Age of Innovation

Step into the third-floor gallery where ROM is hosting Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks, and you’re immediately transported to a different time and place, surrounded by lush paintings from artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Hans Memling, and Michaelina Wautier.

Drawing from Belgium-based The Phoebus Foundation’s world-class collection of Flemish art and co-organized by the Denver Art Museum, the exhibition offers a whirlwind tour of Flanders from 1400 to 1700—a period of vast social, political, and economic change.

Dr. Katharina Van Cauteren, Executive Director and Chief of Staff of the Phoebus Foundation—whose expertise in (and passion for) Flemish art was the impetus for the exhibition—spoke to ROM magazine about how the creative evolution of the Flemish Golden Age would go on to influence the world of art for centuries to come.

Why focus an exhibition on this particular era of Flemish art? Everyone knows about the Italian Renaissance, and the Dutch Golden Age is also well known, but few peoplerealize that in Flanders—the northern, Dutch speaking region of Belgium—during the 15th through 17th centuries, something equally thrilling and transformative was happening.

Imagine stepping into a time machine and landing in cities like Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. These cities were the New York, London, and Toronto of their time—vibrant trade hubs brimming with creativity, ambition, and plenty of human drama. The artists there weren’t just creating beautiful things; they were visual storytellers and entrepreneurial pioneers who understood that compelling visuals could help sell ideas.

And if you think about it, we’re still using their visual storytelling techniques today. Every time you’re scrolling through Instagram or binge-watching Netflix, you’re tapping into that legacy of Flemish innovation.

What made this era the “Golden Age” of Flemish art? While the northern Netherlands had one famous Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century, the southern Netherlands, what we now call “Flanders,” experienced three golden eras across the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries.

Flemish art from this time marks a revolutionary shift from symbolic, coded representation (a bit like ancient Egyptian art, communicating primarily with God) to vivid, realistic portrayals of daily life.

It wasn’t just about the artists suddenly becoming better at painting; it was driven by radical societal changes, religious shifts, and a booming economy. Flemish artists didn’t just depict reality; they invented new ways of looking at the world. And today, we take this visual realism for granted because of their groundbreaking work.

What were some of the influences on this artitic period? For the first time in Western history, artists started creating works not just on commission from churches or princes but for the open market. Why? Because the booming cities of Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp were teeming with a newly rich entrepreneurial class. These were people who had built fortunes through commerce and who now needed something suitably impressive to hang on the walls of their splendid new townhouses.

Artists, sharp as ever, adapted with astonishing speed. They began inventing entirely new genres: portraits that captured self-made success, still lifes that celebrated abundance, landscapes that hinted at human control over nature. They weren’t just painters anymore; they became image-makers, entrepreneurs, and masters of branding before the word even existed.

The formats, the subjects, even the notion that art can be bought, owned, and displayed by individuals rather than institutions or monarchs—that all begins here.

What are the artistic hallmarks of this period? Initially, it was all about the details—the obsessive depiction of every blade of grass, every shimmer of gold thread, every dewdrop on a leaf. Just look at Hans Memling and his contemporaries in the 15th century: their works are miracles of precision, devotion, and wonder.

But by the 17th century, something shifts. Artists like Rubens, van Dyck, and Jordaens take that meticulous eye and set it on fire. They inject it with movement, emotion, and theatrical bravura. Their paintings don’t whisper; they shout—yet never lose their intimacy

A single gesture, a sidelong glance, the cascade of a velvet sleeve—with these, they tell stories as gripping as any film. Not because they mimic life but because they amplify it.

These artists understood the power of the image long before cinema was invented, and they wielded it with all the panache of a blockbuster director. I often say Rubens is Spielberg and van Dyck is Tarantino—one grand and operatic, the other razor sharp and psychological. But where it might take them two hours to tell a story, these painters did it in a single glance!

Which artworks would you recommend as must-see highlights of the exhibition? Don’t miss Hendrick De Clerck’s The Earthly Paradise with the Four Elements. I admit I’m Photo by Paul Eekhoff. biased—after all, I devoted six years of doctoral research to the man—but this painting truly is extraordinary. It was created for the highest circles of European nobility and was, in essence, pure political propaganda for the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, who ruled over Flanders in the early 17th century. The exotic animals and plants you see weren’t invented; they were all part of the Archdukes’ real-life palace gardens in Brussels, meant to evoke a second Eden. Lions and lambs coexist peacefully, at least in paint, symbolizing the perfect harmony the Archdukes hoped to establish under their reign. It’s lush, theatrical, and deeply strategic—paradise but with a Habsburg agenda.

Then, there’s Jan Sanders Van Hemessen’s Portrait of a Couple. What’s touching here is the intimacy. The couple aren’t competing; they’re playing trictrac as a team. Her hand gently rests on his arm—a quiet, powerful gesture that is a warning perhaps or a form of support. They each have clearly defined roles: he’s dressed for the outside world, and she’s ready for domestic life. This isn’t about restriction but rather a harmonious division of roles that the 16th century valued deeply. Plus, the fruit bowl and the parrot symbolize their hope for a fruitful, paradisiacal union.

And be sure to catch the painting in the final gallery room, Portrait of an Elegant Couple in a Collector’s Cabinet, which depicts what appears to be a proud couple posing in their picture gallery. For centuries, that was what we believed. But a closer look with X-rays revealed something startling: underneath Mr. and Mrs., several gentlemen had originally occupied the space. Sometime in the 17th century, the canvas was altered to make way for the new “owners,” who quite literally painted themselves into the picture. It’s just one example of how even the most charming composition can turn out to be a master class in ambition, invention, and deception. And yes, we were fooled for 300 years—until our researchers uncovered the truth.

How does that era still impact the art world today? Flemish art challenges us to go beyond surface beauty. That’s exactly what I aim to do as a curator: to go deeper and ask questions like, Why did the artist choose this particular scene? Why did they paint it in this style? Why did somebody want this in their living room? Before you know it, a painting becomes so much more than a thing of beauty. It becomes a window into the past, revealing stories about religion, politics, economics, and human experiences: fears, dreams, desires, ambitions.

These artworks speak to universal experiences: the fear of death, the love for a child. Even though they were created centuries ago, nothing fundamental has changed, and that realization fascinates me every single time.

At its core, Flemish art is about you and me— about what it means to be human, whether you’re standing in a cathedral in Antwerp or in a gallery in Toronto.

Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks runs at ROM until January 18, 2026.

Tabassum Siddiqui is Communications Manager at ROM