38 The New European

EUROFILE ART

January 18-January 24, 2018

There are few cities more deserving of a place in the pantheon of Europe’s great centres of art than Antwerp. And yet it is fair to say that this northern, industrial

port – lacking the elegance, grace and glamour of, say, Paris or Florence – has sometimes been eclipsed by others.

Now, though, the city is determined to raise its artistic profile. A series of events and exhibitions are planned throughout this year and into 2019, focusing on Antwerp’s role at the centre of the Baroque movement which swept Europe in the 17th century, with locals Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens to the fore. It was here, on the Scheldt delta, that the Flemish strand of Baroque emerged and thrived, primed by Rubens’ time in Italy, where he had absorbed Venetian art by Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese.

At the time, Antwerp was ruled by the Spanish Habsburgs and was experiencing the Counter-Reformation, a Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation. Counter-Reformation art, commissioned by senior Catholics to restore their damaged churches, blended Biblical-themed and history paintings, often as altarpieces.

Meanwhile, the city welcomed wealthy merchants with money to burn; bills of exchange had become commonplace across the Southern Netherlands, allowing them to extend credit in trade deals. The city’s diamond quarter, in particular, thrived.

It was against this backdrop that Rubens’ dynamic art style, aided by his many Catholic commissions and private patrons, flourished. The most expensive Rubens paintings cost the equivalent of two houses at the time.

After his return to Antwerp in 1609, following almost a decade in Italy, his home and studio, Rubenshuis, had become a hive of commerce and creativity, with numerous students and assistants, notably, van Dyck and Jan van den Hoecke.

Other contemporaries included Jan Brueghel the Elder, Jan Wildens and David Teniers. The city’s art scene at the time was tightly ‘managed’. Artists and art dealers joined the Guild of Saint Luke, which controlled the art market, kept records of local art collectors, and imposed strict rules for all painters.

Collaborations were the norm; you might find Wildens covering the landscapes and Paul de Vos depicting animals in hunting scenes. Major commissions ranged from decorations for King Philip IV’s Torre de la Parada in Madrid, to the Joyous Entry into Antwerp of the new governor of the Habsburg Netherlands. However, there was some rivalry: Rubens tactically dispatched his overly talented pupil, van Dyck, to Italy and to Britain.

WE BUILT THIS CITY ON BAROQUE AND ROLL

POLLY ALLEN discovers how Antwerp is getting 21st century relevance from a 17th century art movement

turn to page 40

ANTWERP RECLAIMS ITS ART CROWN

39The New European

ART EUROFILE

January 18-January 24, 2018

Rubens’ Philip II of Spain c1628 Credit : Prado Museum

BAROQUE

The term ‘Baroque’ is said to come from the Portuguese word barocco: an irregular or imperfect pearl. It signified how Baroque art (and also architecture and music) deviated from the previous norms of Renaissance and Mannerism, which were led by Raphael and Michelangelo. Mannerism featured elongated bodies, flat-looking backgrounds and mixed historical references.Though Titian was a High Renaissance artist, he began to use elements we would now call Baroque: elevated drama, free brushstrokes and blurred areas of the canvas.Both Titian and Tintoretto added impasto, very thick textured paint, which Rubens later adopted. He

also learned from Caravaggio, whose Italian Baroque art was characterised by dramatic light and shade (chiaroscuro) to create volume. Rubens even copied Caravaggio’s Entombment of Christ.As for his modern legacy, even today we use the word Rubenesque to describe women in his painterly mould: fleshy, healthy and sensual, in contrast to the placid, skinny Mannerist figures before.“Baroque art sometimes seems so alien to the world we live in, but these paintings remain rich and vibrant centuries later,” says Helen Hillyard, curator at Dulwich Picture Gallery, which holds original pieces by Rubens and van Dyck, alongside copies of their work.

40 The New European

EUROFILE ART

January 18-January 24, 2018

From page 39

Rubens dominated Antwerp because of his wealth, his network of connections, his importance to the aristocracy as a diplomat, an art dealing side-line, and the prolific studio output from Rubenshuis. The extravagant property is now one of Antwerp’s best-known museums (Wapper 9-11), containing work he created or collected. Rubenshuis guide Rick Philips said the Rubens studio operated almost as a factory. “Three thousand paintings were made here, but Rubens didn’t paint them alone. It’s another concept of making art. It doesn’t mean he even touched some of the paintings, just came up with the ideas. A team of 25-30 people worked here.”

