The Bruges of Van Eyck and Memling
Morning Lecture
19 April 2023
Portrait of Fiovanni Arnolfini and his wife by Jan van Eyck
Paula Nuttall has spent many years researching and teaching on Bruges and its artists, and in this lecture she evokes the city during its late-medieval heyday, when it was the richest and most vibrant city in northern Europe.
Bruges was a cosmopolitan trading centre, a luxurious hub synonymous with good living, and attracted an international merchant clientele, as well as the Burgundian rulers of the Netherlands with their magnificent court, and great painters such as Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling, whose masterpieces, interwoven with sculptures, illuminated manuscripts and the buildings of Bruges itself, conjure up life in this medieval metropolis.
Our Speaker Paula Nuttall is a specialist in Renaissance art, both Italian and northern European, on which she has published widely, notably From Flanders to Florence: the Impact of Netherlandish Painting 1400-1500 (Yale, 2004).
Paula has collaborated on major exhibitions including Jan van Eyck: an Optical Revolution (Ghent, 2020). She is a former Director of the V&A Medieval and Renaissance Year course, and lecturer at – among others – the Courtauld Institute and the British Institute of Florence.
Paula Nuttall