1.
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
2.
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
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Art museum
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An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art. Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection, the term is used for both public galleries, which are non-profit or publicly owned museums that display selected collections of art. On the other hand, private galleries refers to the commercial enterprises for the sale of art, however, both types of gallery may host traveling exhibits or temporary exhibitions including art borrowed from elsewhere. In broad terms, in North American usage, the word gallery alone often implies a private gallery, the term contemporary art gallery refers usually to a privately owned for-profit commercial gallery. These galleries are found clustered together in large urban centers. Smaller cities are home to at least one gallery, but they may also be found in towns or villages. Contemporary art galleries are open to the general public without charge, however. They usually profit by taking a portion of art sales, from 25% to 50% is typical, there are also many non-profit or collective galleries. Some galleries in cities like Tokyo charge the artists a flat rate per day, curators often create group shows that say something about a certain theme, trend in art, or group of associated artists. Galleries sometimes choose to represent artists exclusively, giving them the opportunity to show regularly, a gallerys definition can also include the artist cooperative or artist-run space, which often operates as a space with a more democratic mission and selection process. A vanity gallery is an art gallery that charges fees from artists in order to show their work, the shows are not legitimately curated and will frequently or usually include as many artists as possible. Most art professionals are able to identify them on an artists resume, University art museums and galleries constitute collections of art that are developed, owned, and maintained by all kinds of schools, community colleges, colleges, and universities. This phenomenon exists in both the West and East, making it a global practice, although largely overlooked, there are over 700 university art museums in America alone. This number, in comparison to other kinds of art museums, throughout history, large and expensive works of art have generally been commissioned by religious institutions and monarchs and been displayed in temples, churches, and palaces. Although these collections of art were private, they were made available for viewing for a portion of the public. In classical times, religious institutions began to function as a form of art gallery. Wealthy Roman collectors of engraved gems and other precious objects often donated their collections to temples and it is unclear how easy it was in practice for the public to view these items. At the Palace of Versailles, entrance was restricted to wearing the proper apparel – the appropriate accessories could be hired from shops outside
5.
Jacob Jordaens
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Jacob Jordaens was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and tapestry designer known for his history paintings, genre scenes and portraits. After Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, he was the leading Flemish Baroque painter of his day, unlike those contemporaries he never travelled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their intellectual and courtly aspirations. In fact, except for a few trips to locations in the Low Countries. As well as being a painter, he was a prominent designer of tapestries. Jordaens main artistic influences, besides Rubens and the Brueghel family, were northern Italian painters such as Jacopo Bassano, Paolo Veronese, and Caravaggio. Jacob Jordaens was born on 19 May 1593, the first of eleven children, to the wealthy linen merchant Jacob Jordaens Sr. little is known about Jordaens early education. It can be assumed that he received the advantages of the education provided for children of his social class. This assumption is supported by his handwriting, his competence in French. Like Rubens, he studied under Adam van Noort, who was his only teacher, during this time Jordaens lived in Van Noorts house in the Everdijstraat and became very close to the rest of the family. After eight years of training with Van Noort, he enrolled in the Guild of St. Luke as a waterschilder and this medium was often used for preparing tapestry cartoons in the seventeenth century. Although examples of his earliest watercolour works are no longer extant, in the same year as his entry into the guild,1616, he married his teachers eldest daughter, Anna Catharina van Noort, with whom he had three children. In 1618, Jordaens bought a house in Hoogstraat and he would then later buy the adjoining house to expand his household and workspace in 1639, mimicking Rubens house built two decades earlier. He lived and worked here until his death in 1678, Jordaens never made the traditional trip to Italy to study classical and Renaissance art. Despite this, he made efforts to study prints or works of Italian masters available in northern Europe. For example, Jordaens is known to have studied Titian, Veronese, Caravaggio and his commissions frequently came from wealthy local Flemish patrons and clergy, although later in his career he worked for courts and governments across Europe. Besides a large output of oil paintings he was a prolific tapestry designer. Jordaens importance can also be seen by his number of pupils, among them were his cousin and his son Jacob. Like Rubens and other artists at that time, Jordaens studio relied on his assistants, not many of these pupils went on to fame themselves, however a position in Jordaens studio was highly desirable for young artists from across Europe
6.
Dutch language
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It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after English and German. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English and is said to be roughly in between them, Dutch vocabulary is mostly Germanic and incorporates more Romance loans than German but far fewer than English. In both Belgium and the Netherlands, the official name for Dutch is Nederlands, and its dialects have their own names, e. g. Hollands, West-Vlaams. The use of the word Vlaams to describe Standard Dutch for the variations prevalent in Flanders and used there, however, is common in the Netherlands, the Dutch language has been known under a variety of names. It derived from the Old Germanic word theudisk, one of the first names used for the non-Romance languages of Western Europe. It literarily means the language of the people, that is. The term was used as opposed to Latin, the language of writing. In the first text in which it is found, dating from 784, later, theudisca appeared also in the Oaths of Strasbourg to refer to the Germanic portion of the oath. This led inevitably to confusion since similar terms referred to different languages, owing to Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry in the 16th and 17th centuries, the English term came to refer exclusively to the Dutch. A notable exception is Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a West Central German variety called Deitsch by its speakers, Jersey Dutch, on the other hand, as spoken until the 1950s in New Jersey, is a Dutch-based creole. In Dutch itself, Diets went out of common use - although Platdiets is still used for the transitional Limburgish-Ripuarian Low Dietsch dialects in northeast Belgium, Nederlands, the official Dutch word for Dutch, did not become firmly established until the 19th century. This designation had been in use as far back as the end of the 15th century, one of them was it reflected a distinction with Hoogduits, High Dutch, meaning the language spoken in Germany. The Hoog was later dropped, and thus, Duits narrowed down in meaning to refer to the German language. g, in English, too, Netherlandic is regarded as a more accurate term for the Dutch language, but is hardly ever used. Old Dutch branched off more or less around the same time Old English, Old High German, Old Frisian and Old Saxon did. During that period, it forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, on the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in nowadays France and Germany. The division in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, one of the few moments linguists can detect somewhat of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in the pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age, the Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups, East, West, and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period, Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots, Frisian, Low German and High German
7.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
8.
Gustaf Wappers
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Egide Charles Gustave, Baron Wappers was a Belgian painter. His work is considered to be Flemish and he signed his work with the Flemish form of his name. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, the Romantic movement with its new ideas about art and politics was astir in France. While political, this remarkable work revolutionized the direction of Flemish painters, Wappers was invited to the court at Brussels, and was favoured with commissions. In 1832 the city of Antwerp appointed him Professor of Painting and he exhibited his masterpiece, Episode of the Belgian Revolution of 1830 or rather Episode of the September Days of 1830 on the Grand Place of Brussels, at the Antwerp Salon in 1834. He was subsequently appointed painter to Leopold, King of the Belgians, at the death of Matthieu-Ignace Van Brée in 1839 he was elevated to director of the Antwerp Academy. Louis Philippe gave him a commission to paint a painting for the gallery at Versailles. He finished the work in 1844, the year that he received the title of baron from Belgian king Leopold I. After retiring as director of the Antwerp Academy, he settled in 1853 in Paris, media related to Gustave_Wappers at Wikimedia Commons
9.
