From Vermeer to Van Gogh

This digital exhibition presents the genius of the painters of the North through a complete immersion in authentic paintings that are faithful representations of nature and its themes. Visitors will explore the reality of daily life, following in the footsteps of the great masters who represented the ordinary in an extraordinary way.

Painting light and atmosphere is the exhibition’s main theme. Direct or subdued, cold or warm, the light reveals the facades and the privacy of family homes. Spectators will set sail and berth their boats in the cities, and stroll around in Vermeer’s world, in which the inhabitants invite us to step into the canvas. Much like a filmmaker, Vermeer chose what to include inside the frame and created a world suspended in time. His canvases are like synopses that open the doors to an almost Hitchcockian mystery, in which the spectator becomes a part of the mise en scène. Master of chiaroscuro, Rembrandt encourages the introspection. Night falls in the heart of the cathedrals, immersing the visitor in a spiritual atmosphere surrounded by biblical themes. An unrivalled portraitist who achieved a powerful realism, his Night Watch brings the procession of portraits to a climactic end. From Abraham Blommaert’s kingdom of the gods to Hendrick Avercamp’s expanses of ice, the seas-capes by Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom and Jan Steen’s festive tavern scenes: the exhibition plunges us into the fascinating world of seventeenth-century Holland. Van Gogh, a worthy successor to these seventeenth-century painters, takes us under the summery night skies of the South of France. Using bright colours and imbuing his work with intense emotion, he shapes the material and sublimates the landscapes, self-portraits, and still lifes. Like a final colourful bouquet, the spectator is surrounded by nocturnal and dreamlike paintings, losing their way in the stars.