Search - the low countries

The Amsterdam pop group Nits is celebrating their anniversary with a tour and an EP that sounds as timeless as it is stimulating. Their intelligent pop music sounds both refined and very European.

A broad knowledge of languages is important and translations are an essential part of Dutch literature, writes Lotte Jensen in her column.

Jail time and corporal punishment were just two of the severe punishments meted out to naughty students in the past.

What did the past smell like? And how does scent influence our culture? Biologist and philosopher Geerdt Magiels takes us to the stinking seventeenth century and to the nearly scent-free Low Countries of today.

Cultural historian Lotte Jensen recounts how she has seen the consequences of climate change with her own eyes.

The flamboyant archer won nine Olympic medals for Belgium.

No matter where you are in the world, the 1928 Olympic Games that were held in Amsterdam have left their mark.

Dutch athlete Foekje Dillema was suspended for life because she was supposedly not really a woman.

If you’re not Dutch, you’re not much. Does that vision correspond with how other people view the inhabitants of the Low Countries and their language? Or is the picture more nuanced?

An interactive walking route aims to bring the Olympic past of the port city back to life.

An exhibition in Mechelen shows portraits of young Habsburg princes and princesses that tell us a lot about the political powers struggles of sixteenth-century Europe.

The Dutch swimmer won four medals at the 1936 Olympics, which went down in history as a propaganda event for the Nazis.

Huib Billiet Adriaansen wrote an exciting book about the shared history of Cuba and Belgium since the early sixteenth century.

Between the two world wars, a strange kind of snobbery arose among the Colombian elite: the siren call of distant Brussels.

The Bible on which Joe Biden swore his oath has a four-hundred-year history that reaches back to a biblical translation that originated in the Low Countries.

The city held the title in 2000 but did not make an overwhelming impression on the outside world.

He was admired by Rosa Luxemburg and visited by Bakunin, Marx and Engels, yet almost no one knows his name today. Nevertheless, Jacob Kats was one of the founders of socialism in the turbulent nineteenth century.

The work of Dutch landscape photographer Saskia Boelsums is inspired by the rich painting tradition of the Old Masters.

Britain and Belgium became culturally entangled as a result of their interaction in the period between the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War.

The Flemish rural life of yesteryear teaches us important lessons for today and tomorrow.

The former 15th-century city palace is a unique museum where you can discover Bruges' rich past.

From the Haegse Mercury in 1697 to De Speld in 2022: how daring is Dutch satirical news?

In late medieval Flanders, women played an influential role in wars. Not as soldiers on the battlefield, but as messengers or spies.

Women who liked women were punished more severely in the Southern Netherlands than elsewhere in Europe during the late Middle Ages and early modern times.

Five hundred years ago, the Netherlands' first and only pope in history was appointed.

'A New History of Western Art' is not the dry tome of an academic, but of an enthusiastic storyteller who shows us how art continues to have new interpretations.

Why do the eyes of every Belgian football fan shine every time the Red Devils defeat the Dutch team? There is a sporting and historical reason for that.

Football is unquestionably big business, but many clubs and organisations also use their popularity to engage in community service projects.

The proverbial rivalry between the two football teams from Bruges dates back to the end of the 19th century.

The development of both Rotterdam teams is closely linked to the most important social evolution in football shortly after World War I.

Meet the man who has proved for six albums now that West Flemish is a great dialect to sing pop songs in.

Stromae expresses and depicts the diversity of Belgian society through the collision of his Belgian-ness and Brussels patriotism with a multitude of diverse perspectives.

Brussels landscape architect Bas Smets reconstructed a fragment of a Pieter Bruegel painting in the landscape of Brabant.

The Dutch photographer Bas Meeuws is continuing the tradition of Golden Age floral still lifes.

Hind Fraihi believes that we have to face the reality of Islamist street terrorism and eradicate it using both hard and soft approaches.

Heleen Debruyne takes female painters out of oblivion and gives them the honour they deserve.

Thanks to a donation of unique drawings to the New-York Historical Society, American art lovers can finally discover the work of Flemish artist Eugeen Van Mieghem, draughtsman of the common man.

Is it a good thing that the Dutch and Flemish crack open a huge number of English books every year? Or will this trend spell disaster for Dutch publishers, authors and translators?

Inspired by an underground mine fire in Pennsylvania, Belgian illustrator Miel Vandepitte created an apocalyptic steampunk western.

Our fascination for and exploitation of wild animals has a long history that reveals major social changes: from prestige projects for medieval monarchs to experiences for the general public.

What can the National Holocaust Museum say that has not been said before by dozens of other Dutch museums and memorial sites concerning the history and the persecution of the Jews?

Over a career lasting almost fifty years, the Flemish architect Marie-José Van Hee has developed a personal style at the heart of which is the search for harmony, simplicity and a protective effect.

The Dutch self-taught scientist died three hundred years ago. The anniversary of his death has led to books and an exhibition that shed light on the life of this wayward pioneer of microbiology.

At the largest Jan van Eyck exhibition ever you can discover his refined oil-painting techniques, pointed observations of the world and unique talent for painting light that is almost tangible.

Johan Van Geluwe died unexpectedly at home. The artist knew how to combine the global dimension of his work with regional and folk culture.

Editor-in-chief Luc Devoldere honours the artist who loved to play around with belgitude.

The young Dutch artist is as fascinated by famous paintings as he is by trivial images.

Heleen Debruyne takes female painters out of oblivion and gives them the honour they deserve.

The Netherlands was long considered more progressive in cinema than Belgium. Surprisingly enough, film censorship was more robust in the Netherlands than in Belgium.

Water shortage is becoming ever more serious and is now causing problems with shipping, agriculture and subsidence.

Masterpieces by Rembrandt and Van Eyck have helped photographer Hendrik Kerstens blur the line between the painter’s art and photography.

The fourth and final stage of our cycling trip on the Via Belgica takes us from Heerlen to Cologne.

The third stage of our cycling trip on the Via Belgica takes us from Liberchies to Heerlen.

The second stage of our cycling trip on the Via Belgica takes us from Tournai to Liberchies.

Playwright and director Lisaboa Houbrechts has written a kaleidoscopic theatre piece of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the era in which he created Mad Meg.

The Low Countries' view of the United States has gradually changed from admiration to sadness and frustration.

The first stage of our cycling trip on the Via Belgica takes us from Boulogne to Tournai.

Nowhere in Western Europe were homosexual men persecuted as much as in Bruges in the late Middle Ages.

Seventy-five years on from the end of World War II, the differences between Belgium and the Netherlands from an economic perspective are significant and growing.

Hind Fraihi argues that the new 'blacktivism' should not become an identity movement.

Seventy years ago, the Korean War broke out. Belgium and the Netherlands too sent soldiers to Asia. They were all volunteers who decided to sign up for the most diverse reasons.

Remembrance has replaced history as the dominant way of working through our feelings about the Second World War.

In a new book by our publisher Ons Erfdeel vzw, experts state that a lot of institutions and systems that were built up after the Second World War are at risk today.

Many European rulers gave speeches during the corona crisis. How did they infuse their words with power? What meanings did Willem-Alexander’s concerned look and Filip’s stiff facial expression lend to their messages? And who gave the best s...

Should we consider the increasing anglicization of higher education in the Netherlands and Flanders a good or bad evolution?

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