arts

The Top 5 Art Stories of the Year

Symbolic Flora in the Paintings of Van Eyck

From daisies to columbines, no fewer than 76 different flowers and plants have already been identified on the Ghent Altarpiece. And all that greenery is rich with significance. This masterpiece by the Van Eyck brothers depicts a luxuriant garden of symbols and allegories.
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Vincent Van Gogh’s Letters Are Wise, Erudite and Ruthlessly Personal

Vincent van Gogh was not only an artist, but also a passionate letter writer. The Van Gogh Museum exhibited more than 40 of the 820 preserved letters the painter wrote to his brother Theo, artist friend Paul Gauguin and many others. Those letters, of which a revised English anthology has been published this year, bear witness to great talent for writing.
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Finding a New Role for Flanders’ Historic Theatre Scenery

Flanders has several significant collections of historic theatre scenery, including Europe’s largest collection, in Kortrijk. But the extent and value of this heritage have only recently been recognised, and work is needed both to preserve it and to figure out how it can best be used.
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Wunderbaum Ruthlessly Stirs the World’s Soul and Their Own

The members of Rotterdam theatre collective Wunderbaum don’t really play characters on stage. On the contrary, they present the many ambivalent roles of their own lives. In doing so, Wunderbaum depict situations familiar to their audience, often sufficiently so to make their viewers cringe.
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This article is part of the series ‘Tantalising Theatre’ about exciting and innovative theatre from Flanders and the Netherlands.
read the series ‘Tantalising Theatre’

Roger Raveel, Artist Against the Current

Roger Raveel would have celebrated his 100th birthday in 2021. In his centenary year, the Centre for Fine Arts of Brussels has paid homage to this extraordinary and multidisciplinary Flemish artist with a retrospective. An exhibition that directed attention to one of the great Belgian artists of the post-war period, who developed an unprecedented visual language.
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MORE ART STORIES

• art
• Raveel
• Van Eyck
• Van Gogh
• Wunderbaum