An exceptional Van Eyck exhibition in Ghent
Following on from the Rubens exhibition in Antwerp in 2018 and Bruegel in Brussels in 2019, it is now the turn of Ghent to showcase a painter. The Museum of Fine Arts (MSK) is hosting "Van Eyck. An optical revolution", the largest retrospective of the painter's work ever presented.
This exhibition is exceptional in that it brings 13 works by Van Eyck together in the same place, a feat that has never happened before. The works come from the most prestigious venues in the art world, such as the National Gallery in London, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.
At the heart of the exhibition are the external panels of "The Mystic Lamb", which have just undergone painstaking renovation work. The anthropomorphism of the lamb is showcased, in accordance with the will of the Van Eyck brothers and the representations of the period.
This exhibition also showcases the real optical revolution that his paintings represented at the time. Although Van Eyck did not in fact invent oil painting, as is often stated, he nevertheless perfected the technique, moving way ahead of his contemporaries. To highlight this fact, his works have been placed alongside those of the greatest painters of the period, thus demonstrating both the convergences and the divergences.
The 13 museum rooms that have been redeveloped for the occasion will be ready to welcome visitors for three months from 1 February 2020.
More information can be found on the mskgent website.