From 11 February to 8 May 2011 some fifty works from the Accademia Carrara di Bergamo will be on display in the Bozar (Centre for Fine Arts) in Brussels, where they will be juxtaposed with fifteen masterpieces from the KMSKA (Royal Museum of Fine Arts) in Antwerp, which is closing its doors for renovation this year. 

This ambitious exhibition (entitled Venetian and Flemish Masters: Bellini, Tiziano, Canaletto – Van Eyck, Bouts, Jordaens) makes it clear that the Flemish and Venetian schools cannot be seen in isolation from each other.  

Because Bergamo, in Lombardy, was long the continental capital of the Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia the museum houses many important works from the famous Venetian school.  

The dreamy Maria with Child by Giovanni Bellini, the moving Madonna by Titian in a peaceful and harmonious landscape and Raphael’s famous Saint Sebastian are just a few of the masterpieces in the exceptional collection at the museum in Bergamo.  

North and South 

Venetian and Flemish Masters illustrates four centuries of contacts and cross-pollination between Lombardy and Flanders. This interaction exercised significant influence on the evolution of Western art and the development of a European identity.  

Giovanni Bellini came in contact with the works of Rogier van der Weyden and vice versa, just as Peter Paul Rubens once admired the works of Titian and Veronese.  

This movement of works and collections could only occur thanks to the prolific maritime, trade and political exchanges between north and south.   

Intervention by Berlinde de Bruyckere  

Berlinde de Bruyckere (1964) is an internationally known artist from Ghent whose work features the human body. For her art, which deals with major themes like history and humanity, she seeks inspiration in old and modern paintings alike, and especially in German and Italian painting.  

In Venetian and Flemish Masters she intervenes with two artworks and picks up the dialogue with Flemish and Venetian masters.

Illustration: Jacob Jordaens, Bacchus (detail), 17th Century, KMSKA© Lukas |Art in Flanders vzw & Giovanni Bellini, Portrait of a young man (detail), ca.1475-1480. Bergamo, Accademia Carrara.