, Philip appointed him architect-royal in 1559, and together they designed El Escorial as a monument to Spains role as a center of the Christian world. On 2 November 1984, UNESCO declared The Royal Seat of San Lorenzo of El Escorial a World Heritage Site and it is a popular tourist attraction, often visited by day-trippers from Madrid – more than 500,000 visitors come to El Escorial every year. El Escorial is situated at the foot of Mt. Abantos in the Sierra de Guadarrama, Quentin in Picardy against Henry II, king of France. He also intended the complex to serve as a necropolis for the interment of the remains of his parents, Charles I and Isabella of Portugal, himself, in addition, Philip envisioned El Escorial as a center for studies in aid of the Counter-Reformation cause. The buildings cornerstone was laid on 23 April 1563, the design and construction were overseen by Juan Bautista de Toledo, who did not live to see the completion of the project. With Toledos death in 1567, direction passed to his apprentice, Juan de Herrera, under whom the building was completed in 1584, to this day, la obra de El Escorial is a proverbial expression for a thing that takes a long time to finish. Since then, El Escorial has been the site for most of the Spanish kings of the last five centuries. Two Bourbon kings, Philip V and Ferdinand VI, as well as King Amadeus, are not buried in the monastery, the floor plan of the building is in the form of a gridiron. The traditional belief is that design was chosen in honor of St. Lawrence. St. Lawrence’s feast day is 10 August, the date as the 1557 Battle of St. Quentin. In fact, however, the origin of the layout is quite controversial. The grill-like shape, which did not fully emerge until Herrera eliminated from the conception the six interior towers of the facade, was, by no means. In fact, palaces of this design were commonplace in the Byzantine. Statues of David and Solomon on either side of the entrance to the basilica of El Escorial lend further weight to the theory that this is the origin of the design. A more personal connection can be drawn between the David-warrior figure, representing Charles V, and his son, the stolid and solomonically prudent Philip II
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Philadelphia Museum of Art
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The Philadelphia Museum of Art is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at Eakins Oval. The museum administers collections containing over 240,000 objects including major holdings of European, American and Asian origin, the various classes of artwork include sculpture, paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, armor and decorative arts. The attendance figure for the museum was 751,797 in 2015, the museum is also one of the largest art museums in the world based on gallery space. The museum also administers the historic houses of Mount Pleasant and Cedar Grove. The museum and its annexes are owned by the City of Philadelphia, as of 2017, the standard adult admission price is $20 which allows entrance to the main building and all annexes for two consecutive days. The museum is closed on Mondays except on some holidays, several special exhibitions are held in the museum every year, including touring exhibitions arranged with other museums in the United States and abroad. Special exhibitions may have a charge for entrance. Philadelphia celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with the 1876 Centennial Exposition and its art building, Memorial Hall, was intended to outlast the Exhibition and house a permanent museum. The Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art opened on May 10,1877 and its permanent collection began with objects from the Exhibition and gifts from the public impressed with the Exhibitions ideals of good design and craftsmanship. European and Japanese fine and decorative art objects and books for the Museums library were among the first donations, the location outside of Center City, however, was fairly distant from many of the citys inhabitants. Admission was charged until 1881, then was dropped until 1962, starting in 1882, Clara Jessup Moore donated a remarkable collection of antique furniture, enamels, carved ivory, jewelry, metalwork, glass, ceramics, books, textiles and paintings. The Countess de Brazzas lace collection was acquired in 1894 forming the nucleus of the lace collection, in 1893 Anna H. Wilstach bequeathed a large painting collection, including many American paintings, and an endowment of half a million dollars for additional purchases. Works by James Abbott McNeill Whistler and George Inness were purchased within a few years, in the early 1900s, the Museum started an education program for the general public, as well as a membership program. Fiske Kimball was the director during the rapid growth of the 1920s. After World War II the collections grew with gifts, such as the John D. McIlhenny, early modern art dominated the growth of the collections in the 1950s, with acquisitions of the Louise and Walter Arensberg and the A. E. Gallatin collections. The gift of Philadelphian Grace Kellys wedding dress is perhaps the best known gift of the 1950s, extensive renovation of the building lasted from the 1960s through 1976. Major acquisitions included the Carroll S. Tyson, Jr. and Samuel S. White III and Vera White collections,71 objects from designer Elsa Schiaparelli, in 1976 there were celebrations and special exhibitions for the centennial of the Museum and the bicentennial of the nation
