The Art Museum of Ghent (MSKG) is famous not only for the variety of its collection, but also for the way exhibits are exhibited in the exhibition space . Many are ready to agree that never before the old masters were exhibited so advantageously , as in this completely renovated museum . In essence it is a modern and multifunctional complex with an audience, a library, a workshop for children and a café-restaurant where you can spend many hours surrounded by beauty . Here you can see the works s realists, romantics, impressionists, symbolists, expressionists and surrealists . Mostly in the collection of the museum there are paintings of Flemish artists (Southern Netherlands), but a permanent exhibition also includes several European works - especially French . Also in the museum there are a small collection of sculptures .

Ghent Museum of Fine Arts - the oldest in Bel gt; It was created in the late 18th century, after dozens of churches and monasteries were closed during the reign of the Austrians and the French. As a result, an important part of the artistic and historical heritage was threatened. After the sale of some works, about 220 paintings and several statues remained at the museum's disposal.

They found shelter in a new institution created by the French government in 1798 . Initially the collection was placed in the former abbey of Badelo, and in 1802 . @ she moved to the old church . Petra . A year later the church restored its religious functions and the museum had to move again . Finally, in 1811 the . new museum was opened in one of the premises of the municipal academy located in the former Augustinian abbey . In the meeting, the cat which became the foundation of the museum fund, little has changed to this day, except that a few icons have been returned to their places in the churches .

In 1860 the . museum acquired the first work of the old master, but the real the beginning of the collection was made in the late 19th century thanks to the creation of the Friends of the Museum . In 1913 ., when the new building of the museum in the Citadel Park was completed, the president of the organization transferred the entire collected collection to the city . In 2007 . The Museum of Fine Arts was opened after a four-year restoration, which did not affect the but significantly changed the technical means inside: heated floors, lighting, air conditioning . As a result, today the museum appears before visitors in all its primeval beauty .

The core of the museum's permanent collection is the work of Flemish masters, including Jerome Bosch, Paul Rubens, James Ensor, Jan Van Eyck, Anthony van Dyck . Naturally these and many others the authors are represented in the expo in the homeland is the most complete than in all other museums in the world . At the exhibition you can touch the history of the south of the Netherlands from the 15th century to the 20th century . The Ghent Museum closely collaborates in a structural partnership with the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp and the Museum of Groning in Bruges, regularly exchanging exhibits .

Among the most outstanding works that can be seen in the permanent exhibition of the museum, two paintings by Bosch, including "Carrying the Cross" (1515-1516) and "St. Hieronymus for Prayer "(1505), as well as" The Portrait of the Kleptomaniac "by Theodore Gericault (1822), Portrait of Giovanni Paolo Cornaro by Tintoretto (1561), Jupiter and Antelope by Van Dyck.

The museum also constantly hosts temporary exhibitions, which last usually a year or two. Among the last exhibitions of the 18th century, Max Ernst's graphic exhibitions, works by Piranesi, modernists and John Constable from the collection of the London Museum of Victoria and Albert

Practical information

Address: Citadelpark, Fernand Scribedreef, 1.

Time work: from Tuesday to Sunday: 10:00 - 18:00.

Admission: for adults: 8 EUR, for pensioners: 6 EUR, for young people under 26 years: 2 EUR, for young people under 19 free admission