Are you thinking of travelling to Flanders but haven’t decided what to see yet? Would you like to discover all the artistic treasures of this region but have no idea where to start?
Don’t worry, that’s completely normal!
Among the things to see in Flanders there are colourful little houses, alleys and canals, the smell of chips and waffles in the streets, the crisp, sharp air of the north. I had always thought Flanders was only this, but this time I saw it from a whole new perspective.
I admired this region through the eyes of the Flemish painters, and I discovered that there are far more things to see in Flanders than I could ever have imagined.
In this post I’ve gathered the very best of my trip into 8 points that will take you to the most important places linked to the Flemish painters, and I’ll tell you about some of their most beautiful works.
Want to know more?
Let’s go!
In the footsteps of the Flemish masters
When I first started working with art history, I always hoped I would be able to explore Flanders slowly, museum by museum, and deepen my knowledge of the Flemish painters. That trip finally came thanks to an invitation from the Flanders tourist board, and I have to say it changed the way I look at this region.
My visit started in Bruges and ended in Brussels, taking in four of the most important museums in the area, where I could look closely at the timeless masterpieces of these great artists.
Do you want to discover the Flemish painters too?
Here are the 8 things you absolutely must see in Flanders to get to know these extraordinary artists.
The Flemish painters
The Flemish painters were extraordinarily attentive observers: they came from a medieval culture of refined manuscript illuminators and lived in a period full of novelty, marked also by the discovery of the New World.
In this age of enormous change, the highly specialised craftsmen of Flanders grouped together into guilds, the merchants grew rich on the new trade routes, and the rising middle class gained more and more power.
Doesn’t it remind you a little of the Italian Renaissance?
Just as in Italy, the new status symbols of the middle class inevitably became works of art. Private portraits began to be commissioned and sold to the wealthy bourgeoisie, very different from the votive church commissions that filled the churches.
But I didn’t mention Italy by chance.
You’ll be surprised to learn that, despite the enormous distances and the means of the time, contacts between Flanders and Italy were very frequent, and not only of a commercial kind.
I was struck to discover that Raphael exchanged drawings with Dürer, and that Leonardo even drew inspiration from the Flemish painters for some of the landscapes in his paintings.
Did you know that the most important artists of Bruges were even familiar with the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel?
It sounds impossible, but at the time very few people could afford to travel from Flanders all the way to Italy. It was thanks to the woodcut prints that circulated across Europe that artists were able to become acquainted with Michelangelo’s frescoes in a very short time and draw inspiration from them. The reverse is also true: at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, as at the Louvre and the Uffizi, Flemish panels now hang alongside Italian masterpieces, a testament to how much the two schools watched one another.
As always, wherever cultures cross, something magnificent is bound to be born!
And it is here, in Flanders, that the so-called Flemish Primitives founded an innovative style of painting, bringing a true revolution to the world of art.
Do you want to know what to see in Flanders and discover these beautiful works?
Let me now tell you about 8 places where you can experience the best of Flemish art!
1 – The port of Bruges
You’ve surely heard of Bruges hundreds of times. It’s called the Venice of the North for its canals and its utterly romantic atmosphere, but this city really has much more to offer than breathtaking views and romantic boat rides.
I was lucky enough to visit Bruges with a local guide, born and raised there, who showed me the less touristy side of the city, the one made of quiet canals and little bridges. But the city wasn’t always as you see it today.
Did you know that Bruges was one of the largest ports in Europe?
I had no idea, but the heart of city life in Bruges stood right where the statue of Van Eyck rises today, one of the most important Flemish painters of the region.
Flanders was in fact an extremely wealthy area for trade: silks, wine and scented oils passed through here, lace and works of art were exported, and precious raw materials, rough diamonds, chocolate and exotic goods from the Americas were bought.
Among the things to see in Bruges I recommend a walk a short distance from the port, where you can still find the “houses” of the different nations.
What are they?
They were small embassies where the wealthy merchants arriving in Bruges could lodge, make deals and hear mass in their own language. Here stood the house of the Spanish, of the Germans, of the Venetians, of the Florentines and of the Genoese, to name only the most important.