Guillaume Geefs
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Guillaume Geefs, also Willem Geefs, was a Belgian sculptor. Although known primarily for his works and public portraits of statesmen and nationalist figures, he also explored mythological subject matter. Geefs was born at Antwerp, the eldest of six brothers in a family of sculptors, Guillaume first studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp under the late–Flemish Baroque sculptor Jan Frans van Geel and his son, Jan Lodewijk van Geel, who was also a sculptor. He completed his training under Jean-Etienne Ramey at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in 1829, Geefs traveled to Italy. When he returned to Antwerp, he began teaching at the art academy, during the 1830s, he executed the colossal work Victims of the Revolution at Brussels, as well as numerous statues and busts. In 1836, he married Isabelle Marie Françoise Corr, a Brussels-born painter of Irish descent known professionally as Fanny Geefs, in the mid-19th century, the sculptor Guillaume-Joseph Charlier was an assistant to him and his brother Joseph. Geefs early work has characterized as predominately elegiac in mood. By the end of the 1830s, however, he developed a powerful, spare realism in monumental works such as General Belliard and Frédéric de Mérode and he was prolific in producing tombs, pulpits, statues, busts, and sculpture groups. The works of Guillaume Geefs include, Frédéric de Mérode, tomb monument, noted for its naturalness, le lion amoreux or The Amorous Lion, marble, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, see online, small bronze version online. In his lifetime, Geefs work was considered by some to be marred by frivolous and inessential details and poverty of thought and he is now regarded as the dominant Belgian sculptor of his time. Le génie du mal Two statues by Guillaume Geefs Bio on Philatelia. net
10.
Luigi Calamatta
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Luigi Calamatta was an Italian painter and engraver. He was born at Civitavecchia, in the Papal States, orphaned early, he went to live with an uncle, then move to Rome to live in the lOspizio San Michele. He was expelled from the hospice, and became the ward of fellow artists and he studied drawing at Rome under Francesco Giangiacomo, took his early lessons in engraving from Marchetti. and executed his first plate under the eye of Ricciari. He went to Paris in 1822, and became a follower of Ingres and he made his first appearance at the Salon of 1827, with an engraving of Bajazet and the Shepherd, after Pierre Joseph Dedreux-Dorcy. He visited Florence in 1836, and the year saw him installed as professor of engraving at Brussels. He was later appointed by Giuseppe Longhi to a similar post at the Brera in Milan and his wife Joséphine was also an artist, and produced an excellent portrait of her father, the archeologist Raoul Rochette, as well as The Virgin, Eudora and Cymadaceus, St. Among Calamattas works are, Monna Lisa after Da Vinci, Madonna di Foligno Madonna della Sedia, The Vision of Ezekiel, and Peace after Raphael. Our Lord walking on the Sea, after Cigoli Francesca da Rimini, duke of Orleans, Count Molè, The Vow of Louis XIII, and Madmouiselle Boimara, after Ingres Guizot, after Delaroche. Portraits of Actor and Miss Lèvera, after Deveria, portrait of Lamennais, after Ary Scheffer. Recollections of Rome, partly etched, after Stevens Portraits of Rubens, Georges Sand, portrait of the King of Spain, after Madrazo. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical, york St. #4, Covent Garden, London, Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18,2007, George Bell and Sons
11.
Coudenberg
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Coudenberg or Koudenberg is a small hill in Brussels where the Palace of Coudenberg was built. After several years of recent excavations, the vestiges of the palace. In about 1100, the counts of Leuven and Brussels left the bottom of the valley of the Zenne and built their castle on the heights of Coudenberg from where they could dominate the small city. With the creation of the Duchy of Brabant in 1183 by the German Emperor Frederik Barbarossa, the hunting park of the dukes led down the hill to the north, a remnant of which is now Brussels Park. The first regular meetings of the States-General, composed of delegates from the class, clergy. It was in this room that in 1515 Margaret of Austria formally relinquished her regency over the Low Countries to Charles von Habsburg, and it was in this same room that 40 years later Charles V abdicated in favour of his son, King Philip II of Spain. In the 17th century, under their reign as the sovereigns of the Spanish Netherlands, the archdukes restored the façade of the palace, transformed the buildings and refitted the apartments and gardens. As art lovers, the archdukes brought to their court the best artists of the time, Jan Brueghel and Rubens among them, on the night of February 3,1731, fire broke out in the kitchens and quickly engulfed the entire palace. The freezing conditions made it difficult to deliver any water and the means of firefighting were very insufficient, in the morning, the palace was in ruins with many of the works of art destroyed along with the governmental archives. Unfortunately money was not available for rebuilding, so for more than 40 years and it was only in 1774 that Charles Alexander of Lorraine proposed replacing the ruins with a Royal Square. Because of the clash between the Gothic chapel and the surrounding buildings, the chapel was pulled down. Just off the southwest corner of Brussels Park, lies the Royal Square which was atop the ruins of the old Palace. Originally a statue of Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine, the governor of Austrian Netherlands. The statue was not equestrian, but showed Charles-Alexander standing, attending to the affairs of government, unfortunately, following the French Revolution and during the occupation of Brussels by the French, it was melted down for the value of the metal. The current equestrian statue is of a young Godfrey of Bouillon, a new statue of Charles-Alexander of Lorraine was eventually placed nearby in the Museum Square. The Royal Square on the Coudenberg is faced by the church of St. Jacob-on-the-Coudenberg and it was built by two French architects, Montoyer and Guimard, in classic style from 1776 to 1780. In the 19th century the dome and two wings were added. The remains of the ancient palace and adjacent building have been excavated below present ground level
12.