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Renaissance art
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Renaissance art, with Renaissance Humanist philosophy, spread throughout Europe, affecting both artists and their patrons with the development of new techniques and new artistic sensibilities. Renaissance art marks the transition of Europe from the period to the Early Modern age. In many parts of Europe, Early Renaissance art was created in parallel with Late Medieval art, the following list presents a summary, dealt with more fully in the main articles that are cited above. Classical texts, lost to European scholars for centuries, became available and these included Philosophy, Prose, Poetry, Drama, Science, a thesis on the Arts and Early Christian Theology. Simultaneously, Europe gained access to advanced mathematics which had its provenance in the works of Islamic scholars, the advent of movable type printing in the 15th century meant that ideas could be disseminated easily, and an increasing number of books were written for a broad public. The establishment of the Medici Bank and the subsequent trade it generated brought unprecedented wealth to a single Italian city, cosimo de Medici set a new standard for patronage of the arts, not associated with the church or monarchy. Humanist philosophy meant that mans relationship with humanity, the universe, a revived interest in the Classics brought about the first archaeological study of Roman remains by the architect Brunelleschi and sculptor Donatello. A similar heritage of artistic achievement occurred in Venice through the talented Bellini family, their influential inlaw Mantegna, Giorgione, Titian, the publication of two treatises by Leone Battista Alberti, De Pitura,1435, and De re aedificatoria,1452. Their masterpieces are the pulpits of the Baptistery and Cathedral of Pisa, the painters of the Low Countries at this period included Jan van Eyck, his brother Hubert van Eyck, Robert Campin, Hans Memling, Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van der Goes. Their painting developed independently of Early Italian Renaissance painting, and without the influence of a deliberate, the style of painting grew directly out of the Medieval arts of tempera painting, stained glass and book illumination. The media used was oil paint, which had long been utilised for painting leather ceremonial shields and accoutrements, because it was flexible, the earliest Netherlandish oil paintings are meticulous and detailed like tempera paintings. The material lent itself to the depiction of variations and texture. The Netherlandish painters did not approach the creation of a picture through a framework of linear perspective and they maintained a Medieval view of hierarchical proportion and religious symbolism, while delighting in a realistic treatment of material elements, both natural and man-made. Jan van Eyck, with his brother Hubert painted The Altarpiece of the Mystical Lamb and it is probable that Antonello da Messina became familiar with Van Eycks work, while in Naples or Sicily. His studies of perspective are thought to have influenced the painter Masaccio, the contemporary of Donatello, Masaccio, was the painterly descendant of Giotto, furthering the trend towards solidity of form and naturalism of face and gesture that he had begun a century earlier. Masaccios developments were carried forward in the paintings of Fra Angelico, the treatment of the elements of perspective and light in painting was of particular concern to 15th-century Florentine painters. Uccello was so obsessed with trying to achieve an appearance of perspective that, according to Vasari and his solutions can be seen in his masterpiece, the Battle of San Romano. In Naples, the painter Antonello da Messina began using oil paints for portraits and religious paintings at a date that preceded other Italian painters and he carried this technique north and influenced the painters of Venice
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Renaissance in the Low Countries
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The Renaissance in the Low Countries was a cultural period in the Northern Renaissance that took place in around the 16th century in the Low Countries. Culture in the Low Countries at the end of the 15th century was influenced by the Italian Renaissance and its nobles commissioned artists who became known across Europe. In science, the anatomist Andreas Vesalius led the way, in cartography, in art, Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting went from the strange work of Hieronymus Bosch to the everyday life of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. In architecture, music and literature too, the culture of the Low Countries moved into the Renaissance style, during the course of the century the region also experienced significant changes. The union with Spain under Charles V, Humanism and Reformation led to a rebellion against the Spanish rule, by the end of the 16th century the northern and Southern Netherlands were effectively split. Gradually, the balance of power shifted away from the Southern Netherlands, two factors determined the fate of the region in the 16th century. The first was the union with the kingdom of Spain through the 1496 marriage of