One more from Brussels’ Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België / Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in my lazy-blogging of single paintings.
I’d already blogged this museum heavily back in 2015 (Musée Oldmasters Museum, Musée Fin-de-Siècle Museum, and the very popular Peter Paul Rubens’ Vier Studies van het Hoofd van een Moor, among others), so I wasn’t really committed this visit to much more than staring at a few Bruegels, namely De val der opstandige engelen, along with Pieter Aertsen’s De Keukenmeid, and Gustaf Wappers’ Tafereel van de Septemberdagen 1830. And seeing I just mentioned almost all my posts on this museum, I can’t not mention the sublime Pieter Bruegel de Oude’s De Aanbiddung der Wijze, which is alone worth visiting the museum for.
Another De Aanbidding der Wijzen then. This one from Peter Paul Rubens and Atelier around early-1600s — no date on the caption and it seems to be one of his lesser known Adoration of the Magis. It’s in the Rubens Room, a massive, high-ceilinged chamber with natural light pouring in from above. Really one of the few rooms in the museum capable of the dimensions to display his epic works. I always have trouble remembering how large a piece was, but the figures are larger than life, and I dredged up 384 × 280 cm from the internet. And this room had walls of the stuff.
I blame the light. When it hits the top of a painting 2 metres above me and bounces down, I don’t know what to do. Yes, post-processing, but you can still see the upper half is blown out, and has an awkward blue colour cast. So my editing skills also suck. It’s the main reason I only photographed a couple of works this time. Sure I can take hundreds of photos, but the editing takes multiples of the time I spent actually in the museum, and it’s gotten a little out of hand — one of the main reasons I didn’t go to Ghent. These photos, then, don’t do the painting any favours, but it’s Rubens and it’s the Adoration of the Magi, and it makes me smile.
