Beauty and ugliness have always fascinated people, yet their meanings shift over time. Bellezza e Bruttezza explores how artists from Italy and Northern Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries depicted these extremes, from refined ideals to deliberate grotesques. A rare opportunity to see extraordinary works, some appearing in Belgium for the first and only time.

The exhibition traces how the standards of beauty and ugliness evolved from the last quarter of the fifteenth century to the end of the sixteenth century—key transitional periods—by juxtaposing in a rich and compelling confrontation the ways in which these two subjects were interpreted by the greatest Italian artists and their counterparts from Northern Europe. Beauty became an increasingly important social concern at this time, as shown by the rising number of sixteenth-century publications offering “recipes for looking beautiful” and advice on cosmetics and care. Meanwhile, ugliness also grew in prominence in art, appearing in a widening range of forms throughout the same period.

As well as works by Botticelli, Titian, Tintoretto and Leonardo da Vinci, the exhibition also features pieces by Dutch and Flemish artists, including Cranach the Elder, Massys, Frans Floris de Vriendt and Frans Verbeeck.