As part of the calendar of events this year – which have helped Antwerp into Lonely Planet’s ‘Best in Travel’ top 10 cities for 2018 – the venue is holding a stand-alone exhibition (June 1 – September 2) of work by Michaelina Wautier, one of the relatively few female Baroque artists of the period. Little is known about the artist and this is the first-ever exhibition dedicated solely to her work. Unlike her female peers, who worked mostly in depictions of flower compositions, Wautier painted portraits, history pictures, still-lifes and everyday scenes. Around 30 works are attributed to her.

Other events for 2018 will feature modern responses to Baroque. Among these will be Baroque Burez, which will run at MAS, Museum Aan de Stroom (Hanzestedenplaats 1) from June until March 2019. It will exhibit work by the photographer Athos Burez, who aims to put the art movement in context.

“Before, you had the Renaissance, which was very sober, very controlled. Baroque is erotic and dangerous, but always looks calm: you have to look three times to see the meaning. It’s a serene range coming at you.

“[The exhibition’s curators] have given me a lot of freedom to explore the entirety of Baroque, to add a surreal vibe,

VISITING ANTWERP

Where to Stay• Hotel Rubens Grote Markt (Oude Bers 29): chic rooms from £90, including breakfast, close to the historic Grote Markt. • De Witte Lelie (Keizerstraat 16-18), one of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World, was converted from three 16th century townhouses; rooms from £224, including breakfast• See visitflanders.co.uk

Getting There• DFDS Seaways (dfdsseaways.co.uk) sails from Dover to Dunkirk, from £35 one way; it is under two hours’ drive to Antwerp. • Fly from London City Airport, with VLM (flyvlm.com), or, from March 26, from Southend Airport, with Flybe (flybe.com).• Eurostar (eurostar.com/uk-en) runs from London St. Pancras to Antwerp, from £35 one way

Processions of Bacchus by Michaelina Wautier Credit: Rubenshuis and CODART

A Bacchanal Jan Brueghel the Elder & Hendrik van Balen c1608-16 Photo: Speed Art Museum.jpg

41The New European

ART EUROFILE

January 18-January 24, 2018

Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Ru-bens The Sense of Hearing 1617-18 Photo Prado Museum.jpg

Left, Antwerp AMUZ Photo: Lennart Knab and Visit Antwerp

and a focus on modern culture,” he says. “I’ve looked at the hidden meaning of Baroque in portraits, landscapes and animal paintings, and the influences of architecture and clothing.”

A similarly modern approach is being taken at AMUZ, a venue and concert hall in the city’s vast, Baroque St Augustine Church. Jan Fabre, often seen as the bad boy of Belgian art for his confrontational work, will reinterpret three of the building’s altarpieces, by Rubens, van Dyck and Jordaens (August 16 – December 16). His respect for the Flemish Masters runs deep. “When I was a boy, my father took me to the Rubenshuis, and to the Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, to make drawings from the Flemish Masters: to learn to look, and to discover the symbols and iconography of Flemish painters,” he says. “My father made me aware of the composition – the mise-en-scène – and the incidence of light of these painters. I still use this knowledge today.”

Also blending Baroque artwork with more modern artists will be an exhibition, Sanguine | Bloedrood, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (Leuvenstraat 32). Running from June 1 until September 16, it juxtaposes the likes of Goya and Francisco de Zurbaran with sculptor Edward Kienholz. Meanwhile, photographer Paul Kooiker’s work, tied to Baroque interpretations of the body, is displayed at Fotomuseum (Waalsekaai 47) from June 29 to October 7.

Other exhibitions will have a more

traditional focus – for instance at the Plantin-Moretus Museum. Rubens designed book covers to be printed at this former printing house (now a museum and UNESCO World Heritage Site) and painted portraits of family members of the owners, having befriended one at school. The upcoming exhibition, Baroque Book Design, runs from 28 September 2018 – 6 January 2019.

Another of Rubens’ friends, Nicolaas Rockox, is linked to another Baroque event this year. Rockox was a patron of Rubens’, as well as a mayor of Antwerp, and his former home is also a museum. The Snijders-Rockoxhuis (Keizerstraat 10-12) reopens next month, having absorbed the house of his neighbour, Frans Snijders, who was an ‘animalier’, or painter of animals.

Meanwhile, the Cathedral of Our Lady (Groenplaats 21) will display restored Rubens’ paintings, including triptychs The Raising of the Cross and Descent from the Cross. The latter plays a pivotal role in a 19th century children’s book, A Dog of Flanders, written by English author Marie Louise de la Ramée and set in Antwerp, which has since become a cult classic in Japan and Korea and has been adapted into several Japanese films and anime. While this oddity shows just how far Baroque has travelled, 2018 should be the year it comes home.

� Polly Allen is a journalist specialising in culture, travel, fashion and lifestyle