On 9 may, prof. Barbara Baert held the inaugural lecture entitled “Rocks and Tears. Niobe’s Fate as Dynamics of Form” for her Professur der Aby-Warburg-Stiftung 2023.
The Pionier Award 2023 was awarded to Prof Lieve Watteeuw and the team of the Book Heritage Lab and VIEW, for their pioneering research on medieval miniatures with new laboratory techniques, particularly on the Anjou Bible.
The website for the 23rd Symposium for the Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting- ‘Cross-Media Perspectives
Technical Studies of Art on Panel, Paper and Parchment (1400-1600)’ has been launched. The registration form and call for papers can be found on the site for those wishing to attend the symposium or submit a paper for consideration.
Wendy Wauters, associated researcher bij Illuminare, neemt je mee naar de zinderende 16de eeuw alsof je er zelf bij was
Out now: “Born to be Glorified” Assumptionist Altarpieces in the Final Phase of the Spanish ‘Reconquista’. In his latest publication, Paul Vandenbroeck discusses Hans Memling’s altarpiece for the high altar of Santa María la Real in Nájera (1483-1494), one of the most spectacular Flemish art works in the Iberian Peninsula.
Professor en conservator-restaurateur Lieve Watteeuw onthult alles wat we kunnen leren van Besloten Hofjes: mystieke mixed-media retabelkasten uit de tijd van Karel V en Margaretha van Oostenrijk, van top tot teen bezet met zijden bloemen, houten sculptuurtjes, inscripties in koraal of glas, stoffelijke resten en hier en daar een eeuwenoud verborgen briefje.
Tijdens deze lezing plaatst Soetkin Vanhauwaert, assistent conservator van de kunstcollecties van KU Leuven, het befaamde hoofd van Johannes in de kijker en geeft ze betekenis aan dit vaak nog onbekende beeldmotief.
The Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts has awarded Wendy Wauters the Mgr. Charles de Clercq prize 2022 for her work “De beroering van de religieuze ruimte. De belevingswereld van kerkgangers in de Antwerpse Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk, ca. 1450-1566”.
Prof. Barbara Baert, associated researcher at Illuminare, is awarded the Warburg-Professur 2023.
A new exhibition and website on the Breviary of Geraardsbergen was launched by the Book Heritage Lab at KU Leuven. The Breviary of St Adrian of Geraardsbergen, nowadays kept at Maredsous Abbey, dates from 1450, when the County of Flanders was in the hands of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy.
On Wednesday 8 November, Julie Beckers, Postdoctoral Fellow at Illuminare, will deliver the lecture ‘From Kneading to Kneeling: A Terracotta Crucifixion from Santa Maria di Monteluce in Perugia’ at the 9th Ards Annual Colloquium: The Art of Devotion. The Agency of Sculpture.
On Thursday 23 September, Wendy Wauters, affiliated researcher at Illuminare, will deliver the lecture “Experiencing and Interpreting the Soundscape of the Late Medieval Church of Our Lady in Antwerp” together with Eugeen Schreurs at the three-day symposium “The Role of the Senses in Medieval Liturgies and Rituals” in Padua.
On Thursday 27 October, Wendy Wauters will deliver a lecture on the late medieval understanding of the senses in relation to religious rituals at the international symposium: “The Dynamics of Devotions. About Signposts, Thresholds and Stumbling Blocks in the History of Christian Religious Life” (27-28 October).
Barbara Baert’s publication “Pneuma and the Visual Arts in the Middle Ages and Early Modernity” is now a standard work in Japan. The book was translated by Professor Junko Ninagawa (Kansai University in Osaka) and the translation was published this year.
Between 2020-2022, 20 precious medieval manuscripts of the former Cistercian abbey of the Dunes – now preserved in the Major Seminary Bruges, were successfully studied and conserved by the team of the Book Heritage Lab (KU Leuven), under guidance of prof. dr. Lieve Watteeuw. The Dunes Manuscript Research and Conservation Project is supported by the King Baudouin Foundation (Fund Baillet Latour).
On Thursday 8 September, Wendy Wauters, affiliated researcher at Illuminare, will deliver a lecture at the annual symposium of the contactgroup Signum. In this lecture, she will present her research “De Beroering van de Religieuze Ruimte. De Belevingswereld van de Laatmiddeleeuwse Kerkgangers in de Antwerpse Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk”.