Constantin Meunier
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Constantin Meunier was a Belgian painter and sculptor. He made an important contribution to the development of art by elevating the image of the industrial worker, docker and miner to an icon of modernity. His work is a reflection of the industrial, social and political developments of his day and represents a compassionate and committed view of man, constantin Meunier was born in the traditionally working-class area of Etterbeek in Brussels. He was encouraged to pursue a career by his elder brother. He entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels in September 1845 and he studied under the sculptor Louis Jehotte from 1848. He also attended from 1852 the private studio of the sculptor Charles-Auguste Fraikin and his first exhibit was a plaster sketch, The Garland, shown at the Brussels Salon in 1851. Soon afterwards, on the advice of the painter Charles de Groux, on his return to Belgium he was appointed professor at the Louvain Academy of Fine Arts. He was one of the co-founders of the Société Libre des Beaux-Arts of Brussels and was a member of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers and he was a freemason, and a member of the lodge Les Amis Philanthropes of the Grand Orient of Belgium in Brussels. Meunier died in Brussels on 4 April 1905, paintings Sculptures In 1939, the Musée Constantin-Meunier dedicated to his work was opened in the last house in which Meunier lived and worked, in Ixelles, Brussels. Today about 150 of his works are displayed there, M - Museum Leuven also holds a number of important works by Meunier. Saemann This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. P. & V. Berko, Dictionary of Belgian painters born between 1750 &1875, Knokke 1981, pp. 466–467
13.
Antoine Wiertz
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Antoine Joseph Wiertz was a Belgian romantic painter and sculptor. Born in Dinant from a poor family, he entered the Antwerp art academy in 1820. Thanks to his protector Pierre-Joseph de Paul de Maibe, a member of the Second Chamber of the States-General, between November 1829 and May 1832, he stayed in Paris, where he studied the old masters at the Louvre. Upon his return, he established himself in Liège with his mother, during his stay in Rome, Wiertz worked on his first great work, Les Grecs et les Troyens se disputant le corps de Patrocle, on a subject borrowed from book XVII of Homers Iliad. It was exhibited in Antwerp in 1837, where it met some success. Wiertz submitted the work for the Paris Salon of 1838, badly hung and lit, his entry elicited indifference on the part of the public, and provoked sarcasm among the critics. This second humiliation led to a profound rancour against art critics and against Paris, as expressed in his virulent pamphlet Bruxelles capitale, in 1844, Wiertz painted a second version of his Patrocles on an even bigger scale than the first. The Rome version is now in the Museum of Walloon Art in Liège, after the Paris disaster, Wiertz veered more and more to the excessive. A fine example is the monumental La Chute des Anges rebelles, the death of his mother in 1844 was a terrible blow to the artist. He left Liège in 1845 to settle in Brussels for good, during this period he painted a confrontation of Beauty and Death, Deux jeunes filles—La Belle Rosine, which remains perhaps his most famous work. Dissatisfied with the effect of oil painting, he developed a new technique combining the smoothness of oil painting with the speed of execution. This technique of mat painting entailed the use of a mixture of colours, turpentine, La Lutte homérique was the first big-scale painting executed in this technique. However, the used in this technique are responsible for the slow decay of the works produced with it. Wiertz was also a portrait painter, who made self-portraits at various ages. Influenced mainly by Rubens and the late Michelangelo, Wiertz monumental painting often moves between classical academism and lurid romanticism, between the grandiose and the ridiculous. After difficult negotiations with the Belgian government, Wiertz was able to realize his dream to turn his last studio into a museum for his works, the Belgian State bought a piece of land and funded the construction of a huge hall to accommodate the painters monumental works. In exchange, Wiertz donated all his works to the Belgian State and his remains were embalmed in accordance with Ancient Egyptian burial rites and buried in a vault in the municipal cemetery of Ixelles. A copy of one of Antoine Wiertzs works, the statue of The Triumph of Light was once prominently located high on San Franciscos Mount Olympus between the Haight-Ashbury and Corona Heights and it had been presented to the city of San Francisco by Adolph Sutro in 1887
14.
Flemish painting
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Flemish painting flourished from the early 15th century until the 17th century. These painters were invited to work at foreign courts and had a Europe-wide influence, since the end of the Napoleonic era, Flemish painters had again been contributing to a reputation that had been set by the Old Masters. The Franco-Flemish School of musical composition flourished at the same time, the so-called Flemish Primitives were the first to popularize the use of oil paint. Their art has its origins in the painting of the late Gothic period. Chief among them were Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes, Robert Campin, the court of the Duchy of Burgundy was an important source of patronage. From the early 16th century, the Italian Renaissance started to influence the Flemish painters, the result was very different from the typical Italian Renaissance painting. The leading artist was Pieter Brueghel the Elder, who avoided direct Italian influence, after the Siege of Antwerp, the Southern Provinces of the Netherlands remained under Spanish rule and were separated from the independent Dutch Republic. Following the deaths of major artists like Rubens in 1640 and the end of the Eighty Years War in 1648, a revival of painting in this region came in the advent of the Belgian Revolution of 1830 and work around that time is often considered Flemish. The painters, who flourished in the aftermath of this period, are usually referred to as Belgian rather than Flemish. That kingdom comprising Flanders, often influences also more recent artistss categorization, new York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Moderne Vlaamse schilderkunst van 1850 tot 1950 van Leys tot Permeke, cS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list Liedtke, Walter A. Flemish paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
15.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
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He also painted no portraits, the other mainstay of Netherlandish art. After his training and travels to Italy, he returned in 1555 to settle in Antwerp and he does the same with the fantastic and anarchic world developed in Renaissance prints and book illustrations. He is sometimes referred to as Peasant Bruegel, to him from the many later painters in his family. From 1559, he dropped the h from his name and signed his paintings as Bruegel, the two main early sources for Bruegels biography are Lodovico Guicciardinis account of the Low Countries and Karel van Manders 1604 Schilder-boeck. Guicciardini recorded that Bruegel was born in Breda, but van Mander specified that Bruegel was born in a village near Breda called Brueghel, nothing at all is known of his family background. Van Mander seems to assume he came from a peasant background, in keeping with the over-emphasis on Bruegels peasant genre scenes given by van Mander and many art historians. Breda was already a significant centre as the base of the House of Orange-Nassau, with a population of some 8,000, from the fact that Bruegel entered the Antwerp painters guild in 1551, it is inferred that he was born between 1525 and 1530. His master, according to van Mander, was the Antwerp painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst, between 1545 and 1550 he was a pupil of Pieter Coecke, who died on 6 December 1550. Bruegel possibly got this work via the connections of Mayken Verhulst, maykens father and eight siblings were all artists or married an artist, and lived in Mechelen. In 1551 Bruegel became a master in the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp. He set off for Italy soon after, probably by way of France. He visited Rome and, rather adventurously for the period, by 1552 he had reached Reggio Calabria at the tip of the mainland. He probably continued to Sicily, but by 1553 was back in Rome, there he met the miniaturist Giulio Clovio, whose will of 1578 lists paintings by Bruegel, in one case a joint work. These works, apparently landscapes, have not survived, but marginal miniatures in manuscripts by Clovio are attributed to Bruegel, with one exception, Bruegel did not work the plates himself, but produced a drawing which Cocks specialists worked from. In 1563 he was married in Brussels, where he lived for the rest of his life, while Antwerp was the capital of Netherlandish commerce as well as the art market, Brussels was the centre of government. Van Mander tells a story that his mother-in-law pushed for the move to him from his established servant girl mistress. By now painting had become his main activity, and his most famous come from these years. His paintings were sought after, with patrons including wealthy Flemish collectors and Cardinal Granvelle, in effect the Habsburg chief minister
16.
