Flamands et Hollandais
La collection du musée des beaux-arts de Nantes
Like a mirror to Flanders and the United Provinces, the thematic sections allow for a celebration of the new genres painters would eventually specialize in: portraits (Pourbus, Voet), landscapes (Fouquières, Lytens), seascapes, battle scenes (Droochsloot, Wouwerman), and still lifes (Claesz, Coninck). In these works, the extraordinary technical prowess of painting with oils (which would go on to influence all European painting) works admirably to reveal the attention paid to details and the rendition of textures, as well as the atmospheric transparency of landscapes. The museum’s collection is home to some of the greatest artists from the 16th to 18th centuries, from Jan Brueghel to Rubens, by way of Rembrandt’s best students (Govert Flinck, Jürgen Ovens).