Discover 100 Masterpieces of Dutch and Flemish art in CODART Canon Book
The hundred most important Dutch and Flemish works of art from before 1750 have been brought together in a beautiful book.
CODART is the international network of almost seven hundred curators of early modern Dutch and Flemish art. They come from three hundred museums in more than forty countries.
At the end of 2019, these curators and the public compiled the so-called CODART Canon, a list of one hundred Dutch and Flemish artworks from before 1750 that are of great importance to art history and that are disseminated throughout the world.
The list can be viewed on a CODART website and in a book, that recently has been published by Lannoo.
No less than one hundred different curators from twenty countries each describe one work of art and explain why their work is so special. It is a careful selection of masterpieces created between 1350 and 1750 in the Low Countries and elsewhere by artists from what is now the Netherlands and Belgium. Painting predominates, but sculptures, prints, drawings, and the applied arts are also included.
Some of the selected masterpiecesscreenshot of the CODART Canon website
For each art form, artists have a maximum of two works in the Canon. The project is intended to bring the lesser-known works of art from this period to the attention of a wider audience.
The list therefore not only includes big names such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer and Hieronymus Bosch, but also many works by lesser-known artists such as the sculptors Claes Sluter and Johan Gregor van der Schardt.
The Canon hopes to give a picture of what is currently considered important in the art of the Low Countries before 1750. According to CODART, It does not seek to proclaim an absolute truth or to impose anything; rather, it seeks to stimulate reflection on what is valuable, what is important, and why.
