St. Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, 2024

St. Bavo's is a fine Gothic, the original site dating from the 10th century, the current building begun in the 13th, with the usual later Baroque interior. Not one of the great high Gothics, but a fine specimen nonetheless. Its chief claim to fame, of course, is the Ghent Altarpiece, properly known as The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, by Hubert and mostly Jan van Eyck, finished in 1432, the world's first oil painting. We'll get to that in the next post. For this visit to St. Bavo's I opted for the "augmented reality" tour, which takes place in the crypt but is mostly about the painting. Over the years, we've not had good luck with these AR things, but this one actually was decent, well worth the couple bucks extra. Plus we got to tarry a bit in the crypt, which is my favorite part of this church. Obviously, I have no pix from the AR, but took advantage of the opportunity to look at more of the crypt.

Approaching St. Bavo's

Nave view

Assorted relics: somebody's blood, allegedly; looks suspiciously
like the one in Bruges, maybe from the same Constantinople relics
shoppe

Helpful model and floor plan

Book of the Dead from St. Bavo's Abbey, 1406;
apparently doom scrolling is nothing new

Now in the crypt, much older, with its Romanesque
columns and capitals and clearly much older paintings 

International Gothic style, no?

Beautiful gold and silver plated reliquary for St. Macharius; unfortunately
does not specify whether it is the Macharius (Macarius) of Egypt, Macarius
of Alexandria, Macarius of Lower Egypt, or Macarius of Ghent; which
I leave for a homework assignment; the making of saints did not get
standardized, church-wide, until well into the Middle Ages, don't you
know; it was a largely local thing until then

Nice silver head on a platter; I'm going with St. John 
the Baptist

Van Eyck had painted nude Adam and Eve figures for the 
Altarpiece, but later authorities decided this was not fitting
for a church, and so had them re-done, clothed; the originals
are back with the Altarpiece now, as we'll see

Moving right along, we are back in the upstairs
church, having visited the Altarpiece and the chapel
for which it was originally done...this is Rubens'
altarpiece, St. Bavo Enters the Convent at Ghent (huh?);
the two ladies at the left, we thought, looked a bit like 
his wives

A bit of the elevation and (non-Medieval) windows

Choir

Altar

Side aisle

Reserve holy water

Organ

One of the more ornate pulpits we've seen

Back outside for the customary bronze model...sometimes done in
Braille, sometimes not

Ghent Scenes, 2024

After the MSK we walked into the old city center to see some of the sights, wandering generally. The next day, after visiting St. Bavo's and the Ghent Altarpiece (next post), we did some more wandering. I've compressed both days' wanderings into one post, noting that blogposts from previous Ghent visits in 2013 and 2015 can be found using the search box. It's a beautiful old town, the city itself an education and tech center, larger and more varied than Bruges.

In a large city park near the MSK, a grotto and water feature

And art nouveau bandstand

Among Ghent's many churches and towers

City hall

Ghent has two rivers but no canals, and thus is not among the 38
European cities that call themselves "the Venice of the North"

In a sculpture shop we admired, The Blue Poodle Gallery

The old meat market (note smiley facade)

Among several art nouveau structures we saw

Ditto for art deco

Interesting hotel seen from the tram

Waterzooi, a Belgian sort of bouillabase, my lunch on one of our
two days in town; a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing

West facade of St. Bavo's cathedral (next post)

More art nouveau flourishes

More Flemish flourishes

Revisiting the graffiti alley

On a huge old square; that's the socialist party building
headquarters in the background; very French-looking

Panning around the square

Street scene

Neptune presiding over the entrance to the old fish
market

The impressive old city castle

Kayaking on one of the rivers

Charles V (or Charles I if you're Spanish) was born in Ghent

Another day, another chocolate/strawberry/cream waffle

Beautiful old town, Ghent

Ghent's Museum Of Fine Arts, 2024

Flixbus carried us from Bruges to Ghent in an hour or so, and a Bolt took us to our hotel, the Ghent Holiday Inn Expo, a couple miles from the old city, but an easy transit on the tram.

The next day we visited the Museum voor Schone Kunsten, MSK, as they call it, Ghent's very fine museum. We've visited a couple times before, both to see the MSK's collection and to have a look at the ongoing restoration of the Ghent Altarpiece.  Previous visits to the MSK are: https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/06/more-ghent-art.html, and some pix of the Altarpiece in restoration are included in https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2015/06/ghent-2015.html.

The MSK is a large and beautiful facility; above just the entrance

Colin de Cotjer, Adoration of the Magi, 1500

Viennese Master of Mary of Burgundy, Titus' Conquest of Jerusalem,
late 15th

Impressive detail thereof

Bosch, Christ Carrying the Cross, 1510-1516; some
claim this is a copy of a lost Bosch; we could really 
use Bosch now with his ability to portray hate and
viciousness 

Bosch, St. Jerome, 1485-1495; authorship never
disputed

Now we are outside the glassed-in studio/lab where
the Ghent Altarpiece is undergoing its most recent restoration;
never mind the "no fotos" sign

The most recent analysis and restoration have revealed
that some 70% of the polyptych has been over-painted over
the centuries since it was completed in 1432; restoration is
revealing the original incredibly luminous color and detail,
and much more, as we'll see the next day at the cathedral

The angelic choir and St. John

God, resting; incredible to me how thin the panels
are

The angelic organist and choir, undergoing analysis
of some sort; these are all from the upper register; the
lower register was completed a couple years ago and
is now back in the cathedral

Team Rubens, Annunciation, 1577

Melchior de Mars, St. Sebastian Released by the Widow
Irene and her Servant, 1620; all shot up

Martinus van Reymenswale, The Calling of St. Matthew, 1536

Franz Hals, Portrait of a Woman, 1540; by now they 
were finally painting oil on canvas in the north, although
wood panels and even metal plates sometimes were used

Among several younger Brueghels: Pieter's The Village Lawyer,
1621, original, clever, and very satirical

Of course the mainstay of the younger Brueghels was making
copies of dad's work (for which he trained them); dancing can 
be such fun (lower right)

Antony van Dyck, Jupiter and Antiope, 1620; Jupiter doing what
Jupiter does, namely inseminating unsuspecting females, with his
pet eagle looking on

And now for something completely different...in the middle of a
large hall, this installation of an artist/scholar's abode; we were 
quite envious; Patrick van Caeckenberg, The Pantalogue...

Vicki peering in, wondering if it could be put on wheels

Among my favorites, Alfred Stevens' Mary Magdalene,
1897

And something we may have missed last time, two Georges
Roualts, The Holy Face, 1953

And Nazareth, 1946