Art

The Belgian visual-art tradition — the Flemish Primitives, Bruegel, Rubens, Ensor, Magritte and the surrealists, Art Nouveau, modern sculpture and comics-as-art.

Part of Belgium

34 moments in this segment.

1. 1432-01-01 — The Ghent Altarpiece. Van Eyck’s 1432 "Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" — a founding masterpiece of Western oil painting (and the meme-famous stolen panel).
2. 1434-01-01 — Jan van Eyck — "Arnolfini Portrait". The Flemish Primitive who perfected oil painting — the mirror and the dog of the Arnolfini double portrait.
3. 1435-01-01 — Rogier van der Weyden — "Descent from the Cross". The emotional pinnacle of early Flemish painting — grief carved in colour.
4. 1480-01-01 — Hans Memling. The Bruges master of serene portraits and altarpieces — the quiet end of the Flemish Primitives.
5. 1500-01-01 — The Bruegel–Bosch Imagination. The fantastical, teeming visions of the Low Countries — devils, peasants and proverbs.
6. 1565-01-01 — Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The 16th-century master of teeming peasant scenes and proverbs — the deep root of Flemish visual humour.
7. 1619-01-01 — Manneken Pis. The little peeing boy of Brussels (1619) — Belgium’s cheekiest national symbol, dressed in 1000+ costumes.
8. 1620-01-01 — Peter Paul Rubens. Antwerp’s baroque titan — voluptuous canvases that gave us the word "Rubenesque".
9. 1635-01-01 — Anthony van Dyck. Rubens’ brilliant pupil who became the great court portraitist of Europe.
10. 1640-01-01 — Jacob Jordaens. Antwerp Baroque’s great painter of boisterous feasts — Rubens’ rowdier contemporary.
11. 1834-01-01 — Wappers — "Episode of the Belgian Revolution". The 1834 romantic battle canvas that became the image of 1830 independence.
12. 1850-01-01 — Antoine Wiertz. The megalomaniac Romantic painter of grotesque, gigantic canvases — Brussels’ strangest one-man museum.
13. 1880-01-01 — Félicien Rops. The provocative Namur printmaker — symbolism, satire and scandal.
14. 1888-01-01 — James Ensor — Masks. Ostend’s painter of grotesque carnival masks and skeletons — proto-expressionist, proto-surreal.
15. 1890-01-01 — Constantin Meunier. The sculptor of miners and dockers — industrial labour cast in bronze.
16. 1893-01-01 — Victor Horta & Art Nouveau. Brussels gave the world Art Nouveau architecture — sinuous iron, glass and whiplash curves.
17. 1896-01-01 — Fernand Khnopff. The aloof symbolist of sphinxes and silent women — Belgium’s master of fin-de-siècle mystery.
18. 1900-01-01 — Léon Frédéric. The symbolist realist of teeming peasant triptychs — a strange Belgian master.
19. 1908-01-01 — Léon Spilliaert. The Ostend painter of lonely seafronts and mirrored self-portraits — haunting symbolist solitude.
20. 1910-01-01 — The Africa Museum (Tervuren). The grand colonial museum, controversially redesigned to confront Belgium’s Congo legacy.
21. 1925-01-01 — Constant Permeke. The heavy, earthbound Flemish expressionist of fishermen and farmers — raw and monumental.
22. 1929-01-01 — Magritte — "Ceci n’est pas une pipe". René Magritte’s 1929 "The Treachery of Images" — the original "this is not a X" template, ancestor of countless memes.
23. 1944-01-01 — Paul Delvaux. The other great Belgian surrealist — dreamlike trains, classical ruins and sleepwalking figures.
24. 1947-01-01 — Paul Delvaux. The dreamlike trains and moonlit nudes of the Belgian surrealist.
25. 1958-01-01 — The Atomium. Brussels’ 1958 World’s Fair iron crystal — the most photographed Belgian structure and a surreal national emblem.
26. 1960-01-01 — Pierre Alechinsky. The CoBrA-movement painter — gestural, calligraphic, restless Belgian abstraction.
27. 1964-01-01 — Magritte — "The Son of Man". The bowler-hat man with a floating green apple — endlessly remixed in pop culture and memes.
28. 1968-01-01 — Marcel Broodthaers. The poet-turned-conceptualist of mussel shells and fictional museums — Belgium’s most cerebral surreal heir.
29. 1969-01-01 — Eddy Merckx — "The Cannibal". The greatest cyclist of all time. Cycling is a Belgian religion; Merckx is its god.
30. 1970-01-01 — Jean-Michel Folon. The gentle dreamlike watercolours of little hatted men and winged figures — a beloved Belgian poster-artist.
31. 1971-01-01 — Panamarenko. The Antwerp artist-inventor of fantastical, never-quite-flying flying machines — pure Belgian surreal whimsy.
32. 2000-01-01 — Wim Delvoye — "Cloaca". The provocateur behind the digesting machine and tattooed pigs — Belgian conceptual art with a grin.
33. 2000-01-01 — Luc Tuymans. The Antwerp painter whose pale, unsettling canvases made him one of the most influential living artists.
34. 2020-01-01 — The Mystic Lamb’s Restored Face. The 2020 restoration revealed the lamb’s "humanoid" face — instant viral meme across the internet.