Humanity is on full display at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts this month in more than a hundred thirty works from Belgium. They show viewers the pious side of life, the profane side of life, and its playful side, the way artists treated these ideas a few centuries ago.
Riddle: The World Feeds Many Fools,
about 1530.
© The Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp, Belgium
Saints, sinners, lovers and fools populate an exhibit at the museum this fall, in a show named for them. The exhibition celebrates three hundred years of Flemish Masterworks, from about 1400 to 1700.
Curator Chloé M. Pelletier added fourteen works to the traveling show, pieces from the permanent collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Pelletier shares fascinating stories about some of the paintings in this report by Spotlight producer Paul Larson.
Flemish art originated from Flanders, a region in northern Belgium today. From this region emerged the artists whose works adorn the gallery walls in Montreal, including the celebrated painters Anthony Van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens.
A Sailor and a Woman Embracing,
about 1614-1615
© The Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp, Belgium
You have until October 20th to see Saints, Sinners, Lovers and Fools: Three Hundred Years of Flemish Masterworks at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The majority of work in the show comes from the Phoebus Foundation, a Belgian organization dedicated to preserving, restoring and managing artwork. The Phoebus Foundation organized the exhibition along with the Denver Art Museum.
Spotlight is made possible, in part, by the Glenn and Carol Pearsall Adirondack Foundation, dedicated to improving the quality of life for year-round residents of the Adirondack Park. Spotlight is also supported by Hill and Hollow Music.