Rogier van der Weyden
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Rogier van der Weyden or Roger de la Pasture was an Early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces and commissioned single and diptych portraits. By the latter half of the 15th century, he had eclipsed Jan van Eyck in popularity, however his fame lasted only until the 17th century, and largely due to changing taste, he was almost totally forgotten by the mid-18th century. There are few facts of van der Weydens life. What else is known of him has come from records and secondary sources. However the paintings now attributed to him are generally accepted, despite a tendency in the 19th century to attribute his work to others, all of his forms are rendered with rich, warm colourisation and a sympathetic expression, while he is known for his expressive pathos and naturalism. His portraits tend to be half length and half profile, Van der Weyden used an unusually broad range of colours and varied tones, in his finest work the same tone is not repeated in any other area of the canvas, even the whites are varied. Due to the loss of archives in 1695 and again in 1940, Rogelet de le Pasture was born in Tournai in 1399 or 1400. His parents were Henri de le Pasture and Agnes de Watrélos and he married around 1426, to Elisabeth Goffaert, and was made town painter of Brussels in 1436, and changed his name from the French to the Flemish format, becoming van der Weyden. The Pasture family had settled before in the city of Tournai where Rogiers father worked as a maître-coutelier, in 1426 Rogier married Elisabeth, the daughter of a Brussels shoemaker Jan Goffaert and his wife Cathelyne van Stockem. Rogier and Elisabeth had four children, Cornelius, who became a Carthusian monk, was born in 1427, a daughter Margaretha in 1432. Before 21 October 1435 the family settled in Brussels where the two children were born, Pieter in 1437 and Jan in 1438, who would go on to become a painter. On his move to Brussels, Rogier began using the Flemish version of his name, little is known about Rogiers training as a painter. The archival sources from Tournai were completely destroyed during World War II, the sources on his early life are confusing and have led to different interpretations by scholars. It is known that the city council of Tournai offered eight pitchers of wine in honour of a certain Maistre Rogier de le Pasture on the 17th November 1426. However, on 5 March of the year the records of the painters guild show a Rogelet de le Pasture entered the workshop of Robert Campin together with Jacques Daret. Records show that de le Pasture was already established as a painter, only five years later, on the first of August 1432, de le Pasture obtained the title of a Master painter. His later entry into apprenticeship might be explained by the fact that during the 1420s the city of Tournai was in crisis, the late apprenticeship may have been a legal formality. Also Jacques Daret was then in his twenties and had living and working in Campins household for at least a decade
17.
Robert Campin
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Robert Campin, now usually identified with the Master of Flémalle, was the first great master of the Flemish Primitives. Campins identity and the attribution of the paintings in both the Campin and Master of Flémalle groupings has been a matter of controversy for decades. Campin was highly successful during his lifetime, and thus his activities are well documented, but he did not sign or date his works. A corpus of work attached to the unidentified Master of Flémalle, Campin was active by 1406 as a master painter in Tournai, in todays Belgium, and became that citys leading painter for 30 years. He had attained citizenship by 1410, and may have studied under Jan van Eyck and his fame had spread enough by 1419 that he led a large and profitable workshop. He became involved in the revolt of the Brotherhoods in the early 1420s, yet he maintained his standing and workshop until his death in 1444. He was successful in his lifetime, and the recipient of a number of civic commissions, Campin taught both Rogier van der Weyden and Jacques Daret. He was a contemporary of Jan van Eyck, and they met in 1427, campins best known work is the Mérode Altarpiece of c 1425-28. In 1408 he had purchased the house that he had been leasing since 1406 near the Tournai Cathedral, in 1410 he bought into the full citizenship. Records show a number of commissions from individuals and guilds, as well as from ecclesiastical. Campin owned several houses, purchased city bonds and invested in mortgages, between 1423 and 1429, the city government was dominated by the guilds. Campin was the deputy dean of the guild of goldsmiths and painters in 1423/24 and 1425, in 1427 he represented the guild on the city council. After restoration of the oligarchy of full citizens, the leaders of the guild regime, Campin was ordered to make a pilgrimage to Saint-Gilles and pay the fine. Campin was married to Ysabel de Stocquain and he had an affair with Laurence Polette, for which he was prosecuted in 1432 and sentenced to banishment for a year. Margaret of Burgundy, wife of the Count of Holland and sister of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy intervened on his behalf, short time after the verdict Campin’s apprentices Rogier van der Weyden and Jacques Daret were accepted as masters into the guild of painters. However, the dated Werl Altarpiece shows he continued to work and he died in his adopted city of Tournai in 1444. Although heavily indebted to 14th century manuscript illumination, Campin displayed greater powers of realistic observation than any other painter before him. He was one of the first to experiment with the use of oil-based colours, in lieu of egg-based tempera, Campin used the new technique to convey strong, rounded characters by modelling light and shade in compositions of complex perspectives
18.
Anthony van Dyck
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Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England, after enjoying great success in Italy and Flanders. He also painted biblical and mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draughtsman, the Van Dyke beard is named after him. Antoon van Dyck was born to parents in Antwerp. By the age of fifteen he was already an accomplished artist, as his Self-portrait, 1613–14. He was admitted to the Antwerp painters Guild of Saint Luke as a master by February 1618. His influence on the young artist was immense, Rubens referred to the nineteen-year-old van Dyck as the best of my pupils. At the same time the dominance of Rubens in the small and declining city of Antwerp probably explains why, despite his periodic returns to the city, van Dyck spent most of his career abroad. In 1620, at the instigation of George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham, van Dyck went to England for the first time where he worked for King James I of England, receiving £100. After about four months he returned to Flanders, but moved on in late 1621 to Italy and he was already presenting himself as a figure of consequence, annoying the rather bohemian Northern artists colony in Rome, says Giovan Pietro Bellori, by appearing with the pomp of Zeuxis. He was mostly based in Genoa, although he travelled extensively to other cities. In 1627, he went back to Antwerp where he remained for five years, a life-size group portrait of twenty-four City Councillors of Brussels he painted for the council-chamber was destroyed in 1695. He was evidently very charming to his patrons, and, like Rubens, well able to mix in aristocratic and court circles, by 1630 he was described as the court painter of the Habsburg Governor of Flanders, the Archduchess Isabella. In this period he produced many religious works, including large altarpieces. King Charles I was the most passionate and generous collector of art among the British monarchs, and saw art as a way of promoting his elevated view of the monarchy. In 1628, he bought the collection that the Gonzagas of Mantua were forced to dispose of. In 1626, he was able to persuade Orazio Gentileschi to settle in England, later to be joined by his daughter Artemisia and some of his sons. Rubens was a target, who eventually came on a diplomatic mission, which included painting, in 1630. He was very well-treated during his visit, during which he was knighted
19.
