Discovery of the Month - Hans Memling
at the Hans Memling Museum, Brugge, Belgium
Portrait of a Young Woman (1480)
Triptych of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist - Detail (1474-79)
On a recent trip through Belgium I fell in love with Bruges, where I was captured into the world of the Flemish Primitives.
The Hans Memling Museum is a must, located in a former Chapel where Memling was commissioned to paint the legend of St Ursula in 1489.
On entering the Chapel, the paintings and shrines look charming and of modest proportions, yet after looking more closely at these flawless images, they reveal a world of passion and epic struggles.
Bruges is a "peep-show" of illusion and reality, like the paintings I found there, hidden yet there for all to see.