200 years after Waterloo, the historian and artist Koen Broucke opens an artistic dialogue between ancient art and contemporary creations.
War: horror or art?
Engravings and books of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on the Napoleonic battles correspond to contemporary codes of aesthetics. Flamboyant uniforms and heroic charges set in beautiful landscapes glorify the acts of war. The paradoxical starting point of this exhibition is that the horrors of war acquire, in their artistic expressions, an aesthetic or even a kind of sublime beauty.
Another look at Waterloo
The curator of the exhibition, Koen Broucke invites the contemporary viewer to think about how to represent war. The title “The beauty of war” was therefore intended to be provocative.
Welknown personalities
For this exhibition, Koen Broucke realised several creations directly inspired by his personal research on the Battle of Waterloo. Besides a series of well-known works by Joseph Mallord William Turner, Francisco Goya and James Ensor, the selection includes several new and unusual pieces.
“With the help of employees of the Print Room of the Royal Library of Belgium, we found an unexpected amount of iconographic material
of a very high quality. “
(Koen Broucke, curator of the exhibition)
Pieces on display for the first time
Discover engravings of the Battle of Waterloo, the battlefield and the warring armies. Several documents relating to the Battle have never been exhibited before.
More information in French or flemmish on the website.
Chapelle de Nassau
Bibliothèque royale de Belgique
Mont des Arts / Bd de l'Empereur 2
1000 Brussels
Belgium
Open Monday – Saturday 9am – 5pm
except certain days (for info)
In July and August the Library is closed on saturdays.
Entry free.
Tel. : + 32.2.519.53.11
Fax : + 32.2.519.55.33
info@kbr.be
Langue(s) : French/flemish