Van Eyck retrospective goes online after coronavirus closure

The Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent has made its major Jan van Eyck exhibition, 'Van Eyck. An Optical Revolution', available online for free following its closure due to the coronavirus pandemic. The show opened on 1 February 2020 and was scheduled to run until 19 April. Before the lockdown, it had already attracted 40,000 bookings. The exhibition brings together more than half of van Eyck's surviving twenty paintings and drawings, alongside over 100 works by contemporaries such as Fra Angelico, Paolo Uccello, Pisanello, and Petrus Christus. A highlight is the Ghent Altarpiece: for the first time in a museum, the eight outer panels are displayed, newly restored for the show. Tourism Flanders produced a virtual video tour guided by Till-Holger Borchert, director of the Bruges museums and one of the exhibition's curators, as part of 'The Stay At Home Museum' series. Visitors can also explore the exhibition section by section with an audioguide available in text format. The museum joins other institutions like the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome (Raphael exhibition) and Tate Modern in London (Andy Warhol retrospective) in offering virtual access during the pandemic.