Peter Paul Rubens
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Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter. He is widely considered as the most notable artist of Flemish Baroque art school, the catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop. His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, which included religious and mythological subjects and he painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house and he also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the royal entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not overly detailed and he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. For altarpieces he painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. Rubens was born in the city of Siegen to Jan Rubens and he was named in honour of Saint-Peter and Paul, because he was born on their solemnety. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Spanish Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the adviser of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange. Following Jan Rubens imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577, the family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his fathers death, Rubens moved with his mother Maria Pypelincks to Antwerp, religion figured prominently in much of his work and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting. In Antwerp, Rubens received a Renaissance humanist education, studying Latin, by fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the leading painters of the time, the late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort. Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier works, such as woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at time he entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master. In 1600 Rubens travelled to Italy and he stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The colouring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an effect on Rubenss painting. With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601, there, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters
20.
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
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Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is a painting in oil on canvas measuring 73.5 by 112 centimetres in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. It was long thought to be by the painter of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting. According to the museum, It is doubtful the execution is by Breugel the Elder, largely derived from Ovid, the painting is described in W. H. In Greek mythology, Icarus succeeded in flying, with wings made by his father Daedalus, ignoring his fathers warnings, Icarus chose to fly too close to the sun, melting the wax, and fell into the sea and drowned. His legs can be seen in the water just below the ship, the sun, already half-set on the horizon, is a long way away, the flight did not reach anywhere near it. Daedalus does not appear in this version of the painting, though he does, still flying, there is also a Flemish proverb, And the farmer continued to plough. Pointing out the ignorance of people to fellow mens suffering, the painting may, as Audens poem suggests, depict humankinds indifference to suffering by highlighting the ordinary events which continue to occur, despite the unobserved death of Icarus. Giving more prominence to low subject-matter than high in the work is a feature of some Northern Mannerist art. The traditional moral of the Icarus story, warning against excessive ambition, is reinforced by fore-grounding humbler figures who appear content to fill useful agricultural roles in life, the painting is probably a version of a lost original by Bruegel. A date of c.1558 has been suggested for the lost original, based on Bruegels other works and it is in oils whereas Bruegels other paintings on canvas are in tempera. The original would have been Bruegels only known painting of a mythological subject, the perspective of the ship and figures is not entirely consistent, although this may enhance the power of the composition. Bruegel also produced a design for an engraving with the ship, in 1963, Philippe Roberts-Jones, curator at the museum, and the Bruegel specialist Georges Marlier, hypothesized that an original panel painting had been later moved onto canvas, as was once common. As mentioned here above, the conclusion of this dating was that P. Bruegel the Elder cannot have painted on this canvas, later, in 2006, Prof. J. Reisse challenged this dating on technical grounds. From bottom to top, Canvas, Oily lead white, Thick oily layer with azurite, Chalk ground, Oily lead white with scarce particles of charcoal, Oily blue with azurite, with layers 4 to 6 being original. The presence of ground under the original blue proves that this is a panel painting transposed on a canvas. The original blue layer is white with azurite containing a few grains of ochre. These structure and composition match perfectly those found on other certified panels of Peter Bruegel, moreover, it is noticeable that the wood charcoal particles are very peculiar, being very long and acicular, exactly the same as those found only in The Census from the same Museum. Recently, a study of the underdrawing using infrared reflectography has been published, reflectography is based on the fact that the infrared light penetrates all colors except black
21.
W. H. Auden
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Wystan Hugh Auden was an English poet, who later became an American citizen. He was born in York, grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family and he attended English independent schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29 he spent five years teaching in English public schools, then travelled to Iceland, in 1939 he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia, from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York and summered in Kirchstetten, Austria. Audens poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion and he came to wide public attention at the age of twenty-three, in 1930, with his first book, Poems, followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood in 1935–38 built his reputation as a political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems For the Time Being and The Sea and the Mirror, focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, in 1956–61 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, his lectures were popular with students and faculty and served as the basis of his 1962 prose collection The Dyers Hand. From around 1927 to 1939 Auden and Isherwood maintained a lasting, throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive, treating him as a lesser follower of W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot, to strongly affirmative, after his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media. Auden was born in York, England, to George Augustus Auden, a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden, née Bicknell, who had trained as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons, the eldest, George Bernard Auden, became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden and he traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his fascination with Icelandic legends. In 1908 his family moved to Homer Road, Solihull, near Birmingham, Audens lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his fathers library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays, until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later, words so excite me that a story, for example. Auden attended St Edmunds School, Hindhead, Surrey, where he met Christopher Isherwood, later famous in his own right as a novelist
22.
Philippe Roberts-Jones
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Baron Philippe Roberts-Jones was a Belgian art historian who was the head of conservation of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. He was also a published poet and his father Robert Roberts-Jones, a lawyer, was a member of the Belgian Resistance executed by the Germans at the Tir national on October 20,1943. Philippe Roberts-Jones died on 9 August 2016 at the age of 91, as a poet he publishes under the name Philippe Jones. 1973, LIntermédiaire des généalogistes, De belgis illustribus, les quartiers dascendance de Philippe Roberts-Jones, n°167,1973, p. 328-332
23.
Alphonse Balat
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Alphonse Hubert François Balat was a Belgian architect. He studied at the Academie of Namur and obtained his degree in architecture from the Academy of Antwerp in 1838, in 1839 he stayed in Paris for a year but returned after his fathers death. He was soon discovered by the Walloon nobility for which he built or renovated a number of Châteaus, stylistically these constructions often contained renaissance elements with a neoclassical stress. In his interior designs he also used elements from the Louis XV, in 1846 Balat settled in Brussels. His was introduced to the Belgian royal family after he was noticed for his design of a temporary festive decoration for the Salle de la Madeleine where the family had been present. In 1851 and 1856 he created several temporary festive decorations for the monarchy, in 1852 he was appointed as the architect of the Duke of Brabant, the later king Leopold II of Belgium. In 1856 he constructed the palace of the Marquess of Assche in the newly planned district called Quartier Léopold. It was noticed for its austere classical Neo-Renaissance facade inspired by Michelangelos Palazzo Farnese in Rome and his rather sober classical approach was rare at that time when excessively decorated facades and interiors were much preferred. During his career he built a number of private residences. Most of them were demolished during the 20th century, after Leopold II ascended the throne in 1865, Balat became his principal architect. Balat made a number of designs for the reception rooms of the Royal Palace of Belgium such as the Throne Room, The Grand Staircase. For this realisations he greatly followed the example of the French Royal residences, Balat realised the facade on the back of the palace and the facades of the courtyards. His design for the facade of the palace is deeply influenced by the work of the French architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel. It was not executed during Balats lifetime and later completed in a form by Henri Maquet. Balat died at Ixelles, aged 76, and was buried in the Laeken Cemetery and his most successful architectural project are the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken. It consists of a complex of several dome-shaped buildings in iron. The centerpiece is the domed Grand Jardin dhiver which is an interpretation of the Palm House of the Royal Botanic Gardens. Working with new materials like iron and glass, Balat was obliged to abandon his classical stance and this stimulated the imagination of the architect
24.
