Bruges Art

In the 1400's Bruges was Northern Europe's richest and most cultured city and on Friday I set off to see some of its art of that period. I started off at the Church of Our Lady, where there is a statue of Madonna and Child carved by Michelangelo in 1504. This delicate, highly polished white Carrara marble statue, sitting in its ornate Baroque niche, showing mirror, slightly melancholic expressions of Mother and Child, is said to be the only one to leave Italy in his lifetime. My next stop was the Groeninge Museum with its superb collection of early Flemish art. Here is the rather gruesome "Judgement of Cambyses" by Gerard David in 1498. A corrupt judge was arrested, flayed and skinned alive. Another painting by Jan van Eyck in 1439 is a portrait of his wife, Margareta, dressed in the fashion of that era with her hair bunched into horn-like hair nets and draped with a headdress. I then went to the Sint-Janshospitaal to see the Saint John Altarpiece by the renowned Flemish painter, Hans Memling. The Altarpiece was painted in 1474 and consists of three panels. The left shows the Beheading of John the Baptist, the centre one is of Mary sitting on a canopied chair with the Baby Jesus in her lap while the third depicts John the Evangelist's Vision of the Apocalypse. My last stop was the Arentshuis Museum, which was showing the works of Frank Brangwyn, a late 20th century famous Flemish painter. Here is one his rather brooding Belgium street scenes.







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