Stay at Home Museum


Series of excellent videos from Visit Flanders guiding you through various exhibitions and displays of Flemish art all filmed post lockdown.

Each presenter has a slightly different style and all the videos come with subtitles which is particularly helpful for the two which are not in English. I love they cover which a wide period from Van Eyck to Ensor in the late 19th century and you do start to spot similar themes and styles thought Flemish art. You have to draw parallels between Ensor’s “Entry of Christ into Brussels” and scenes like Bruegel’s Nativity. I wonder if there will be more in the series.

Episode1 : Van Eyck
I have reviewed this already as it is a film of the Van Eyck exhibition in Ghent.

Episode2 : Bruegel
This is set in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels and focuses on their collection of works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Michel Draguet, the director fo the museum, takes us on a whistle stop tour of the pictures pausing to discuss the detail and symbolism.

Episode3 : Rubens
This is a delightful tour of the Ruben House in Antwerp by the director, Ben van Beneden, walking us through the gardens, into and around the house focusing on a selection of pictures including a self-portrait of the young Van Dyck when he worked in Ruben’s studio. 

Episode4 : Ensor
It is visually refreshing to go to a modern looking white gallery to see the newly hung Ensor galleries at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Ostend and to be talked though the life and work of this artist by the curator Mieke Mels.

Episode5 : Hof van Busleyden
Rather than focusing on an artist this video looks at a Renaissance palace in Mechelen which we are shown round by the director Annik Vlemickx and Camila, the children’s mayor of the city. It’s definitely going on the holiday bucket list if just for the Enclosed Gardens, intricately calved gardens with religious figures and relics with doors painted with saints and donors. I have not come across the idea before and would love to know more.

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