Exhibition: Going to the wedding with Brueghel, Rubens, Jordaens…

Urban ceremonies, weddings and village fairs, court and royal festivals... Explore Flemish festivals in the 16th and 17th centuries.

By Julien Bordier

Published on July 26, 2025 at 11:00 a.m.

“The King Drinks,” by Jacques Jordaens, a scene of feasting at Epiphany. — "The King Drinks," by Jacques Jordaens, a feasting scene at Epiphany. ROYAL MUSEUMS OF FINE ARTS OF BELGIUM, BRUSSELS / J. GELEYNS - ART PHOTOGRAPHY

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With this flagship exhibition of Fiesta, the 7th edition of Lille 3000, the Palais des Beaux-Arts delves into the tradition of Flemish festivals, vividly depicted in the 16th and 17th centuries: characters leaping like goats with their buttocks in the air, scenes of excessive revelry... These moments of jubilation are on a par with the dramas experienced at the time by the region's inhabitants. The period was marked by the revolt against the Spanish monarchy. The Eighty Years' War (1568-1648) hit hard the population of the former Low Countries, of which the northern city was a part. An oil on canvas from 1576 shows in rich detail the fury of the Spanish soldiers against the population of Antwerp, one of the most opulent cities in Europe. Furious at not having been paid, enemy troops looted, raped, threw themselves out of windows, feasted, set fires... In the face of this chaos, peace, even temporary, was accompanied by celebrations.

A diptych by David Ryckaert, created after the Peace Treaty of Münster signed in 1648, illustrates this dichotomy. On the left, the grief of peasants whose property has just been vandalized; on the right, the joy rediscovered around a banquet. From one scene to the next, we recognize the same characters, like the two faces of life. The celebration, an essential outlet for calamities (plague, crisis, war), has consoling and restorative virtues. Its …