PRESS KIT - Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille

PRESS RELEASE
Jan Mandijn
Saint Christopher Carrying the Child Jesus
La Rochelle, musée des Beaux-Arts
© Musées d’Art et d’Histoire de La Rochelle, Max Roy
The Lille Palais des Beaux-Arts is organizing a major international exhibition entitled « Fables du
Paysage Flamand au 16° Siècle, Bosch, Brueghel, Bles, Bril » (« Flemish Landscape Fables in
the 16th Century ») from October 6, 2012 to January 14, 2013. This exhibition is preceded by a
contemporary presentation on the theme of the Tower of Babel. The marvellous and fabulous
characteristics of these landscapes, which still arouse feelings of fascination, awe, or perplexity,
will be revealed through a hundred works of art in this exhibition.
At the dawn of the Mannerism movement landscapes stand out as the true subject of painting.
Figures or Biblical stories were relegated to secondary importance by the desire to show the
invisible, in order to produce an impression of infinity. Flemish artists invented a new way of
painting, which was both captivating and creative, at the boundary between reality and
imagination. Nature became the place for myths and fables. Trees and rocks were given human
characteristics, and the strangest creatures were placed alongside men who were conducting their
daily occupations. In these hybrid worlds a path for life is drawn for the spectator. The Flemish
landscape is a terrestrial framework, which encourages the spectator to engage in thought. It
becomes the passageway between physical reality and the spiritual world.
These images show where the Christian faith and popular superstitions intertwined, where Beauty
and the bizarre met, and where both the marvellous and the monstrous were present. Nature was
written in a symbolic language, for which we no longer know all the codes. It carries us into a
world which goes beyond our comprehension: cosmic, legendary, and infinite. Created as vast
compositions, the paintings in the exhibition “Flemish Landscape Fables of the 16th Century”
reproduce the unremitting action of world forces, on a miniature universal scale. Thus the artist’s
act of painting participates in the creative process.
These works of art are signed by famous masters such as Bosch, Breughel, Met de Bles, Bril, or
Patinir, but also by less wellknownbut nonetheless brilliant artists, like Jan Mandijn or Kerstiaen
de Keuninck. Their powerful message continues into the modern world, and has never ceased to
be meaningful. The exhibition is above and beyond an artistic opportunity. It is essentially the
means of understanding the world around us.
Works of art coming from the collections of important French museums (Douai, Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg,
Valenciennes…) and international museums (Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Florence, Ghent, London,
Madrid, Rome, Rotterdam, Vienna…).
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