Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Information: Tel. 050-448-743.
Length of This Tour: Allow one hour.
Overview
The included audioguide allows you to wander as you like. Use this
chapter as background to the huge collection's highlights, then
browse, punching in the numbers of the paintings you'd like to
learn more about.
the tOuR Begins
• In Room 1, look for...
gerard David (c. 1455-1523)— Judgment of Cambyses
(1498)
hat's gotta hurt.
A man is stretched across a table and skinned alive in a very
businesslike manner. The crowd hardly notices, and a dog just
scratches himself. According to leg-
end, the man was a judge arrested
for corruption (left panel) and flayed
(right panel), then his skin was draped
(right panel background) over the new
judge's throne.
Gerard David, Memling's succes-
sor as the city's leading artist, painted
this for the City Hall. City councilors
could ponder what might happen to
them if they abused their offices.
By David's time, Bruges was in
serious decline, with a failing economy and struggles against the
powerful Austrian Habsburg family. The Primitive style was also
fading. Italian art was popular, so David tries to spice up his retro-
Primitive work with pseudo-Renaissance knickknacks— putti
(baby angels, over the judgment throne), Roman-style medallions,
and garlands. But he couldn't quite master the Italian specialty of
3-D perspective. We view the flayed man at an angle from slightly
above, but the table he lies on is shown more from the side.
• Head to Room 2 for...
Jan van eyck (c. 1390-1441)— Virgin and Child with Canon
Joris van der Paele (1436)
Jan van Eyck was the world's first and greatest oil painter, and this
is his masterpiece—three debatable but defensible assertions.
Mary, in a magnificent red gown, sits playing with her little
baby, Jesus. Jesus glances up as St. George, the dragon-slaying
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