The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) has unveiled an extraordinary exhibition showcasing three centuries of Flemish artistic achievement. "Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks," running until January 2026, brings together an impressive collection of paintings from one of Europe's most influential artistic traditions, featuring works by renowned masters Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Pieter Bruegel, alongside lesser-known but equally compelling artists.
The exhibition highlights the remarkable cultural and economic prosperity of Flanders between the 15th and 17th centuries, when the region stood as one of Europe's wealthiest and most cosmopolitan areas. Port cities like Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent attracted merchants, bankers, and artisans from across the continent, creating a thriving environment for artistic patronage. Supported by both courtly patrons and a Catholic Church eager to reassert its authority following the Reformation, Flemish painters produced works of extraordinary technical brilliance and expressive power that fundamentally transformed European art.
The ROM's exhibition is organized in partnership with The Phoebus Foundation, a philanthropic initiative established by Dutch billionaires Fernand and Karine Huts, who co-organized the show alongside the Denver Art Museum. The collection spans seven thematically organized rooms, each exploring different aspects of Flemish artistic tradition. The "Faith and Folly" room examines the recurring figure of the fool in Flemish art, while "God Is In The Details" demonstrates the central role of piety in the region's artistic output.
While the thematic organization provides an effective framework for understanding this expansive body of work, the exhibition's interpretive approach occasionally overshadows the artworks themselves. Wall texts comparing artists like Rubens and van Dyck to modern-day "celebrity influencers" and drawing parallels between Flanders and Silicon Valley, while well-intentioned, sometimes veer toward condescension rather than illumination.
Among the exhibition's standout pieces is Hans Memling's "Birth of Christ" (c. 1480), created by the master and his workshop. Memling, born in Germany but later established in Bruges, became a leading figure in Early Netherlandish painting through his prolific workshop and numerous commissions. This Nativity scene exemplifies the movement's characteristics: religious iconography rendered with naturalistic detail and serene, idealized figures. The Virgin Mary is depicted kneeling with hands extended toward the Christ Child in an elongated, graceful pose, her pale face and nearly closed, downcast eyes conveying spiritual purity and delicacy.
Memling's mastery of detail rivals that of his contemporary Jan van Eyck, as evidenced in his meticulous rendering of the ox and donkey's muzzles, the thatched roof, and even a tiny magpie perched on a beam. This fusion of sacred subject matter with quotidian details invited viewers to contemplate divine mysteries within familiar surroundings, making religious themes accessible and immediate to contemporary audiences.
Frans Verbeeck's "The Mocking of Human Follies" (c. 1560) represents a different strand of Flemish artistic tradition. Little is known about Verbeeck beyond his status as the most popular member of a family of painters based in Mechelen. His frequent use of watercolors has resulted in the deterioration of many works over the centuries, making surviving pieces particularly valuable.
"The Mocking of Human Follies" presents an intentionally ugly and overstuffed panoramic composition of peasant life, working within the Northern European tradition of moralistic and satirical imagery designed to dramatize human folly through exaggeration. Unlike the subtle warmth found in works by Hieronymus Bosch or later Pieter Bruegel, Verbeeck appears fully derisive of his subjects, offering little subtlety or compassion. Nevertheless, the painting's art of inversion and density represents an important Northern European visual tradition defined by allegory and the grotesque.
Peter Paul Rubens emerges as the most celebrated of the Flemish Baroque painters who gained prominence around 1600. His "Diana and her Nymphs Hunting" (c. 1636-1637), created with his workshop, exemplifies the dramatic shift in Flemish art following the Reformation. While the Dutch Republic in the north embraced Protestantism, Flanders remained Catholic under Spanish rule from 1556, creating a unique artistic environment that served the Counter-Reformation's needs.
Commissioned by Spain's King Philip IV to decorate his hunting lodge, this painting embodies the Baroque movement and dynamism characteristic of the period. Rubens pulls the viewer's eye across the canvas through carefully orchestrated action and energy. His figures possess a fleshy robustness that stands in stark contrast to Memling's wan Mary, reflecting the Baroque emphasis on physical presence and emotional immediacy. The work represents the dual nature of Flemish Baroque painting: simultaneously pious in its Catholic devotion and humanist in its classical learning derived from Spanish court influence.
Perhaps the most intriguing piece in the exhibition is Michaelina Wautier's "Everyone to His Taste" (c. 1660), representing the often-overlooked contribution of women artists in seventeenth-century Flanders. Wautier was one of the few women painting during this period and, while celebrated in her era, fell into obscurity after her death in 1689. Many of her paintings were subsequently misattributed to male contemporaries, a historical injustice that recent scholarship has worked to correct, leading to a renaissance of interest in her work.
"Everyone to His Taste" offers a striking contrast to Rubens's bravura and bombast through its intimate portrayal of two boys, possibly brothers, one dressed in white and the other in black. The composition captures a moment of interaction: the boy in black leans in, reaching toward his companion, who defensively raises his left hand while holding a cracked egg with a utensil in his right hand. This simple, everyday object becomes the painting's focal point through Wautier's striking precision in rendering details like the foamy yellow at the top of the cracked egg and the glistening of the boy's yolk-covered fingers.
Set against a dark ground, this small gesture creates an atmosphere of intimate ambiguity that invites viewers to linger and contemplate the relationship between the subjects. Wautier transforms an otherwise unremarkable moment into something profound and mysterious, demonstrating her ability to find extraordinary meaning in ordinary human interactions. Her work represents not only technical mastery but also a unique perspective that adds depth and complexity to our understanding of Flemish artistic tradition.
The exhibition succeeds in demonstrating the remarkable range and evolution of Flemish art across three centuries, from the detailed piety of Early Netherlandish masters to the dramatic spectacle of Baroque painters and the intimate psychology of later artists. Despite occasional interpretive missteps, "Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools" offers visitors an unprecedented opportunity to engage with masterworks that shaped European artistic tradition and continue to influence contemporary understanding of art's power to capture both the sacred and the secular aspects of human experience.
