Groeningemuseum, Bruges, Belgium - SpottingHistory.com

The Groeningemuseum is built on the site of the medieval Eekhout Abbey. It houses a comprehensive survey of six centuries of Flemish and Belgian painting, from Jan van Eyck to Marcel Broodthaers. The museum's many highlights include its collection of 'Flemish Primitive' art, works by a wide range of Renaissance and Baroque masters, as well as a selection of paintings from the 18th and 19th century neo-classical and realist periods, milestones of Belgian symbolism and modernism, masterpieces of Flemish expressionism and many items from the city's collection of post-war modern art.

References:

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Museums in Belgium

User Reviews

Bill Edwards (20 months ago)
All on one level so accessible for wheelchairs. Compact so can be done in a couple of hours. A good spread from medieval to modern. Great to see Hieronymus Bosch's work in the flesh.

Alejandro Garcia Lemos (20 months ago)
This a great size and temático museum. Mostly focus on Flemish primitive and Jan Van Dick. There are some painting that will leave you speechless. Only recomendad for those who enjoy attention to the detail to the level of obsession. It’s also a great building! Enjoy it!

Fabio Diglio (20 months ago)
During Bruges’ Golden Age, the 15th century, the fine arts prevailed and the great Flemish Primitives made a name for themselves. The world-renowned works of Jan Van Eyck and other prominent Flemish Masters can be admired at the Groeningemuseum, the main museum in Bruges. For art lovers.

Paul Beckman (2 years ago)
This is a small, extremely manageable, well-though-out museum with some great works by Flemish masters from early through modern periods. Reasonably priced entry. Maybe a bit too small and missing some of the highlights that you might expect from the public description, but absolutely worth a visit.

Melchior Spruit (2 years ago)
Totally loved the great art that goes back many ages. Especially touching is the spiritualism gallery. The paintings are diverse and never boring. Go discover this wonderful museum, because this is slow food for the soul.

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Saint Sophia Cathedral

The St Sophia's Cathedral was built between 1045-1050 inside the Novgorod Kremlin (fortress). It is one of the earliest stone structures of northern Russia. Its height is 38 m. Originally it was taller, for during the past nine centuries the lower part of the building became concealed by the two-metre thick cultural layer. The cathedral was built by Prince Vladimir, the son of Yaroslav the Wise, and until the 1130s this principal church of the city also served as the sepulchre of Novgorodian princes. For the Novgorodians, St Sophia became synonymous with their town, the symbol of civic power and independence.

The five-domed church looks simpler but no less impressive than its prototype, the thirteen-domed St Sophia of Kiev. The cathedral exterior is striking in its majesty and epic splendour evoking the memories of Novgorod's glorious past and invincible might. In the 11th century it looked more imposing than now. Its facade represented a gigantic mosaic of huge, coarsely trimmed irregular slabs of flagstone and shell rock. In some places (particularly on the apses), the wall was covered with mortar, smoothly polished, drawn up to imitate courses of brick or of whitestone slabs, and slightly coloured. As a result, the facade was not white, as it is today, but multicoloured. The play of stone, decorative painting and the building materials of various texture enhanced the impression of austere simplicity and introduced a picturesque effect.

The two-storied galleries extend along the building's southern, western and northern sides, with a stair-tower constructed at the north-eastern corner. The cathedral has three entrances - the southern, western and northern, of which the western was the main one intended for ceremonial processions. A gate standing at the entrance is known as the Sigtuna Gate (mid-12th century); according to legend, it was brought from the Swedish town of Sigtuna in 1187. The second name of the gate derives from the town of Magdeburg, where it was made. The two leaves are decorated with biblical and evangelical scenes in cast bronze relief. In the lower left corner there are portraits of the craftsmen who created this superb specimen of medieval Western European bronze-work. An inscription in Latin gives their names, Riquin and Weissmut. The small central figure - judging from an inscription in Slavonic - is a representation of the Russian master craftsman Avraam, who assembled the gate.

There is yet another bronze gate in the cathedral, called the Korsun Gate. Made in the 11th century in Chersonesos, Byzantium, it leads from the southern gallery into the Nativity Side-Chapel. Legend has it that the gate was handed over to Novgorod as a gift of Prince Yaroslav the Wise (c. 978 - 1054).

The interior of the cathedral is as majestic as its exterior. It is divided by huge piers into five aisles, three of which end in altar apses. In the south-western corner, inside the tower, there is a wide spiral in relatively small, modest buildings of the 12th - 16th centuries.

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