Until 25 September 2022 the exhibition ‘Traces: Renaissance Drawings for Flemish Prints’ can be visited at the Courtauld Gallery. This showcase is curated by Maarten Bassens, affiliated researcher at Illuminare and Getty Paper Project Curatorial Fellow at the Courtauld.
Out now: Ornamenta Sacra. Late Medieval and Early Modern Liturgical Objects in a European Context, eds. Ralph Dekoninck, Marie-Christine Claes and Barbara Baert (Art & Religion), Peeters Publishers, 2022. This volume is dedicated to the study of late medieval and early modern liturgical objects, once known as ornamenta sacra.
On May 24, 2022, the seminar “Das Nachleben der Antike: Methods and Perspectives” will take place in Leuven. This activity is part of the FNRS network “Iconologies”.
Van donderdag 5 tot en met zondag 8 mei 2022 vindt in Leuven de eerste editie plaats van het woord-en boekenfestival ‘Druk in Leuven’. Ook Professor Lieve Watteeuw en professor Barbara Baert zijn van de partij en nemen je mee naar het onderzoek rond de Bijbel van Anjou en de relatie tussen literatuur en kunst.
From 12-14 May, the international conference “Netherlandish Carved Altarpieces” will take place online.
On 26 and 27 March 2022 the international Symposium “The Imagery of Wind” will take place on the occasion of the Japanese translation of Barbara Baert’s book Pneuma and the Visual Medium in the Middle Ages and Early Modernity (Peeters, 2016).
Registration for the 22nd ‘Symposium for the Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting’ has opened. The international and interdisciplinary symposium, organized by Musea Brugge and the Université Catholique de Louvain, takes place in Bruges from 28 to 30 March 2022
Out now: The Right Moment. Essays Offered to Barbara Baert, Laureate of the 2016 Francqui Prize in Human Sciences, on the Occasion of the Celebratory Symposium at the Francqui Foundation, Brussels, 18-19 October 2018
Tijdens deze Denkvoerlezing neemt Ruben Suykerbuyk, curator bij het museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, de fameuze priant-graven van de Nederlanden in de 16e eeuw onder de loep.
On 23 march, Paul Vandenbroeck will deliver the keynote-lecture at the 4th edition of the Method/Art seminar.
Using unique and expertly developed cases – from prehistoric cave paintings up to the meaning of rain in photography and cinema – Barbara Baert’s book casts new light on a theme that is both ecological and iconological, both natural and cultural-historical.
In this DJHP collaboration, Roosje Baele and Marie Hartmann want to deepen their already initiated debate on the tension between studying facsimiles, digitized manuscripts and originals, and how these different versions of a book’s materiality influence both art historical research and cataloguing.
In February Barbara Baert’s book review on Dissimilar Similitudes: Devotional Objects in Late Medieval Europe by Caroline Walker Bynum was published in the Historians of Netherlandish Art Review.
On 17/02, a talk will be held with Paul Vandenbroeck, curator of the Borderline exhibition at the Palais des Beaux-arts in Brussels in 2000 and of the publication Azetta, the art of Berber women, on occasion of the exhibition Rouge Bleu, Word of matter.
On 8th March, Paul Vandenbroeck will deliver the lecture ‘Who said the commissioner of Bosch’s so-called Garden of Delights was a man?’ for the symposium ‘Key women in the creation of the Prado’s collections. From Isabella I of Castile to Isabel Clara Eugenia. ‘
Op 13/01 gaf Jan Van der Stock een online rondleiding op de tentoonstelling ‘Verbeelding van het Universum’ die hij cureerde naar aanleiding van het KNAL! Festival. In deze lezing neemt professor Van der Stock ons op sleeptouw langs enkele topstukken van de tentoonstelling.
On 8 December 2021, Barbara Baert delivered the James Loeb Lecture 2021 at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte.
This lecture features a grisaille fresco depicting the Kairos/Occasio motif (Museo della Città nel Palazzo di San Sebastiano in Mantua).
This newly published book entitled “Petrifying Gazes- Danaë and the Uncanny Space” is written by Barbara Baert.