Each of these buildings was tailored to the merchants of that specific nation and offered services suited to their needs.
The decorations, still partly visible, flaunt the cultural identity of these merchants, and everything was organised to encourage trade. Outside the buildings stood the exchange counters, where bills of exchange were issued, agreements were struck and routes were decided.
Today it’s hard to picture the port of Bruges teeming with merchants, sailors and workers of different nationalities. Despite the large number of tourists who choose to travel to Flanders, the atmosphere of the city feels rather calm and quiet.
If you want an authentic taste of life in Bruges, a typical market fills the Markt every week with stalls of all kinds. And if you fancy having the city of merchants and painters told to you as you walk through it, a guided walking tour of Bruges is the best way not to miss the right anecdotes (the museums I’ll tell you about below, on the other hand, are inexpensive and rarely have queues).
It was in this very setting that, centuries ago, the artists of Flanders worked.
2 – The Groeningemuseum: the Judgement of Cambyses
At this point you’ll want to know where to find the Flemish paintings in Bruges. I recommend the Groeningemuseum, the fine arts museum that spans a long period, from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.
One of the most moving sections is precisely the one devoted to the Flemish painters: alongside Van Eyck’s masterpieces you’ll find huge altarpieces commissioned by the city government and still in excellent condition.
But among the things to see in Bruges there is one that struck me particularly. It’s the Judgement of Cambyses by Gerard David, two large panels painted in 1498.
Why is it special?
The work tells several scenes at once, almost like a modern comic strip. It’s the legend handed down by the Greek historian Herodotus: the Persian king Cambyses discovers that the judge Sisamnes has let himself be bribed, and sentences him to be flayed alive. Onto the judge’s seat, where his son will sit as his successor, his skin, torn from his body, is then stretched as a warning.
However gruesome and frightening the scene may be, it takes on a clear moral meaning when we consider that this work was painted expressly for the courtroom of Bruges town hall: a reminder to the aldermen, the city magistrates who administered justice there every day. David sets everything in the Bruges of his own time, with the buildings and clothes of the period.
The wealth of detail you can admire in the Judgement of Cambyses only highlights the immense study of the Flemish painters who worked on it, and the precision of detail for which they are famous the world over.
3 – The Groeningemuseum: the Madonna with Canon van der Paele
Another work that will take your breath away is the Madonna with Canon van der Paele by Van Eyck, painted around 1434–1436.
The scene, set in a church in Bruges, seems fairly ordinary: the Madonna sits enthroned with the Child, flanked by two saints and the kneeling donor.
What will amaze you, once again, is the detail.
Saint George, the canon’s protector, wears armour so beautifully painted that you can make out the very links of his chainmail. The donor’s portrait is so accurate that scholars have even tried to diagnose his ailments: from the swollen temporal arteries and stiffened fingers, some doctors have suggested a form of rheumatism with temporal arteritis, and the spectacles he holds betray already-failing eyesight.
If you come closer, you can even notice the fringes of the carpet, painted carefully one by one.
The accuracy of detail that the Flemish artists are capable of is staggering.
4 – St John’s Hospital in Bruges
A short distance from the Groeningemuseum stands the ancient St John’s Hospital in Bruges (Sint-Janshospitaal). This building not only sits in one of the most beautiful alleys of Bruges, but also preserves several works by Memling.
Once again it’s the details that surprise: notice the convex mirror behind the Virgin in the Diptych of Maarten van Nieuwenhove (1487), in which the two figures are reflected, and the decoration of the fabrics, rendered so minutely that they seem real.
Want to know the most enjoyable part of this place?
Spotting the everyday objects of the era hidden so carefully in the paintings of the Flemish painters! From clothing to household objects, you’ll find yourself immersed in the world of the time.
Did you notice the wooden crane behind the Virgin’s throne in the triptych of the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine (part of the great St John Altarpiece, 1479)? There must have been identical ones at the port of Bruges in Memling’s day! And if you have time, look also for the famous Shrine of Saint Ursula, one of the museum’s treasures.
