In case you missed them, a new series of Flemish Museum virtual tours were launched in November. They pick up where a previous series, “Stay At Home Museum”, left off. Launched earlier this year, the “Stay at Home Museum” were virtual art tours which were a great success, with over 2.5 million viewers from almost 100 countries taking part in virtual tours of works by Flemish Masters such as Rubens, Bruegel, and Van Eyck. Following on from the success of this series, the new “Flemish Masters Museum Tour” has been launched to inspire, enlighten, and inform in a similar way.
The new “Flemish Masters Museum Tour” offers viewers a personalised virtual visit, to several prominent Flemish museums and collections. During the tour, an expert from the museum provides information and insight, zooming in on fascinating details, and tells incredible stories about the museum’s collection.
The museum tours are short, stand-alone documentaries lasting 10 to 15 minutes. The films are narrated in Dutch but have English subtitles.
The first tours featured the Museum Mayer Van Den Bergh in Antwerp, St. Peter's Church in Leuven and St. John's Hospital in Bruges.
Above: Bruegel's Mad Meg at the Museum Mayer van den Bergh
At the Museum Mayer Van Den Bergh in Antwerp, the museum's Director recounted the incredible story behind the masterpiece Mad Meg by Bruegel, which the museum originally purchased for the equivalent of 12 Euros.
Above: The Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament by Dirk Bouts
At St. Peter's Curch in Leuven, the tour centres on the Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament by another Flemish Master painter, Dirk Bouts which, in many ways, pushed the boundaries of fine art. Some art historians consider Bouts the first real landscape painter.
Above: Interior of St. John's Hospital in Bruges. Image: (c) Sarah Bauwens
Yesterday's tour at St. John's Hospital in Bruges featured a tour of the “Hans Memling in Contemporary Art” exhibition, which showed how Memling not only influenced the painters Dürer and Raphael, but also modern artists such as Joseph Kosuth, Kehinde Wiley and Aydin Aghdashloo.
The final tour will be live on Thursday 3rd December at the KBR Museum in Brussels. According to some experts, the Flemish Primitives did their best work not on canvas but in manuscript miniatures. This episode shines a spotlight on the most beautiful specimens in the library of the Dukes of Burgundy. It will take place at 6pm GMT and can be viewed on Flemish Masters Facebook page, the VISITFLANDERS YouTube channel and the Flemish Masters website.
The new 'Flemish Masters Museum Tour' is an initiative from VISITFLANDERS, the Flemish museums and the Flemish culture TV channel Canvas, in collaboration with FARO, the Flemish Institution for the Cultural Heritage Sector.
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