Leopold II of Belgium
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Leopold II was the second King of the Belgians, known for the founding and exploitation of the Congo Free State as a private venture. Born in Brussels as the son of Leopold I and Louise of Orléans, he succeeded his father to the Belgian throne in 1865. His was the longest reign of any Belgian monarch and he died without surviving male issue, the current Belgian king descends from his nephew and successor, Albert I. Leopold was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State and he used explorer Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, an area now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the nations of Europe authorized his claim by committing the Congo Free State to improving the lives of the native inhabitants. From the beginning, however, Leopold essentially ignored these conditions and he ran the Congo using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal enrichment. He used great sums of the money from this exploitation for public and he donated the private buildings to the state before his death, to preserve them for Belgium. Under his regime millions of the Congolese people died, modern estimates range from 1 to 15 million, human rights abuses under his regime contributed significantly to these deaths. Leopold was born in Brussels on 9 April 1835 and he was the second child of the reigning Belgian monarch, Leopold I, and his second wife, Louise, the daughter of King Louis Philippe of France. The French Revolution of 1848, which spared Belgium, had forced Louis Philippe to flee to the United Kingdom, the royal families of Belgium and the United Kingdom were linked by numerous marriages, and were additionally both descended from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Louis Philippe died two years later, in 1850, Leopolds fragile mother was deeply affected by the death of her father, and her health deteriorated. She died that year, when Leopold was 15 years old. Three years later, in 1853 at the age of 18, Marie Henriette was a cousin of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, and granddaughter of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor through her father, Austrian archduke Joseph. Marie Henriette was lively and energetic, and endeared herself to the people by her character and benevolence and she was also an accomplished artist and musician. She was passionate about horseback riding to the point that she would care for her horses personally, some joked about this marriage of a stableman and a nun, the shy and withdrawn Leopold referred to as the nun. Four children were born of marriage, three daughters and one son, also named Leopold. The younger Leopold died in 1869 at the age of nine from pneumonia after falling into a pond and his death was a source of great sorrow for King Leopold, who lost his only heir. The marriage had become unhappy, and the couple separated completely after a last attempt to have another son, in 1895 Marie Henriette retreated to Spa
25.
Beaux-Arts architecture
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Beaux-Arts architecture expresses the academic neoclassical architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The style of instruction that produced Beaux-Arts architecture continued without interruption until 1968. The Beaux-Arts style heavily influenced the architecture of the United States in the period from 1880 to 1920, in contrast, many European architects of the period 1860–1914 outside France gravitated away from Beaux-Arts and towards their own national academic centers. American architects of the Beaux-Arts generation often returned to Greek models, for the first time, repertories of photographs supplemented meticulous scale drawings and on-site renderings of details. Beaux-Arts training emphasized the production of quick conceptual sketches, highly finished perspective presentation drawings, close attention to the program, site considerations tended toward social and urbane contexts. In the façade shown to the right, Diana grasps the cornice she sits on in an action typical of Beaux-Arts integration of sculpture with architecture. A sense of appropriate idiom at the craftsman level supported the teams of the first truly modern architectural offices. The prestige of the École gave the style Beaux-Arts a second wind in combining the new manner with the traditional training and they were followed by an entire generation. Henry Hobson Richardson absorbed Beaux-Arts lessons in massing and spatial planning and his Beaux-Arts training taught him to transcend slavish copying and recreate in the essential fully digested and idiomatic manner of his models. Richardson evolved a personal style freed of historicism that was influential in early Modernism. The White City of the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago was a triumph of the movement, the Beaux-Arts curriculum was subsequently begun at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. From 1916, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City schooled architects, painters, bosworth, Carnegie Mellon University, designed by Henry Hornbostel, and the University of Texas, designed by Paul Philippe Cret. Beaux-Arts architecture also brought a civic face to the railroad, two of the best American examples of the Beaux-Arts tradition stand within a few blocks of each other, Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library. Another prominent U. S. example of the style is the largest academic dormitory in the world, in the late 1800s, during the years when Beaux-Arts architecture was at a peak in France, Americans were one of the largest groups of foreigners in Paris. Many of them were architects and students of architecture who brought this back to America. Beaux-Arts was very prominent in public buildings in Canada in the early 20th century, notably all three prairie provinces legislative buildings are in this style. Buenos Aires is a center of Beaux-Arts architecture which continued to be built as late as the 1950s, national Theatre, Melbourne General Post Office building, Forrest Place, Perth Argus Building. Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York, A Photographic Guide United States, sixteenth Street Architecture – profiles of Beaux-Arts architecture in Washington D. C
26.
Joseph Geefs
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Joseph Germain or Jozef Geefs was a Belgian sculptor. His brothers Guillaume Geefs and Jean Geefs were also sculptors and he was born in Antwerp, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, going on to Pariss École des beaux-arts and winning the Prix de Rome in 1836. In 1841 he became a lecturer in sculpture and anatomy at the Academy in Antwerp and he was made an officer of the Order of Leopold in 1859. Geefs married a daughter of the architect Lodewijk Roelandt and probably produced the portrait medallion on his gravestone and he died in Brussels, aged 76. 1881, Grand Officer in the Order of Leopold, knight Commander of the Order of the White Falcon. Officer in the Order of the Oak Crown, Officer in the Order of the Zähringer Lion. Knight in the Order of the Immaculate Conception of Vila Viçosa
27.
