CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

Artists, Agents and Patrons from the Low Countries in the Iberian World

Symposium: 9 December 2022

Traditionally, it is argued that from the fifteenth century onwards, Iberian art was transformed by the arrival of artists and art objects from the Low Countries. Numerous studies demonstrate the influence of great Flemish artists such as Jan Van Eyck, Michiel Coxcie, Peter Paul Rubens and Jacob Jordaens.

However, the contribution of lesser-known artists, agents and patrons who moved, worked and exchanged between these European regions and with Latin America has not yet been sufficiently covered in a comprehensive manner. Nor has the intermediary role of other Netherlandish migrants such as merchants, soldiers, courtiers and priests.

Furthermore, this study day will reexamine the dynamics and models of cultural exchange between Netherlandish artists and the Iberian world, that is too often considered to have been produced in one direction only. It will address the impact of itinerant artists and the dissemination of ideas, styles and artworks, as well as the problems of migration and the transfer of materials, techniques, iconography, and production and commercial strategies.

The study day will bring together international researchers from academic and scientific institutions in France, Poland, Spain and Belgium. Presentations and discussion will take place in four different sections:

  • Migrant artists for the court and the high nobility
  • Netherlandish art in Iberia: an object-based approach
  • Agents, merchants and patrons
  • Spain and the Americas.

The meeting will complement and nuance the traditional accounts of the artistic relations between the two territories, highlighting the complexity of the global interactions and exchanges that linked the Iberian world and the Low Countries to each other, but also to Europe and the rest of the world.

Please find below the full program on www.kikirpa.be. Entrance is free, but advance registration is required.