Théodore van Loon

Famous in his own time, Theodore van Loon is now unknown to the public at large. A fundamentally original painter, with an artistic tempe­rament very different from Rubens’s, his idiom was essentially shaped by his experience of Rome, which he visited repeatedly throughout his career. This is why he is accounted one of the first Caravaggisti of the Southern Netherlands. But his œuvre shows many other influences, which he combined in a fashion entirely his own.

This volume is the first study of Theodore van Loon to treat his output as a whole. The first part brings together several essays that aim to give coherence to this unusual artist’s creative range, while focusing more closely on some of its most striking aspects; the catalogue that follows details a representative selection of Van Loon’s works, as well as a number of works by painters in his circle, in order to sharpen the sense of artistic exchanges and Theodore van Loon’s contribution to the art of his era.

Bozar, Brussels, 10 October 2018 – 13 January 2019