On a dreary Saturday afternoon in December, the Langeveld family heads to Brussels. We're attending the opening of the exhibition In Bruegel's Footsteps and the Seasonal Gauge by Bert De Keyser. Organist and composer Jan van Landeghem will enliven the celebration with music by Bruegel's contemporaries and a new composition of his own.
A gallows with a magpie perched on top, positioned to the side of the church next to the chip shop, the biting wind and freezing rain give Kapellekerkplein a truly Bruegelian atmosphere. We're immediately in the mood. As if we've stepped into one of the old master's paintings. Once inside the dimly lit church, our mood is further enhanced by soft organ music, the audience dripping in dark rain coats, and Bert De Keyser himself, dressed in his long coat and hat, looking decidedly sixteenth-century.
We're somewhat confused by the fact that several exhibitions are running here simultaneously. Bruegel the Great Escape has been running here since last year. It's all about tracking down characters who have escaped from Bruegel's paintings and hidden themselves in the church. Great fun for the kids!
Curator and artist Bert de Keyser has also brought together a number of works by old and contemporary Korean artists as part of an East meets West project to demonstrate their kinship with Bruegel.
Finally, he designed a gravestone inside the church for the master resting there and placed that gallows outside, a faithful copy of the gallows depicted in Bruegel's painting The Gallows and the Magpie (1568). Complete with magpie and oddly twisted poles. That offers an impressive and sobering spectacle.
For the original, you have to go to Darmstadt. We're grateful to Bert for letting us in on the message of this work: the characteristic fluttering of the magpie symbolizes wagging tongues, those are the gossiping tongues of gossips and slanderers who talk people to the gallows. The link to our time, governed by tabloid media, is inescapable. And so this gallows, after five hundred years, continues to shout its edifying message undiminished. 'You shall never gossip again!' But before you get there, you'll first have to cancel your Twitter and/or Facebook account or you'd better just completely part with your beloved smartphone!
The newly appointed minister of the Brussels Region, Sven Gatz, came by to say a few words and cut the ribbon on the gallows. We view Bruegel's new gravestone and then it's time to listen to organist Jan van Landeghem, who performs some highlights from Flemish polyphony by Lassus, Sweelinck, and Heredia. Beautiful captivating music that even my oldest son—personal motto: I hate classical music—softly hums along to. Among all that polyphonic power, Van Landeghem's new composition The Magpie on the Gallows (the magpie on the gallows) is certainly not out of place. An original and fascinating work in which the fluttering and scratching of a magpie is imitated in a true-to-nature way. Never knew that was possible on an organ.
After the performance, our thirst is quenched with a glass of Gueuze beer. The hungry sons are allowed to pop into the neighboring chip shop to grab some fries. A nice gesture and a decisive argument to get them to join us on this expedition.
Warmed by food and drink, we head home.
We can look back on a successful event that, in all its unpretentiousness and modesty, imparts a necessary and enduring message.
- WHAT: In Bruegel's Footsteps and the Seasonal Gauge
- WHO:
- WHEN: 14 December 2019
- WHERE: Kapellekerk, Brussels
- PHOTOS{{NOTRANSLATE_mt}}