Philip the Handsome of Burgundy and Juana of Castile. Their son, Charles V, born in Ghent, would inherit the largest empire in the world, a second factor included religious developments. The Middle Ages gave way to new modes of religious thinking, devotio Moderna practices, for example, were particularly strong in the region, while the 16th-century criticisms of the Catholic Church that spread throughout Europe also reached the Low Countries. Humanists such as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam were critical but remained loyal to the church, however, the spread of the Protestant Reformation, started by Martin Luther in 1517, eventually led to outright war. The repression that led to the Dutch Revolt, the beginning of the Eighty Years War. Subsequently, the Southern Netherlands became a bastion for the Counter Reformation, trade in the port of Bruges and the textile industry, mostly in Ghent, turned Flanders into the wealthiest part of Northern Europe at the end of the 15th century. The Burgundian court dwelled mostly in Bruges, Ghent and Brussels, the nobles and rich traders were able to commission artists, creating a class of highly skilled painters and musicians who were admired and requested around the continent. This led to frequent exchanges between the Low Countries and Northern Italy, before 1500, the Italian Renaissance had little or no influence above the Alps. After this we begin to see Renaissance influences, but unlike the Italian Renaissance, the revival of the classical period is also not a central theme like in Italy, the rebirth shows itself more as a return to nature and earthly beauty. 15th-century painting in the Low Countries still shows strong religious influences, even after 1500, when Renaissance influences begin to show, the influence of the masters from the previous century leads to a largely religious and narrative style of painting. The first painter showing the marks of the new era is Hieronymus Bosch and his work is strange and full of seemingly irrational imagery, making it difficult to interpret. Most of all it seems surprisingly modern, introducing a world of dreams that highly contrasts with the style of the Flemish masters of his day
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Brussels
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Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels which is the capital of Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region is a part of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community, but is separate from the region of Flanders or Wallonia. The region has a population of 1.2 million and an area with a population of over 1.8 million. Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union as it hosts a number of principal EU institutions, the secretariat of the Benelux and the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are also located in Brussels. Today, it is considered an Alpha global city, historically a Dutch-speaking city, Brussels has seen a language shift to French from the late 19th century onwards. Today, the majority language is French, and the Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. All road signs, street names, and many advertisements and services are shown in both languages, Brussels is increasingly becoming multilingual with increasing numbers of migrants, expatriates and minority groups speaking their own languages. The most common theory of the origin of Brussels name is that it derives from the Old Dutch Broekzele or Broeksel, meaning marsh, Saint Vindicianus, the bishop of Cambrai made the first recorded reference to the place Brosella in 695 when it was still a hamlet. The origin of the settlement that was to become Brussels lies in Saint Gaugericus construction of a chapel on an island in the river Senne around 580. The official founding of Brussels is usually situated around 979, when Duke Charles of Lower Lotharingia transferred the relics of Saint Gudula from Moorsel to the Saint Gaugericus chapel, Charles would construct the first permanent fortification in the city, doing so on that same island. Lambert I of Leuven, Count of Leuven gained the County of Brussels around 1000 by marrying Charles daughter, as it grew to a population of around 30,000, the surrounding marshes were drained to allow for further expansion. The Counts of Leuven became Dukes of Brabant at about this time, in the 13th century, the city got its first walls. After the construction of the city walls in the early 13th century, to let the city expand, a second set of walls was erected between 1356 and 1383. Today, traces of it can still be seen, mostly because the small ring, Brabant had lost its independence, but Brussels became the Princely Capital of the prosperous Low Countries, and flourished. In 1516 Charles V, who had been heir of the Low Countries since 1506, was declared King of Spain in St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral in Brussels. Upon the death of his grandfather, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 and it was in the Palace complex at Coudenberg that Charles V abdicated in 1555. This impressive palace, famous all over Europe, had expanded since it had first become the seat of the Dukes of Brabant. In 1695, during the Nine Years War, King Louis XIV of France sent troops to bombard Brussels with artillery, together with the resulting fire, it was the most destructive event in the entire history of Brussels
