Professor Ludo Beheydt: European Influence of Dutch and Flemish Art: Cultural Mobility

The official opening lecture of the postgraduate and post-doctorate colloquium “Meetings in Low Countries Studies”.

A new Cultural narrative for Europe is urgently needed in the European context. If we want European citizens to identify with Europe it is absolutely necessary to recognize the dynamics in European culture. Neither the narrow national look on art, nor the cosmopolitan generalizing view is an adequate approach. A way out of these/this overly narrow visions/perspective is to conceive of European art as the result of a continuous cross-pollination, a fascinating encounter of legacies, in which cultural identities find their way in diversifying artistic influences. Just as it might strengthen the Czech confidence in European culture to reveal the international importance of Alfons Mucha’s contribution to European Art Nouveau, Art Nouveau, it will also strengthen the understanding of European culture to show the mutual influences of Netherlandish and Italian art. It will be shown that Flemish and Dutch art is a product of cultural mobility, in which the encounter of the Flemish Primitives with the Italian Renaissance fostered mutual developments, just as the encounter of Dutch seventeenth century art with Michelangelo and Rafaello contributed to the development of a specific artistic identity in the Netherlands. Cultural mobility will be illustrated on the paintings of the Flemish Primitives, Jan Gossaert, Cornelis van Haarlem, Gerard van Honthorst (‘Gherardo delle Notti’), Jan Steen, Rubens,… The conference should lead to a deepening insight into the cultural mobility in European art while at the same time keeping alive the comforting recognition of the diversity of European art.