Three Hundred Years of Flemish Masterpieces
Rare Old Masters at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Peter Paul Rubens, “A Sailor and a Woman Embracing,” about 1614-1615 (courtesy of The Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp, Belgium)
The man has a penetrating, lustful look as he clutches a woman who is staring more at us, the voyeuristic viewers, than at her suitor. Her flimsy clothes and bare shoulder indicate she is a prostitute or at least a loose woman slyly pondering how best to deal with the eager, but poor, sailor.
One could easily write a novel about the two characters seen in close-up in the Peter Paul Rubens painting A Sailor and a Woman Embracing, circa. 1615-18. The painting is one of the stars of the alluring summer-long exhibition Saints, Sinners, Lovers and Fools: Three Hundred Years of Flemish Masterworks at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
These are not just artworks about the saints and sinners of a bygone era. These more than 100 paintings deal with the timeless human condition, paintings that helped lay the groundwork for so much of Western art that followed. Put some modern clothing on the sailor and the woman and they would become our contemporaries engaged in an ageless, familiar interaction.
“These paintings are about you and me and what it takes to be human,” says Katharina Van Cauteren, curator of this travelling exhibition and chief of staff of the Phoebus Foundation Chancellery in Antwerp, Belgium.
The foundation owns most of the paintings in the exhibition that toured Europe and now North America.
No official announcement has yet been made but the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto is expected to offer the exhibition next year, the only other Canadian stop beyond Montreal.
Michaelina Wautier (1604-1689), “Everyone to His Taste,” about 1650 (courtesy of The Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp, Belgium)
Sprawling exhibitions of Old Masters paintings from anywhere, including Flanders (or its former designation as Southern Netherlands,) are rare these days in Canada. Even before Covid decimated long-term exhibition schedules, shows such as this were becoming rarer on our shores. They are ever more costly to produce, in part, because of skyrocketing insurance, travel and security costs.
The rarity of such exhibitions can only heighten your own penetrating, lustful emotions as you fall in love, all over again, with the masterpieces of yesteryear by Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Hans Memling and, yes, rarely seen works by two women artists from the era, Michaelina Wautier and Catarina Ykens II.
Saints, Sinners is a history lesson about politics, commerce and art from the period spanning 1400 to 1700. Antwerp was one of the world’s most important centres for trade, shipping, international finance and art production. An entrepreneurial class emerged from what before was only nobles, clergy and peasants. These status-conscious business tycoons wanted their portraits painted by the likes of Rubens, just as their 20th century counterparts sought a Yousuf Karsh photographic portrait. Hence, one area of the exhibition is devoted entirely to paintings serving the growing portrait market.
The exhibition is divided into galleries showcasing different themes, including portraits, religion, mythology and business. The nouveau riche did not just want portraits; they also wanted to purchase for their homes art of all genres. This resulted in a vast increase in the production of art for sale – the Western world’s first real art market. Previously, most art was commissioned by princes and popes and not sold on the open market.
We see this entrepreneurial collecting frenzy in the last room of the exhibition. Entitled Vanitas, it includes paintings of private home interiors stuffed with as much art as commercial galleries. These works include Elegant Couple in an Art Cabinet by Peeter Neeffs the Younger and Gillis van Tillborch, a work started in 1652 but only completed about 23 years later.
The earliest paintings in the show are dead-serious religious works peopled by rather wooden looking characters. As time progressed, the paintings featured more realistic figures, whether nobles, prophets or ordinary folk. Humorous, bawdy scenes became common. Thus we have the exhibition gallery, entitled Faith and Folly, in which human foibles and weaknesses are revealed. We see drunkards led by their wives from taverns, greedy tax collectors and all sorts of sexual games from flirtation to fornication.
Jan Massys (1509-1575), “Riddle: The World Feeds Many Fools,” about 1530 (courtesy of The Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp, Belgium)
A highlight in this section is the Jan Massys painting, Riddle: The World Feeds Many Fools, c. 1530, about two crass fools surrounded by clues to a riddle only 16th century connoisseurs will know how to interpret. Another crowd-pleaser is Portrait of Elisabet, Court Fool of Anne of Hungary by Jan Sanders van Harmessen, circa 1525, showing an enigmatic looking woman in a fool’s costume. “I think her look is saying, ‘We’re all fools,’” says Van Cauteren.
And, of course, there is my favourite, Rubens’ A Sailor and a Woman Embracing. That’s just one of several Rubens in the show. If you can’t get to Montreal, or Toronto next year to see these paintings, buy the companion book about the exhibition From Memling to Rubens: The Golden Age of Flanders by curator Van Cauteren. She is as good a writer as Rubens is a painter. Her prose entertains and educates in spellbinding fashion. You can’t read her book or see her show without being flooded by penetrating, lustful emotions about the golden age of Flemish art. ■
Saints, Sinners, Lovers and Fools: Three Hundred Years of Flemish Masterworks is at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from June 8 to Oct. 20.
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