5 – The cathedral treasury museum
Whenever I visit a city there’s always one place I can’t let slip by. It’s usually here that the most beautiful masterpieces of medieval art and goldsmithery are found.
Want to know which it is?
The wonderful “treasury” museums of the cathedral!
Among the things to see in Bruges I can’t help but recommend the treasury of St Saviour’s Cathedral (Sint-Salvatorskathedraal), which holds all kinds of liturgical furnishings and objects, as well as numerous paintings.
Altarpieces from wealthy families, from guilds and from the Church: all of them give us a glimpse into life in Flanders during its golden centuries.
The result is an even more complete journey into the art of the Flemish painters!
6 – Bruegel in Brussels
The Flanders tour certainly doesn’t end in Bruges!
After visiting this coastal city I went to Brussels, where I retraced the places in which Bruegel lived: starting from the Sablon district and the church of Notre-Dame de la Chapelle, where in 1563 he married Mayken Coecke and where he is buried today, in the transept, beneath a funerary monument.
Among the things to see in Brussels there is also the house of Bruegel, on rue Haute in the working-class district of the Marolles: the artist spent the last years of his life there and, although the interior can’t be visited today (the project to turn it into a museum is still on hold), it can be admired from the outside.
I found the statue of Bruegel in Brussels very original: here the artist seems to be painting the frame of an invisible picture, as visionary as his own works.
7 – The Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels
If you’re wondering which museums to visit in Brussels, don’t miss the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts (the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium). Here masterpieces of the most varied periods are kept, from medieval panels to canvases by Rembrandt, all the way to the art of the 19th and 20th centuries.
In the section devoted to the old masters (the Oldmasters Museum) the works begin in the Middle Ages and lead you through the evolution of style and the discovery of Flemish culture. You move from Byzantine-style gold-ground altarpieces to the extraordinary visions of Bosch and Bruegel.
From Rogier van der Weyden to the anonymous Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula, from Bosch to Lucas Cranach, the paintings of the Flemish painters grow ever denser with detail and ever more charged with moral meaning.
I could stay here for hours, immersing myself in the tiniest details.
8 – Bruegel’s paintings in Brussels
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium hold some important works linked to Bruegel the Elder. Here you’ll find canvases such as the Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, the Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap (1565) and The Fall of the Rebel Angels (1562).
A little-known curiosity concerns precisely the famous Landscape with the Fall of Icarus: long considered Bruegel’s only surviving work on canvas, scholars today regard it as a good early copy after a lost original by the master, painted perhaps around 1600. The composition, however, is in all likelihood his: that ploughman who keeps working the field while, in one corner, two legs vanish into the sea is a powerful image of the world’s indifference to tragedy.
Do you want to know which is my favourite?
The most beautiful work by Bruegel par excellence is The Fall of the Rebel Angels, this one autograph: real, fantastical and allegorical elements blend in a whirling dance of colours and emotions, among monstrous creatures worthy of Bosch. From the first snowy landscape in the history of art to a proverb turned into painting, in the Bruegel rooms scenes of everyday life interweave with visions and allusions to the culture of the time.
Before you leave for Flanders
If you’re about to take a trip to Flanders, the tourist board’s website VisitFlanders is a good starting point for museum opening hours and tickets, which are generally inexpensive and rarely involve queues.
And if you love the Flemish painters, beyond Bruges and Brussels plan a stop in Ghent and Antwerp. In Ghent, in St Bavo’s Cathedral, you’ll find the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by the Van Eyck brothers, one of the most important paintings in the whole history of art: its restoration, begun in 2012, is still ongoing (the final phase, on the upper register, continues until 2027), but the polyptych is displayed in a new dedicated space inside the cathedral, and the restored face of the lamb has made headlines around the world. Antwerp, on the other hand, is the city of Rubens, with his house-studio and the great altarpieces in the Cathedral of Our Lady.
In short, travelling to Flanders is an experience that certainly won’t bore you.
And you, which of these Flemish masterpieces would you most like to see first?
