MAN, MYTH, AND SENSUAL PLEASURES: JAN GOSSART'S RENAISSANCE
The first major exhibition in 45 years devoted to Jan Gossart (ca. 1478-1532)— one of the most innovative artists of the Burgundian-Habsburg Netherlands—will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning October 6, 2010. Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart's Renaissance will bring together the majority of Gossart's paintings, drawings, and prints, and place them in the context of the influences on his transformation from Late Gothic Mannerism to the new Renaissance mode. Gossart was among the first northern artists to travel to Rome to make copies after antique sculpture and monuments and to introduce biblical and mythological subjects with erotic nude figures into the mainstream of northern painting. Most often credited with successfully assimilating Italian Renaissance style into northern European art of the early 16th century, he is the pivotal Old Master who redirected the course of early Flemish painting from the legacy of its founder, Jan van Eyck, and charted new territory that eventually led to the great age of Rubens.
