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The area that surrounds Centraal Station, Antwerp's magnificent railway station, is in the commercial center of the city, but is not representative of its character. Hop on the subway to Groenplaats and walk past the cathedral and then into the Grote Markt. This is where Antwerp begins.
Finally reopened in 2022 after more than a decade of extensive restoration work, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts collection is studded with masterworks from Bruegel to Ensor, and is a must for any student of Flemish art. Paintings recovered from the French after the fall of Napoléon form the nucleus of a collection of 2,500 artworks. There are rooms devoted to both Peter Paul Rubens and to Anthony van Dyck, and other focused almost entirely on Jacob Jordaens and Bruegel. The collection of Flemish Primitives includes works by Van Eyck, Memling, Roger van der Weyden, Joachim Patinir, and Quinten Metsys. On the ground floor, there’s a representative survey of Belgian art of the past 150 years—Emile Claus, Rik Wouters, Permeke, Magritte, Delvaux, and especially James Ensor.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder's arguably greatest and most enigmatic painting, Dulle Griet, is the showpiece of the 4,000 works that passionate art connoisseur Mayer Van den Bergh amassed in the 19th century. It has been restored to its full, hellish glory and is the prize of a collection that also includes Bruegel's witty, miniature illustrations in the Twelve Proverbs, based on popular Flemish sayings, and such treasures as a life-sized polychrome statue from about 1300 of St. John resting his head on Christ's chest. There's an English-language pamphlet included with admission that reviews part of the collection.
The city's home of contemporary photography is a four-story, in-your-face epic, with each floor dedicated to a different theme or artist. Past exhibitions have featured Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Klein, and Man Ray, with two or three exhibitions every four months. The building is also home to the art house movie theater, Cinema Lumière (www.lumiere-antwerpen.be).
This museum, in a flamboyant 16th-century Renaissance palace, has an extensive collection of artworks and period bric-a-brac that illustrate life during the height of the Burgundian Netherlands in the 15th and 16th centuries. One particularly noteworthy treasure is a gorgeously illustrated choir book that once belonged to Margaret of Austria.
In one of Belgium's most important contemporary art venues, you'll find paintings, installations, video art, and experimental architecture from a range of international artists. Among its collection are works by Antwerp-born Flemish polymath Jan Fabre, whose often bizarre sculptures and installations have established him as a leading figure in the Belgian art world. The museum, which also contains an art house cinema and library, is housed in a renovated grain silo. There's also a rooftop café.
Nicolaas Rockox and Frans Snijders were pivotal figures in Antwerp's art scene during the Baroque period. Rockox (1560–1640) was Rubens's friend and patron, as well as being seven-time mayor of Antwerp; Snijders (1579–1657) was a skilled painter of animals and still lifes. Together they lived side by side for 20 years in a pair of beautiful town houses on Keizerstraat, which have now been turned into one museum. It was here that humanist and art collector Rockox built an enviable art collection, and on display are two of Rubens's works: one is Madonna en Kind (Madonna and Child), a delicate portrait of Rubens's first wife, Isabella, and their son, Nicolaas, and the other is a sketch for the Kruisiging (Crucifixion). The collection also includes works by Van Dyck, Joachim Patinier, Jordaens, Pieter Bruegel (including his infamous Proverbs), and, of course, Snijders himself, whose work features prominently. The paintings are shown in the context of a pair of upper-class Baroque homes, furnished in the style of the period. Handheld tablets give you information on each painting.
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