Concluding the semester of Italian Presidency of the EU Council and the exhibition “Ars Narrandi in Euope’s Gothic Age” at the Bozar, i.e. the Centre de Beaux-Arts in Brussels, (exhibition to be hosted from March 21 to August 17, 2015 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen), a symposium entitled “Path to Europe: influences and contacts between Byzantium and the low countries” organized by BOZAR-EXPO in collaboration with the Catholic University of Louvain and the Leventis Foundation of Nicosia took place on January 18, 2015.
Paul Dujardin, artistic director of the Bozar, and Bernard Coulie, Honorary Rector and President of the Catholic University of Leuven, has welcomed speakers at this conference focusing on how the influence of Byzantine painting on Flemish art through the mediation of the Italian cities, with particular reference to the role played by Siena.
Among the speakers, Dr. Mario Scalini, one of the curators of the exhibition “Ars Narrandi in Euope’s Gothic Age”, Soprintendente BSAE of Siena and Grosseto, has held a lecture entitled “Angelicae Cohortes: notes about armored saints and angels from Byzantium to the Low countries”.
The speech of Dr. Anna Pelagotti for Art-Test, “Under the gold: a database of underdrawing and material analyses on Sienese Paintings. Connections and dissimilarities among painting techniques across centuries and countries “, addressed the close relationship between the art object and the techniques used to achieve it and introduce the database of diagnostic investigations over hundred paintings from the Pinacoteca di Siena Art-Test Florence carried out in the past few months, in collaboration with the Soprintendenza of Siena and Grosseto, designed to compare and learn about the styles and techniques of about 65 artists between the thirteenth and fifteenth century and which can now be purchased (https://www.art-test.com/database-en/) either complete or by individual images.
For program details, please visit the dedicated webpage of the Bozar at https://www.bozar.be/activity.php?id=15516&selectiondate=2015-01-18