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Meuse
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The Meuse or Maas is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea. It has a length of 925 km. Its lower Belgian portion, part of the sillon industriel, was the first fully industrialized area in continental Europe. The Meuse and its crossings were a key objective of the last major German WWII counter-offensive on the Western Front, the Meuse River is represented in the documentary The River People released in 2012 by Xavier Istasse. The name Meuse is derived from the French name of the river, the Dutch name Maas descends from Middle Dutch Mase, which comes from the presumed but unattested Old Dutch form *Masa, from Proto-Germanic *Masō. Only modern Dutch preserves this Germanic form, however, despite the similarity, the Germanic name is not derived from the Latin name, judging from the change from earlier o into a, which is characteristic of the Germanic languages. Therefore, both the Latin and Germanic names were derived from a Proto-Celtic source, which would have been *Mosā. The Meuse rises in Pouilly-en-Bassigny, commune of Le Châtelet-sur-Meuse on the Langres plateau in France from where it flows northwards past Sedan, at Namur it is joined by the River Sambre. Beyond Namur the Meuse winds eastwards, skirting the Ardennes, the river then forms part of the Belgian-Dutch border, except that at Maastricht the border lies further to the west. The river has been divided near Heusden into the Afgedamde Maas on the right, the Bergse Maas continues under the name of Amer, which is part of De Biesbosch. Near Lage Zwaluwe, the Nieuwe Merwede joins the Amer, forming the Hollands Diep, between Maastricht and Maasbracht, an unnavigable section of the Meuse is bypassed by the 36 km Juliana Canal. South of Namur, further upstream, the river can carry more modest vessels. From Givet, the river is canalized over a distance of 272 kilometres, the canalized Meuse used to be called the Canal de lEst — Branche Nord but was recently rebaptized into Canal de la Meuse. The waterway can be used by the smallest barges that are still in use commercially, just upstream of the town of Commercy, the Canal de la Meuse connects with the Marne–Rhine Canal by means of a short diversion canal. The Cretaceous sea reptile Mosasaur is named after the river Meuse, the first fossils of it were discovered outside Maastricht 1780. An international agreement was signed in 2002 in Ghent, Belgium about the management of the river amongst France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, also participating in the agreement were the Belgian regional governments of Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels. Most of the area is in Wallonia, followed by France. An International Commission on the Meuse has the responsibility of the implementation of the treaty, the map of the basin area of Meuse was joined to the text of the treaty
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Early Netherlandish painting
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Their work follows the International Gothic style and begins approximately with Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck in the early 1420s. It lasts at least until the death of Gerard David in 1523, the major Netherlandish painters include Campin, van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Dieric Bouts, Petrus Christus, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes and Hieronymus Bosch. These artists made significant advances in natural representation and illusionism, and their subjects are usually religious scenes or small portraits, with narrative painting or mythological subjects being relatively rare. Landscape is often richly described but relegated as a background detail before the early 16th century, the painted works are generally oil on panel, either as single works or more complex portable or fixed altarpieces in the form of diptychs, triptychs or polyptychs. The period is noted for its sculpture, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass. Assisted by the system, panels and a variety of crafts were sold to foreign princes or merchants through private engagement or market stalls. A majority were destroyed during waves of iconoclasm in the 16th and 17th centuries, Early northern art in general was not well regarded from the early 17th to the mid-19th century, and the painters and their works were not well documented until the mid-19th century. Art historians spent almost another century determining attributions, studying iconography, attribution of some of the most significant works is still debated. These artists became a driving force behind the Northern Renaissance. In this political and art-historical context, the north follows the Burgundian lands which straddled areas that encompass parts of modern France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlandish artists have been known by a variety of terms. Late Gothic is a designation which emphasises continuity with the art of the Middle Ages. In the early 20th century, the artists were variously referred to in English as the Ghent-Bruges school or the Old Netherlandish school. In this context, primitive does not refer to a lack of sophistication. When the Burgundian dukes established centres of power in the Netherlands, in the 19th century the