McMullen's new exhibit a treasure

Boston College's McMullen Museum of Art has long provided students with a colorful window into the greater world of art. Housing an array of artwork and artifacts from the last two centuries taken from around the world, the museum also hosts multiple exhibits per year, showcasing and drawing from vibrant, external collections. Each exhibit is directed toward McMullen's ultimate goal: to foster knowledge, expression, and creativity within the BC and Boston community.

What do you know about Belgian art? Bear with me, and reach back into your stored art history database. You just may recall some great Flemish painters of the Middle Ages, such as van Eyck. But scholars and aficionados alike tend to attribute the more recent artistic achievements to other countries. Think impressionism and picture Monet. Think surrealism and picture Dali. Think cubism and picture Picasso. Think again.

If you know zilch about Belgium's contribution to artistic movements of the early 20th century, then consider yourself lucky. Now you have everything to discover. In the McMullen Museum of Art, housed conveniently inside Devlin, 53 works of Belgian art currently await your arrival.

The McMullen Museum has long provided students a break from the week-day doldrums of trudging through slush and studies. Its latest exhibit, A New Key: Modern Belgian Art from the Simon Collection, constitutes a portion of the complete Simon Collection that has primarily stayed in Europe. In fact, before its temporary resettlement to Boston College, the assemblage of Belgian beauties had never before visited the United States.

A New Key offers to visitors the opportunity to unearth the overlooked culture of a quiet nation. The collection of 49 paintings and four sculptures opened last Tuesday with a ceremony in which BC bOp! and the University Wind Ensemble performed. The lively music complemented the ubiquitous artwork, alive with vibrant colors, luminous landscapes, and pulsating still-life paintings.

"These works are not only extraordinarily beautiful, but they offer a fascinating window into the development of modern art," says Jeffery Howe, exhibition curator, a professor in the fine arts department, and leading American historian of modern Belgian art. The exhibit celebrates Belgium's prominent role to the artistic progress of 1890-1940, which had long gone unnoticed.

As curators make clear, a revolutionizing zeitgeist pervaded Belgium at this time. In art and spirit, the nation transformed from neutrality to power, from submission to contribution, from second-rate to avant-garde. Howe and others invite you to witness Belgium's Renaissance in its own right.

A true appreciation of the exhibit requires some knowledge of Belgium's distinctive history. For decades Belgium enjoyed peaceful neutrality, until German troops invaded the territory en route to France in 1914 during World War I. The foray ruined prominent Belgian cities and killed thousands of innocent citizens, prompting artists of the region to react. Thus, the floodgates opened, allowing for waves of foreign inspiration to crash over the artistic population. In short, Belgium emerged from The Great War a fresh land with its own identity.

The name A New Key quite literally refers to Belgium's newfound ability to unlock doors of artistic possibilities. Six sections guide visitors wandering freely through the exhibit: Looking Outward: Landscape and Village Scenes; Work and Labor; The View from Within: Interiors and Still life; The Human Dimension: The Figure; The Impact of the First World War; and, finally, The Fantastic and Carnivalesque. Under the current of all six run ideological themes, such as water, industrialization, and psychology.

"Old Orchard in Winter" (1925), a peaceful landscape by Valerius de Saedeleer, greets people as they enter from the blustery Quad. A blanket of snow covers isolated cabins surrounding by black trees with gnarling branches that reach to the dusky sky. The paintings beckons viewers to crunch though the pristine surface, and it sets the tone for the breathtaking exhibit as a whole.

You may recognize the haunting "Portrait of Claire Demolder" (1902) as the poster girl for A New Key. Théo van Rysselberghe's oil creation confidently lounges in her effervescent neo-impressionistic living room. She dominates her domain, the "Figures" section, and gazes across the room at the exhibit doorman. "She's quite beautiful," he says with a grin, "but I'll never stop thinking she's watching me."

"Impacts of World War I," perhaps the most compelling section, reports that many Belgian artists used expressionism to express the raw emotions caused by the tumultuous times. In Frits van der Berghe's "The Last Gunner" (1929), for example, a disjointed black blotch of a soldier sits in angst against a fulsome orange unidentified space. Viewers can sense the rollercoaster of tragedy and rebirth that drove artists to produce such potent works.

The curators of A New Key located a buried treasure chest with the Simons Collection. As the exhibit teaches, Belgian history has played an integral role in catalyzing the artistic movements of 1890-1940. A New Key displays the resplendent fruits of the tumultuous times. So in between classes take a step into Devlin, discard your North Face, and get comfortable. A tour de force of genius Belgians and their magnum opus anticipate your visit.