Giambologna
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Giambologna — born Jean Boulogne — was a Flemish sculptor based in Italy, celebrated for his marble and bronze statuary in a late Renaissance or Mannerist style. Giambologna was born in Douai, Flanders, in 1529, after youthful studies in Antwerp with the architect-sculptor Jacques du Broeucq, he moved to Italy in 1550, and studied in Rome. Giambologna made detailed study of the sculpture of classical antiquity and he was also much influenced by Michelangelo, but developed his own Mannerist style, with perhaps less emphasis on emotion and more emphasis on refined surfaces, cool elegance and beauty. Pope Pius IV gave Giambologna his first major commission, the colossal bronze Neptune, Giambologna spent his most productive years in Florence, where he had settled in 1553. He was interred in a chapel he designed himself in the Santissima Annunziata, Giambologna became well known for a fine sense of action and movement, and a refined, differentiated surface finish. Among his most famous works are the Mercury, poised on one foot, the god raises one arm to point heavenwards, in a gesture borrowed from the repertory of classical rhetoric that is characteristic of Giambolognas maniera. His other most famous work is the Rape of the Sabine Women a marble sculpture which is featured prominently in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florences Piazza della Signoria and this impressive sculpture which includes three full figures was carved from a single piece of marble. Giambologna carved it without a subject in mind, and the name Rape of the Sabine Women was given after it was in place in the Loggia, the sculpture was produced for Francesco Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Another of his marbles, Hercules Slaying a Centaur was also placed in the Loggia dei Lanzi in 1599 and he created allegories strongly promoting Medicean political propaganda, such as Florence defeating Pisa and, less overtly, Samson Slaying a Philistine, for Francesco de Medici. The equestrian statue of Cosimo I de Medici also in Florence, was completed by his studio assistant Pietro Tacca. Giambologna provided as well as sculptures for garden grottos and fountains in the Boboli Gardens of Florence and at Pratolino. For the grotto of the Villa Medicea of Castello he sculpted a series of studies of animals, from life. Small bronze reductions of many of his sculptures were prized by connoisseurs at the time and ever since, italian Art, Florence, Giunti Gruppo Editoriale,2000, ISBN 88-09-01771-4. Giambologna, 1529-1608, sculptor to the Medici, an exhibition organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain etc. catalogue edited by Charles Avery, london, Arts Council of Great Britain,1978, ISBN 0-7287-0180-4. Biography with a portrait on kfki. hu Giambologna on mega. it Model of a River God, archived from the original on 2009-07-09. Archived from the original on 2011-03-12, a Tour of the location of Giambolognas major works in Florence
28.
Relief
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Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise, to create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. What is actually performed when a relief is cut in from a surface of stone or wood is a lowering of the field. The technique involves considerable chiselling away of the background, which is a time-consuming exercise. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or papier-mâché the form can be just added to or raised up from the background, and monumental bronze reliefs are made by casting. There are different degrees of relief depending on the degree of projection of the form from the field. There is also sunk relief, which was restricted to Ancient Egypt. However the distinction between high relief and low relief is the clearest and most important, and these two are generally the only used to discuss most work. Hyphens may or may not be used in all these terms, works in the technique are described as in relief, and, especially in monumental sculpture, the work itself is a relief. Reliefs are common throughout the world on the walls of buildings and a variety of settings. Relief is more suitable for depicting complicated subjects with figures and very active poses, such as battles. Most ancient architectural reliefs were painted, which helped to define forms in low relief. Rock reliefs are carved into solid rock in the open air. This type is found in cultures, in particular those of the Ancient Near East and Buddhist countries. A stele is a standing stone, many of these carry reliefs. The distinction between high and low relief is somewhat subjective, and the two are often combined in a single work. In particular, most later high reliefs contain sections in low relief, a low relief or bas-relief is a projecting image with a shallow overall depth, for example used on coins, on which all images are in low relief. Other versions distort depth much less and it is a technique which requires less work, and is therefore cheaper to produce, as less of the background needs to be removed in a carving, or less modelling is required
29.
Charles van der Stappen
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Charles van der Stappen, was a Belgian sculptor, born in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode. His best-known funeral monuments are those to Alexandre Gendebien and Baron Coppens and his statues include William the Silent, set up at the Petit Sablon Square, and two in the Brussels Museum, The Man with the Sword, and The Sphinx. The bronze group Ompdrailles was acquired by the Belgian government, the result of the connection may be seen in the group The Builders of Cities which is strongly imbued with the feeling and types of Meuniers sympathetic figures of workers. Among his students were Helene Zelezny-Scholz, Rik Wouters, Paul Du Bois, and Victor Rousseau, charles van der Stappen, by Camille Lemonnier, Les Artistes belges contemporains, by E. L. de Taye, The Renaissance of Sculpture in Belgium, by OG Destrée
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National Royalist Movement
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The National Royalist Movement was a group within the Belgian Resistance in German-occupied Belgium during World War II. It was active chiefly in Brussels and Flanders and was the most politically right-wing of the major Belgian resistance groups, the MNR was founded in German-occupied Belgium soon after the Belgian defeat of May 1940 by former members of the far-right Catholic, authoritarian Rexist Party. As an organisation, it had a strongly nationalist stance and was led by Eugène Mertens de Wilmars, the MNR wanted Belgium to become an authoritarian dictatorship under the rule of King Leopold III. In July 1941, the German occupation authorities became suspicious of the MNR, after the arrest of Mertens de Wilmars in May 1942, it became overtly anti-German and began to engage in resistance activities. The MNR produced underground newspapers and collected military intelligence and it also provided help to Jews hiding from German persecution, Allied pilots shot-down in occupied Europe and Belgian workers avoiding labour service in Germany. In collaboration with the Secret Army and the Witte Brigade, the MNR participated in capture of the Port of Antwerp shortly before the Allied liberation in September 1944, the operation prevented the Germans from destroying the installations and provided the Allies with access to their first intact deep-sea port. 160 members of the MNR were executed or died in Nazi camps, around 100 were killed in action during the liberation of the Port of Antwerp in September 1944. A monument to five members of the killed during the liberation of Brussels is visible next to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts. Dujardin, Vincent, Van den Wijngaert, Mark
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Belgian Resistance
