#352 Erkenningsnummer P708816
october 15, 2014 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.eu current affairs \ p2
politics \ p4
“Government of recovery”
The new centre-right federal government is announced and ministers sworn in, with Charles Michel Belgium’s youngest-ever prime minister \4
BUSiNESS \ p6
innovation \ p7
Don’t worry, be happy
Education expert Leo Bormans says the most important job of schools is to ensure happy children \9
education \ p9
art & living \ p10
In your face, Fashion Week
In the absence of a chic Fashion Week like those other capitals, Brussels unveils its first-ever Fashion Month \ 10
© Ute Brunzel
The six faces of Rubens
Exhibition brings home works by the baroque master that Belgians have never seen Ian Mundell More articles by Ian \ flanderstoday.eu
It’s a surprise to hear that Peter Paul Rubens, one of the defining artists of the Flemish baroque, needs help with his reputation. Yet this is one of the aims of the exhibition Sensation and Sensuality: Rubens and His Legacy at Bozar in Brussels.
“R
ubens is not well-loved in Belgium,” explains curator Nico Van Hout of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, the city where the painter spent much of his working life. “The problem is that only a part of his work can be seen here – the religious part. I want to show other aspects.” As the title of the exhibition suggests, these range from brash sensationalism to intimate sensuality, with many different moods in between. And in addition to presenting a broad selection of Rubens’ work, the exhibition explores the
painter’s considerable influence on other artists. “You can’t speak about British landscape painting or French rococo without Rubens,” says Van Hout. Sensation and Sensuality is divided into six sections: violence, power, lust, compassion, elegance and poetry. Each takes one or more pivotal works by Rubens, then follows likely lines of influence, from contemporaries in the 17th century up to the modern era. Violence, for example, includes Rubens’ monumental “Tiger, Lion and Leopard Hunt” from the Museum of Fine Arts in Rennes. Hunters, horses and prey are tangled together in a desperate struggle, from which the humans seem unlikely to emerge victorious. This feeling of turbulent, chaotic combat is then picked up in scenes of hunting and war by artists such as French romanticist Eugène Delacroix, British painter Edwin Land-
seer and even the Swiss symbolist Arnold Böcklin. Turn to Lust, and you find the generous, fleshy bodies with which Rubens’ name has become synonymous. Even here there are different moods, from the hopeful “Fortuna”, the Roman goddess of luck, on loan from the Prado in Madrid, to the crouched “Venus Frigida”, the naked goddess of love trapped in a cold and loveless world. This magnificent painting has only come from as far as Antwerp, but with the Royal Museum of Fine Arts still closed for renovation this is a good opportunity to see it again. This section is also the place to explore Rubens’ nymphs, satyrs and drunkards, a very popular theme with other artists. His “Pan and Syrinx”, from the City Museum in Kassel, shows the Greek god accosting a scantily clad nymph in the rushes by a river (pictured). Then there is the “Drunken Silenus” character, a rotund, continued on page 5