‘Bas Smets in conversation with Manfred Sellink on the Bruegel Landscapes’

For the Landscape Paintings by Bruegel research project, landscape architect Bas Smets has taken a closer look at some paintings by Pieter Bruegel. Bruegel composed his ‘landscapes’ as a collage of fragments. He was not interested in representing reality but rather in creating imaginary landscapes in his studio, made up of typically Brabant features and elements he had seen on his trips through Europe. Bas Smets has meticulously selected trees and other vegetation from these works resulting in a razor-sharp analysis of Bruegel’s compositions as well as a new series of landscapes with an original poetry all of their own. 
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On Tuesday 11 June, Bas Smets will be in conversation with Breugel expert Manfred Sellink, Director of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (RMFAA) and co-curator of the recent Bruegel exhibition in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. They will discuss the relationship between land, landscape and scenic beauty. How do image and perception relate to reality? What is the link between landscape painting and landscape architecture?