The core of the Charter collection of the Old University, recognized as UNESCO documentary world heritage since 2013, consists of a series of magnificent privileges issued by popes and worldly rulers for the university, from its foundation in 1425 up to its abolition in 1797. These are joined by various other judicial and financial documents,…
When gazing into the vast expanse of ‘the universe’, humankind experiences the universal desire to fathom the mystery of its creation. We utilize our unique ability to express ourselves through artistic means to make this mystery tangible, transmuting the secrets of the cosmos into stunning objects and ingenious symbols. Through a deep engagement with recent…
Departing from research on the complex manufacturing processes then characteristic of the commercial Parisian manuscript production, the present study examines the meaning and function of the mostly conventional and formulaic miniatures within the overall structure of the manuscripts. The traditions of illustrated French legendaries and the Legenda aurea in particular serve as a background against which the present study discusses pictorial strategies that allowed book producers and patrons to add or to stress certain layers of meaning in well-known texts.
This Fall a two-volume catalogue of all prints produced and published by the Liefrinck dynasty has appeared in The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish series (Sound & Vision Publishers). Compiler Jeroen Luyckx (Illuminare – KU Leuven) and editor Huigen Leeflang (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) are delighted to invite you to the virtual book launch on Thursday 9…
Big Bang – Imagining the Universe is published on the occasion of two exhibitions organised in the context of ‘BANG! Big Bang City Festival’ in Leuven, from 15 October 2021 until 30 January 2022.
Justin E A Kroesen gaat in op de bewogen geschiedenis van de Nederlandse laatgotische altaarstukken, van religieus fanatisme tot artistieke waardering. Zo kom je onder andere meer te weten over de export van de retabels en over hun functies in verschillende uithoeken van Europa.
On 22 October the exhibition ‘Imagining the Universe’ opens in M Leuven as part of the KNAL! city festival.
Jeroen Luyckx (PhD Candidate at Illuminare – KU Leuven) has published a catalogue of all prints produced and published by the Liefrinck dynasty.
On the occasion of the finalization of the restoration of the monumental paintings of the Roman Hall of the Bladelin Court in Bruges, a richly illustrated book is published by Peeters.
You can now read all about the ‘digital fingerprint of Pieter Breugel’ as explained by Professor Lieve Watteeuw on the KU Leuven Stories website.
Barbara Baert discusses the Mantuan fresco’s key position in the iconographic Nachleben of the Kairos/Occasio figure, and the way the theme was accustomed in the Quattrocento and the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.
The proceedings of the conference Imaging Utopia: New Perspectives on Northern Renaissance Art are published! In this book, several leading experts in the field of art history reflect on the theme Imaging Utopia in diverse and inventive ways.
On 24 June Barbara Baert will present a paper entitled “Petrifying Gazes: Danaë and the Uncanny Space in the Painting by Jan Gossaert (1478-1532)”.
On Thursday 29 April Paul Vandenbroeck will present a paper entitled “ENCOUNTERS (‘Rencontres’) 2017. Un événement-expérience-exposition (?) transculturel” at the Rites et Musées study day organised by Musée universitaire de Louvain and UCLouvain.
On Tuesday 13 April Jeroen Luyckx will present a paper on Cornelis I (d. 1528) and Willem Liefrinck (d. c. 1536–46), the brothers who laid the foundation for what would grow to be a dynasty of printmakers.
We are very happy and honoured to announce that Prof. Dr. Matt Kavaler from the University of Toronto has become an Honorary Fellow of Illuminare.
We have the sad duty to inform you of the sudden death of Paul Peeters, Managing Director of Peeters Publishers, with whom Illuminare regularly collaborated.
Maarten Bassens won the prestigious 2021 Ricciardi Prize for Best Article by a Young Scholar by Master Drawings (New York). In his contribution, Maarten shed light on Jan Verbeeck, a 16th-century enigmatic draughtsman from Mechelen.
On Friday 5 March Wendy Wauters will give a lecture on the sensory and ritual experience in the Antwerp Church of Our Lady (c. 1450-1566), organised by the Ruusbroecgenootschap (Universiteit Antwerpen).
This newly published book entitled “Signed ‘PAN’. Erwin Panofsk’s (1892-1968) ‘The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline’ (Princeton, 1938)” is written by Barbara Baert.
