ANTWERP, BELGIUM — From the outside, it’s hard to comprehend the impact of the 11-year, $105 million renovation and expansion of one of Belgium’s most prestigious and important museums, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts.
No glass pyramids jutting out from the sidewalks, no new modernist swirls proclaiming new wings. Built in the 19th century, the limestone façade of this museum appears to have been cleaned with tall neoclassical columns, carved busts and winged horses.
But when the building finally reopens on Saturday, the public will notice a dramatic change inside.
Like the original museum, it has a great hall containing an altarpiece by Peter Paul Rubens and a gallery full of works by Flemish masters. Karn Architectsa Dutch company has added a contemporary art wing in what curators here call a “new museum.” It fits seamlessly into the Royal Museum’s space.
“We have these two different worlds, each with a distinct identity,” Koen Bulckens, the museum’s former master curator, said during a tour last week. “On the one hand, a classical building with the grandeur of 19th-century public space has classical art.
A relatively small European city, Antwerp and its surrounding area known as Flanders had a major impact on art history during the 15th and 16th centuries, with Jan van Eyck and Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Rubens and Anthony van Dyck later made Antwerp the center of the Flemish Baroque. Modernist artists such as James Ensor, an early expressionist from another Flemish city of Ostend, and contemporary art star Luc Tuymans from Antwerp, continued to draw on the Flemish tradition of mastering oil paint.
These artists were inspired by Amedeo Modigliani’s “Seated nudity (1917) and Rene Magritte’s “September 16th”(1956).
Carmen Willems, the museum’s general director, said the new design is intended to highlight the museum’s holdings. According to her, nearly 70% of her 8,400-piece collection consists of contemporary art, with only about 30% works by older masters.
“If you ask people in the area, most people would probably say the opposite, maybe even all the old masters,” she said. We all know it exists, but we don’t know enough that the collection of contemporary masters is also quite impressive.”
Built between 1884 and 1890, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts was once commissioned to display a collection of Flemish works of art. collected from the 14th century By the Arts Guild of Antwerp.
Conceived as a “temple of art” inspired by Greek and Roman architecture, the original interior of the Royal Museum features vaulted ceilings, oak moldings and walls painted in lush dark tones. was Designed to use sunlight to illuminate the works, the building also had four open courtyards and skylights.
However, Willems says this open plan didn’t last long. In the early 20th century, the windows and roof were covered and the courtyard was converted into interior rooms used as offices and restoration studios.
The architect of the renovation, Dicky Scipio, proposed turning these former courtyards into exhibition spaces for contemporary art, and also added two exhibition halls on the roof. Her designs revive skylights and bring in natural light.
“There is very little daylight in museums these days,” said Scipio. “In daylight, God or Nature determines whether it’s closer to gray or closer to yellow, and the tilt of the light he changes slightly throughout the day. You have more connection with the outside world.” , and I love this principle.
The museum’s famous Rubens Gallery contains mostly unchanged monumental church paintings by Flemish masters, Adoration of the Magi, Baptism of Christ, and Enthroned Madonna Surrounded by Saints.
However, the “old museum” has been refined and reorganized to emphasize its relevance to modern visitors. Previously, exhibits followed a strict chronology, explains curator Bruken, beginning in the early Middle Ages. Currently, the works are grouped by themes such as “prayer”, “suffering”, and “redemption”.
The display pivots on Ensor’s work in the late 19th century. The museum houses one of the world’s largest treasuries of his macabre and surreal masterpieces, and has also become a turning point for Belgian contemporary art.
In the “new art museum” mainly located downstairs, the works are arranged by themes such as “light” and “form”, and are displayed on the pure white walls where sunlight pours in from the glass atrium. Within these spaces, several paintings are often put together to elucidate a particular artistic conception.
For example, an early 20th-century rural landscape featuring bright skies painted in thick impasto.heaven weeping on the rubbleBelgian artist Jakob Smits’ “” hangs next to an abstract work of art made from thousands of nails hammered into wood panels.dark fieldis by Günther Uecker, member of the 1950s avant-garde group Zero. These two of him appear. “Calvary of Hendrik van Rijn” Gilded 14th century crucifixion scene.
Balkens explains that each of these three pieces highlights the artist’s way of making light appear material. “They were all working on the spiritual nature of light,” he said. “One emanated from the heavens, one represented the biblical story, and the zero movement was interested in the cosmic light, the vastness of the universe.”
The works can be broadly divided into ‘old’ and ‘new’, but curators sometimes settle for anachronistic artworks and playfully defy visitors’ expectations. Little Hula Angelico appears in a swarm of abstract contemporary paintings. His Tuymans portrait from 1992 appears in the “Suffering” section of an old master near Pietà.
“We have these two different worlds, but sometimes we put the individual pieces together and let them communicate,” says Bulckens. “In other words, our museum is a single universe, and these two worlds not only circle each other, but also interact with each other.”