The World of Bruegel in Black and White exhibition was inaugurated on Monday at the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) and will open to the public on Wednesday.
The exhibition, spread over 13 rooms and into the newly-renovated Palace of Charles of Lorraine, will take visitors back 450 years to the 16th century, during which Flanders was at the heart of the production and trade of prints.
The first rooms will show how the process unfolded, all the way from rough sketch to finished print, showing Bruegel's original sketches including Italian landscapes and the Seven Deadly Sins.
In 2016, the KBR Print Shop and KU Leuven launched the FINGERPRINT project, which used the latest imaging techniques to observe the different phases of the beginnings of Pieter Bruegel's prints. Their first results were incorporated in the exhibition.
Additionally, various Bruegel prints are presented to highlight the panoramic landscapes, imaginary creatures, his moralistic aims, and the influence of the Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch.
"The exhibition was designed so that it would not just be frames simply hanging on the wall," said curator Joris Van Grieken. "We tried to recreate the atmosphere of the time. In the 16th and even the 17th century, the prints were placed on tables or bound in an album, so we present them in wooden windows on which one can lean or in a glass table, for example," he added.
The exhibition will remain at the KBR until 16 February 2020.
Maïthé Chini
The Brussels Times