The images analyzed in this book, written by Ivan Gérat, give each viewer the possibility to interact with Saint Elizabeth’s unique spiritual way, which was nurtured by various sources, including moments of spontaneous inspiration.
From June 2020 on the manuscripts of the collection of the Mayor Seminary in Bruges are studied and conserved by Lieve Watteeuw and the team of the Book Heritage Lab (2020-2023).
This newly published book on Niobe’s transformation into a weeping rock is written by Barbara Baert.
Together with the Art & History Museum and the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR), KU Leuven is launching an online open access application to view heritage objects dynamically and interactively online. This pixel+ viewer allows you to view centuries-old objects in a different light and reveal hidden details.
In this book dr. Annemie Leemans investigates the practical knowledge flux in early modern Europe, with a specific interest in art technological knowledge, which frequently appears in all-purpose recipe books.
This book, written by Laura Tack, intends to map the agency of Gertrud Bing, in a way that Bing herself would have probably preferred. According to Bing, the ideal biography ought to merge the personal with the intellectual, since, what one experiences as a human being will also find its way into the academic oeuvre one leaves behind.
The Flemish research centre for the arts in the Burgundian Netherlands is organising the fourth edition of its museum research school in 2020-2021.
This beautifully illustrated volume explores fourty-five remarkable books representing the immense variety and richness of the collections in the Maurits Sabbe Library.
Barbara Baert will be Visiting Fellow at the Kolleg-Forschergruppe BildEvidenz. Geschichte und Ästhetik aan de Freie Universität (Berlin), in May 2020.
In this new book, Barbara Baert enters into a dialogue with academics, artists and artlovers on their favourite works of art.
Thanks to the KU Leuven research project Fingerprint we can now have a phenomenally detailed look at the Bruegel drawings.
The scholarly journal Simiolus has awarded Daan van Heesch the Bader Prize 2019 for his article “Paulus de Kempenaer and the Political Exploitation of Hieronymus Bosch in the Dutch Revolt”.
This symposium is dedicated to the iconological and anthropological study of late medieval and early modern liturgical objects (1400-1800), once known as ornamenta sacra.
On 17 September 2019 LECTIO (Leuven Centre for the Study of the Transmission of Texts and Ideas) and Illuminare – Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Art (KU Leuven) organise a round table on “Netherlandish Carved Altarpieces in the Nordic Regions” together.
Jeroen Luyckx, PhD Candidate at Illuminare, has received a fellowship from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
A selection of conserved manuscripts is on display at the Maurits Sabbe Library (Charles Deberiotstraat 26), from 26th of June until 4th of October 2019.
An article about our project Digital Corpus of Flemish Retables appeared in the Flemish-Dutch cultural magazine ons erfdeel / de lage landen, written by Hannah De Moor.
Out now: the new book “Enclosed Gardens of Mechelen. Late Medieval Paradise Gardens Revealed”, edited by Lieve Watteeuw and Hannah Iterbeke.
Barbara Baert decided to invite scholars, friends and artists who inspired her work and had considerable impact on her oeuvre for the 2018 Francqui colloquium The Right Moment: A Symposium on Kairotic Energies.
Netherlandish Art and Luxury Goods in Renaissance Spain, a fascinating collection of essays that explores the diverse ways in which Netherlandish art permeated the artistic landscape of Spain from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth centuries, is now available at Harvey Miller Publishers.
This volume of essays aims to give an overview of the current state of the research and the new perspectives it offers. Under the joint leadership of the Manuscripts Department of Illuminare, the Study Centre for Medieval Art at the University of Leuven, the Royal Library of Belgium and the Royal Institute for cultural Heritage this publication collects a series of studies that reflect the richness and artistic interactions in this unique period.
The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK/IRPA) is honoured to announce the Bruegel Success Story Colloquium in Brussels on 12-14 September 2018. The colloquium is intended for curators, art-historians, conservators and scientists studying painting from the Southern Netherlands in the 16th century.
Hildegard of Bingen, the renowned twelfth-century theologian, composer, poet, and mystic, continues to inspire and excite people. In 2018, KU Leuven is showcasing her life and work in an exhibition, conference and concert.
On 20 October 2016, the KU Leuven coffered a doctorate honoris causa to Lorne Campbell (1946).