My hotel in Antwep is in the Zuid, the southern part of town. It’s a more residential area, but is an easy tram ride to the center of town.
One of the nice things about the hotel, however, is that it’s very close to the Royal Art Museum. The museum has been closed for 10 years for renovations, and only recently reopened.
Museums often have audio tours, which I rarely pay extra for, as they are often disappointing. As cell service and roaming have become more widespread, however, many sites no longer try to sell you an audio tour for an upcharge. Instead, they offer free wifi and you can then connect to an app or website for the tour. This is exactly what the Royal Museum did today and conveniently enough I had my earbuds with me to listen in.
I’ll remember to always keep them with me from now on.
I had three options for the audio tour and decided to go with a 90 minute tour of the masters.
The first room upon entering was all Reubens. He’s a very important artist, but his work doesn’t speak to me at all, so I move quickly on.
The featured piece in the next room is a Rodin, an homage to Pierre de Wisant who was one of the burghers. Together with 6 other Burghers he surrendered the city to Calais. The statue, like de Wisant, wears a noose, and honors the victims of power. It’s a spectacular sculpture, with its rough, torn-up skin
A few rooms away, this Breugel looks familiar, but I know he produced several paintings of weddings. The audio guide gives it away though – it’s a copy. The original is in … Detroit! Honestly they should have disclosed this on the sign.
As I work my way through the Royal Museum, I was having fun, much more than I usually have in museums. And I came to the realization that this is possibly one of the best museums I’ve ever been to. It’s not the collection, which is good but limited (little predates the 14th century).
Instead, the curation is brilliant, clustering works of art by theme, so works depicting heroes or landscapes are grouped together. It’s truly engaging to see works 400 years apart in age hanging next to each other.
This depiction of the Tower of Babel from Jan Breughel I dates to ~1600, and hangs in the room depicting evil.
Next to it, in the same room is this Dali from 1989, with its own haunting imagery.
This approach honestly addresses some of the mundane aspects that museums can have. It makes an examination of the art more relevant and stimulating. Honestly, the curators are too hesitant with the approach. It would be even more interesting with a broader temporal span. I don’t think they have the older works, but they still are hiding many of their more modern works elsewhere.
This Ensor, for example, hangs in the modernist masters section of the museum but really should have been upstairs. It shows Adam and Eve being cast out of the garden, and I’m fairly certain there is a mate for contrast elsewhere.
The modenist works, for those who seek them out (and I do) were divided between the first and fourth floors. For those willing to make the climb (and even if you aren’t) this stairwell was stunning.
This museum really was the highlight of the morning. However, a few other moments lit up my day.
Such as the random art nouveau that I found on the street. I’ve discovered that art nouveau is a thing here in Antwerp, and although I wasn’t planning to seek much of it out, it found me.
The Plantin-Moretus Museum, celebrating the printing press and the family who made a business of printing here in Antwerp, was mentioned in the guides as worth seeing, but in truth I found it to be rather boring, but I appreciated that these are the 2 oldest surviving printing presses.
The impact of the printing press cannot be underestimated.
And this is the 2nd mass produced version of the printed bible. The first was the Gutenberg, which had 42 lines per page, whereas this one has 36 lines. It’s unclear who produced it, but it may also be a Gutenberg bible.
The age and importance of this are really just mindblowing.
There was plenty more wandering here, and it was just awesome.
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