Christ Carrying the Cross
Bosch's demonic faces around Christ โ an unforgettable painting.
Paul Hermans โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Gargarapalvin โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Gargarapalvin โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Gargarapalvin โ CC BY-SA 4.0
Facing each other in the park: MSK for classical and modern art to 1950 (Bosch, Rubens, Ensor) โ the first choice for most visitors; SMAK for contemporary art (post-1945) with bold changing exhibitions โ for the contemporary lover. A full day: both with lunch in the park. Short on time: MSK.
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Ghent's Museum of Fine Arts (MSK) is among Belgium's oldest museums (1798) and most beautifully displayed: a bright neoclassical building in the Citadelpark showing six centuries of art from the Middle Ages to the mid-twentieth century in calm rooms that rarely crowd โ and where Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece was restored before the public for years in a glass laboratory. Its treasures: two Hieronymus Bosch paintings ("Christ Carrying the Cross" with its terrifying demonic faces, and "St Jerome"), Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens, Ghent's nineteenth-century painters, a large James Ensor collection with his strange masks, Symbolism (Khnopff), Flemish Expressionism (Permeke) and Magritte. A museum you walk through in serenity among first-rate works. Opposite SMAK for contemporary art in the same park โ the two together make a full art day south of the centre. Closed Mondays.
Bosch's demonic faces around Christ โ an unforgettable painting.
Belgian strangeness in one of his largest collections.
Six centuries without crowds in a bright building.
Fernand Scribedreef 3, 9000 Ghent