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The Belgian Resistance collectively refers to the resistance movements opposed to the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. Within Belgium, resistance was fragmented between a number of separate organizations, divided by region and political stances. The resistance included both men and women from both Walloon and Flemish parts of the country, German forces invaded Belgium, which had been following a policy of neutrality, on 10 May 1940. After 18 days of fighting, Belgium surrendered on 28 May and was placed under German occupation, during the fighting, between 600,000 and 650,000 Belgian men served in the military. Many were made prisoners of war and detained in camps in Germany, Leopold III, king and commander-in-chief of the army, also surrendered to the Germans on 28 May along with his army and was also held as prisoner by the Germans. The Belgian government fled first to Bordeaux in France, and then to London where it formed a government in exile, nevertheless, resistance was slow to develop in the first few months of the occupation because it seemed that German victory was imminent. Most of the resistance was focused in the French-speaking areas of Belgium, around 70 percent of underground newspapers were in French, while 60 percent of political prisoners were Walloon. The most widespread form of resistance in occupied Belgium was non-violent and this was often carried out by Belgian government institutions that were forced to carry out the administration of the territory on behalf of the German military government. In June 1941, the City Council of Brussels refused to distribute Star of David badges on behalf of the German government to Belgian Jews. Striking was the most common form of resistance and often took place on symbolic dates. The largest was the so-called Strike of the 100,000, news of the strike spread rapidly and soon at least 70,000 workers came out on strike across the province of Liège. The Germans increased workers salaries by eight percent and the strike finished rapidly, future large-scale strikes were repressed by the Germans, although further important strikes occurred in November 1942 and February 1943. King Leopold III, imprisoned in the palace in Laeken, became a point for passive resistance. Active resistance within Belgium developed from early 1941 and took several directions, armed resistance, in the forms of sabotage or assassinations, took place, but was only part of the active resistances scope of activity. Some groups had very specific forms of resistance and became extremely specialized, the Service D group, for example, had many members in the national postal service and used them to intercepting letters of denunciation, warning the denounced person to flee. In this way, they succeeded in intercepting over 20,000 letters and it is estimated that approximately five percent of the national population were involved in some form of active resistance during the war. The Belgian resistance effort was extremely fragmented between various groups and never became an organization during the German occupation. However, there were other groups like Groupe G which, though without an obvious political affiliation
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Sculpture garden
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A sculpture garden or sculpture park is an outdoor garden dedicated to the presentation of sculpture, usually several permanently sited works in durable materials in landscaped surroundings. A sculpture garden may be private, owned by a museum and accessible freely or for a fee, or public, some cities own large numbers of public sculptures, some of which they may present together in city parks. Exhibits range from individual, traditional sculptures to large site-specific installations, Sculpture gardens may also vary greatly in size and scope, either featuring the collected works of multiple artists, or the artwork of a single individual. Sculpture gardens have a long history around the world - the oldest known collection of constructions is a Neanderthal sculpture garden unearthed in Bruniquel Cave in France in 1990. Within the cave, broken stalagmites were arranged in a series of stacked or ring-like structures approximately 175,000 years ago, in the United States, the oldest public sculpture garden is a part of the joint park and wildlife preserve Brookgreen Gardens, located in South Carolina. The property was opened in 1932, and has since included on the National Register of Historic Places. Blázquez Abascal, Jimena, Valeria Varas, and Raúl Rispa, Sculpture Parks in Europe, A Guide to Art and Nature. Art Parks, A Tour of Americas Sculpture Parks and Gardens, ISBN 978-1616891299 Harper, Glenn, and Twylene Moyer, eds. Landscapes for Art, Contemporary Sculpture Parks, hamilton, NJ, ISC Press, and Seattle, University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0295988610 Media related to Sculpture parks at Wikimedia Commons
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Aristide Maillol
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Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol was a French sculptor, painter, and printmaker. Maillol was born in Banyuls-sur-Mer, Roussillon and he decided at an early age to become a painter, and moved to Paris in 1881 to study art. His early paintings show the influence of his contemporaries Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Gauguin encouraged his growing interest in decorative art, an interest that led Maillol to take up tapestry design. In 1893 Maillol opened a workshop in Banyuls, producing works whose high technical. He began making small terracotta sculptures in 1895, and within a few years his concentration on sculpture led to the abandonment of his work in tapestry, in July 1896, Maillol married Clotilde Narcis, one of his employees at his tapestry workshop. Their only son, Lucian, was born that October, maillol’s first major sculpture, A Seated Woman, was modeled after his wife. The first version was completed in 1902, and renamed La Méditerranée, Maillol, believing that art does not lie in the copying of nature, produced a second, less naturalistic version in 1905. In 1902, the art dealer Ambroise Vollard provided Maillol with his first exhibition, the subject of nearly all of Maillols mature work is the female body, treated with a classical emphasis on stable forms. Josep Pla said of Maillol, These archaic ideas, Greek, were the great novelty Maillol brought into the tendency of modern sculpture. What you need to love from the ancients is not the antiquity, it is the sense of permanent, renewed novelty and his important public commissions include a 1912 commission for a monument to Cézanne, as well as numerous war memorials commissioned after World War I. Maillol served as a juror with Florence Meyer Blumenthal in awarding the Prix Blumenthal a grant awarded to painters, sculptors, decorators, engravers, writers and he made a series of woodcut illustrations for an edition of Vergils Eclogues published by Harry Graf Kessler in 1926–27. He also illustrated Daphnis and Chloe by Longus and Chansons pour elle by Paul Verlaine and he died in Banyuls at the age of eighty-three, in an automobile accident. While driving home during a thunderstorm, the car in which he was a passenger skidded off the road and rolled over. A large collection of Maillols work is maintained at the Musée Maillol in Paris and his home a few kilometers outside Banyuls, also the site of his final resting place, has been turned into a museum where a number of his works and sketches are displayed. Three of his bronzes grace the staircase of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, Summer, Venus Without Arms. The third is the only reference to music, created for a monument at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Flora, Nude, Houston, Texas LAir Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, “Aristide Maillol, 1861-1944”, New York, frèches-Thory, Claire, & Perucchi-Petry, Ursula, ed. Die Nabis, Propheten der Moderne, Kunsthaus Zürich & Grand Palais, Paris & Prestel, Munich 1993 ISBN 3-7913-1969-8, Lorquin, Bertrand
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Bernhard Heiliger
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Bernhard Heiliger was a German artist. He was considered West Germanys foremost sculptor, and his large public artworks are a prominent presence in many German cities, after this he attended the Staatlichen Hochschule für bildende Künste in 1938, where he studied under Arno Breker. In 1941 he was drafted into the army and served as an operator on the Eastern Front for two years, before he received an exemption from military service through the intervention of Breker. Despite this he was drafted again in 1944, after which he fled as a deserter through northern Germany, in May 1946 Heiliger exhibits with the painter Fritz Ascher at the Karl Buchholz Gallery in Berlin. In 1956 he became a member of the Berlin Academy of Art, in 1974 he was recognized with the Federal Cross of Merit, and in 1984 was awarded an honorary membership in the Deutscher Künstlerbund. He died in Berlin in 1995, and was buried in Berlins Dahlem Cemetery, heiligers diverse output stretches from his early, organically abstracted figures to his late nonobjective, geometric abstractions. His early work, focuses on the figure, which is treated in an organic style influenced by Aristide Maillol. Also from this period is a series of busts of prominent contemporary Germans. The artist departed from the figure in his second period, instead developing imagery of the flight of birds. The seven-meter-high The Flame, commissioned by the city of Berlin for Ernst-Reuter-Platz, is considered the key work in the transition between the early and middle periods, the Five Continents, by contrast, still alludes to the human figure in the torso-like shapes that make up the composition. The Bernhard-Heiliger-Stiftung was founded in 1996 and is located in his studio in Berlin-Dahlem near the Brücke-Museum. Since 1999 the foundation has conferred the €15,000 Bernhard Heiliger Award of Sculpture upon a noted sculptor every four years, heiligers son Stefan Heiliger is a well-known furniture designer. Bernhard Heiliger 1915-1995 – Kosmis eines Bildhauers, ed