Early Netherlandish artists were classified by nationality, with Jan van Eyck identified as German and van der Weyden as French. Scholars were at times preoccupied as to whether the schools genesis was in France or Germany, in the 14th century, as Gothic art gave way to the International Gothic era, a number of schools developed in northern Europe. Early Netherlandish art originated in French courtly art, and is tied to the tradition. Modern art historians see the era as beginning with 14th-century manuscript illuminators and this patronage continued in the low countries with the Burgundian dukes, Philip the Good and his son Charles the Bold. The demand for illuminated manuscripts declined towards the end of the century, following van Eycks innovations, the first generation of Netherlandish painters emphasised light and shadow, elements usually absent from 14th-century illuminated manuscripts
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History of Belgium
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The history of Belgium predates the founding of the modern state of that name in 1830. Belgiums history is intertwined with those of its neighbours, the Netherlands, Germany, France, due to its strategic location and the many armies fighting on its soil, since the Thirty Years War, Belgium has often been called the battlefield of Europe or the cockpit of Europe. It is also remarkable as a European nation which contains, and is divided by, Belgiums formation, like that of its Benelux neighbours, can be traced back to the Seventeen Provinces within the Burgundian Netherlands. The Eighty Years War, led to the split between a northern Dutch Republic, and the Southern Netherlands from which Belgium and Luxembourg developed and this southern territory continued to be ruled by the Habsburg descendants of the Burgundian house, at first as the Spanish Netherlands. Invasions from France under Louis XIV led to the loss of what is now Nord-Pas-de-Calais to France, the French Revolutionary wars led to Belgium becoming part of France in 1795, bringing the end of the semi-independence of areas which had belonged to the Catholic church. The king set up his own private colonial empire in the Belgian Congo, Belgium was neutral but its strategic location as a pathway to France made it an invasion target for Germany in 1914 and 1940. Conditions under the occupation were severe, in the postwar period Belgium was a leader in European unification, as a founding member of what has become the European Union. Brussels is now host to the headquarters of NATO and is the de facto capital of the European Union, the colonies became independent in the early 1960s. Politically the country was once polarized on matters of religion and, in recent decades, it has faced new divisions over differences of language and the unequal economic development. This ongoing antagonism has caused far-reaching reforms since the 1970s, changing the formerly unitary Belgian state into a federal state and it is now divided into three regions, Flanders in the north, Wallonia in the South, and bilingual Brussels in the middle. There is also a German-speaking population along the border with Germany, on Belgian territory Neanderthal fossils were discovered at Engis in 1829-30 and elsewhere, some dating back to at least 100,000 BCE. The earliest Neolithic farming technology of northern Europe, the so-called LBK culture and its expansion stopped in the Hesbaye region of eastern Belgium around 5000 BCE. The Belgian LBK is notable for its use of walls around villages. A slightly later-starting Neolithic culture found in central Wallonia is the so-called Groupe de Blicquy, one notable archaeological site in this region is the Neolithic flint mines of Spiennes. Farming in Belgium however failed to take permanent hold at first, the LBK and Blicquy cultures disappeared and there is a long gap before a new farming culture, the Michelsberg culture, appeared and became widespread. Hunter gatherers of the Swifterbant culture apparently remained in the north of Belgium. In the third and late fourth millennia BCE, the whole of Flanders shows relatively little evidence of human habitation, although it is felt that there was a continuing human presence, the types of evidence available make judgement about the details very difficult. The Seine-Oise-Marne culture spread into the Ardennes, and is associated with megalithic sites there, the same pattern continues into the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age
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Alexander Bening
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Alexander Bening, also Sanders Bening, was an early 16th-century miniature painter of the Ghent-Bruges school and Netherlandish tradition. His date of birth is unknown, Bening was part of a South Netherlandish family of illuminators. He married Kathelijn van der Goes, Bening had two sons, Simon Bening, who was trained in his fathers craft, and Paul Bening, whose profession is unknown. No documented work is known by Bening, records indicate in 1469 he became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke. Sanders and his family lived in Ghent, but in 1486 he also joined the Bruges Guild of St John and St Luke, gerard David, purity of vision in an age of transition, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Bening
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