The Grand Atelier

Long before asserting itself as a political entity, Europe was an area of intense circulation of people and goods. Despite wars and conflicts, this exchange of ideas, goods and innovations established lasting bonds between human communities, from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, from the Atlantic to the Urals. We often forget that artists, works of art and even wealthy men seeking to satisfy their hunger for beauty also traveled the trade routes and waterways. Thus, it is through past masterpieces and even modest works, that we can grasp and appreciate what was even at the dawn of the Middle Ages, a European space of art and thought.

This autumn, Europalia welcomes all 27 member states of the European Union. Its festival, europalia.europa is the largest festival to be organized on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. Its headline exhibition, The Grand Atelier. Pathways of Art in Europe, will illustrate with many remarkable and often spectacular works, several particularly eloquent aspects of this artistic circulation and the various forms it took over a long period in the history of art (between the 5th and 18th century). It will include about 350 works from Vitruvius, da Vinci, Dürer, Titian, Rubens, Poussin etc. coming from over 100 European collections.

In Film 27x27x27 twenty-seven contemporary successors (one for each member state of the Union) explore the history of art and pick out works they see as fundamental to Europe.

The Grand Atelier
Pathways of Art in Europe (5th- 18th century)

mit Werken von Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Tizian , Peter Paul Rubens, Nicolas Poussin ...