Academic literature on the topic 'Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Antwerp, Belgium)'

As stated in its collection policy, the library of the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen supports the goals of the museum through collecting, indexing and providing access to documentary information to support art historical research within and outside the institution. The library’s collection development has a double focus: the exhaustive collecting and indexing of collection documentation, and the collecting of information about Western art history from the 13th century up to and including the 20th century (in analogy with the museum collection). While very specialised in content and in its in-depth indexing system, the library scans a broader scope to satisfy the fluctuating information needs of the museum staff. Today, collection development and management is becoming more and more co-operative, through various partnerships in Antwerp and also those with similar art libraries, especially where online access to datasets and electronic resources is concerned.

De dichter Pol De Mont, voor WO I decennialang één van de Vlaamse boegbeelden, zag zich na die oorlog, vanwege vermeende Duitsvriendelijkheid, gedwongen om ontslag te nemen als leraar aan de Antwerpse Academie voor Schone Kunsten en als conservator van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone kunsten in dezelfde stad. Frustratie was zijn deel en zijn rol leek uitgespeeld.Een half jaar na de Wapenstilstand wordt hij echter onverwacht hoofdredacteur van het dagblad De Schelde en staat hij weer midden de Vlaamse strijd. Anders dan voor de oorlog zijn zijn standpunten nu radicaal Vlaams-nationalistisch. Hij gaat voor een ongebonden en objectieve journalistiek, ziet zich als spreekbuis van het Vlaamsche Front en hecht veel belang aan de Godsvrede waarbij over de traditionele partijgrenzen heen de Vlaamse eisen prioriteit krijgen, en aan de nooit-meer-oorloggedachte, die hem met vuur de Volkenbond doet verdedigen. Verder komen in dit artikel aan bod: zijn berichtgeving over nationale en internationale politiek, mogelijke wijzigingen aan het verdrag van Versailles, Duitsland, nationalisme, democratie, militarisme, ethische kwesties, folklore, kunst en literatuur.De laatste fase in De Monts leven maakt duidelijk dat wat hij ook deed, met welke groepen en personen hij ook samenwerkte, de basis van zijn levenslange streven altijd zijn Vlaamse overtuiging was, aanvankelijk misschien eerder impliciet, later zeer uitdrukkelijk. Als het Vlaams-nationalisme pas in deze laatste levensfase zo overduidelijk de toon zet in al wat hij doet, schrijft of zegt, is dat niet meer dan de ultieme erkenning van zijn wereldbeschouwing.__________ Coming home in Flemish nationalism.Pol De Mont’s commitment after the First World War The poet Pol De Mont was one of the leaders of the Flemish Movement before the First World War. Due to alleged sympathies for the German enemy he was, after the war, forced to resign from his functions as a teacher at the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts and as curator of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in that city. De Mont was considered finished as an opinion-maker, and in his isolation he ventilated his frustration in two allegorical pamphlets.Half a year after the Armistice however, he unexpectedly becomes editor in chief of the daily newspaper De Schelde and his Flemish fight starts all over again. Unlike before the war his commitment is now radical and Flemish nationalist. He engages in free and objective journalism, sees himself as the spokesman for the Vlaamsche Front and focuses on its Flemish empowerment movement exceeding traditional political parties, and on its no more war-ideas that make him support the League of Nations. This essay also studies his articles on national and international politics, possible changes in the terms of the Versailles treaty, Germany, nationalism, militarism, democracy, ethical issues, folklore, art and literature.The last phase in De Mont’s life clearly illustrates that whatever he did during his lifetime, whatever persons or groups he associated with, always did his Flemish conviction trigger him, implicitly maybe at first, more outspoken when he got older. When Flemish nationalism so clearly sets the tone in his last years in everything he did or commented upon, it is no more than an eventually coming to terms with his own views.

AbstractSince I998 the Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhofin Delft owns a family portrait by Hendrick Cornelisz van Vliet. Signed in full and dated I640, the painting shows a wealthy and — in view of the details—Catholic family with five children. It predates Van Vliet's well-known architectural paintings by more than a decade, and is therefore very significant for our knowledge of his early oeuvre. In this article, however, attention is focused on the painting's unusual position in the pictorial and iconographic tradition of the North Netherlandish family portrait. We see a husband and wife with their five children, the sons making music with their father. Contrary to what is frequently stated in the literature, i.e. that music is an important attribute in the depiction of harmonieus family life, music hardly features at all in North Netherlandish family portraits of the first half of the seventeenth century. Highly exceptional in Van Vliet's painting is the circumstance that only the males are making music, as is the choice of instruments. The recorders, popular instruments but unique in the tradition of the group portrait, suggest that the sitters were fond of the instrument and wished to be portrayed while engaged in their favourite pastime. The instrument and the music book of the two sons, combined with the other children's attributes, hint at a representation of the five senses. The daughters are respectively depicted with a pecking parakeet (touch), a basket of fruit (taste) and flowers (smell). In this context the sons' attributes stand for hearing and sight, the two most highly ranked senses. With the aid of details in the painting — the obvious references to Catholic religion, the precise dating of the work and the name 'Michiel' in the piece on the music stand — the sitters have been identified as Michiel van der Dussen and Willemina van Setten with their five children: Cornelis, Otto, Anna, Maria and Elizabeth. This insubstantiates the traditional identification of another painting in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp as Michiel van der Dussen's family. The Van der Dussens were prominent regents in Delft; however, Michiel's branch of the family was Catholic and thus excluded from holding official executive positions in Delft. They must therefore have been active in other spheres. They are not recorded as having pursued a particular profession; their wealth seems to have accrued from their ownership of property and land. The Van der Dussens are likely to have been of independent means due to the family's erstwhile noble status. Their higher ambitions were confirmed by the marriage of a granddaughter of Michiel van der Dussen to a Baron van Leefdael. This family portrait with its extremely rich imagery, painted in a period when repression of the Catholics in Delft was at its strongest, represents the selfconndence and ambitions of a Catholic family.