Cultural life
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Cultural milieu
Belgium’s long and rich cultural and artistic heritage is epitomized in the paintings of Pieter Bruegel, the Elder, Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Dieric Bouts, Peter Paul Rubens, René Magritte, and Paul Delvaux (see also Flemish art); in the music of Josquin des Prez, Orlando di Lasso, Peter Benoit, and César Franck; in the dramas of Maurice Maeterlinck and Michel de Ghelderode and the novels of Georges Simenon and Marguerite Yourcenar (see also Belgian literature); in the films of Chantal Akerman and the Dardenne brothers; in the mapmaking of Gerardus Mercator; and in the many palaces, castles, town halls, and cathedrals of the Belgian cities and countryside.
The federal structure of Belgium encourages the drawing of cultural distinctions among and between Flanders, Wallonia, and the small German-speaking minority—institutionalized as formally empowered “communities.” Through educational initiatives, language promotion, and patronage of the arts, these communities see to it that regional cultures do not lose their distinctiveness. In addition, some regions are more strongly associated with particular cultural attributes than others. Flanders is particularly noted for its visual art, and various schools of painting have arisen there. In music, avant-garde tendencies have become influential in Brussels, Liège, Ghent, and Antwerp, while Hainaut remains the centre of the classical and popular traditions.
Daily life and social customs
Belgium’s strong tradition of fine cuisine is expressed in its large number of top-rated restaurants. The country is known for moules frites (mussels served with french fries) as well as waffles, a popular snack item. Belgian chocolate is renowned around the world and may be considered a cultural institution. Chocolatiers such as Neuhaus, Godiva, and Leonidas, among others, are internationally acclaimed for their truffles and candies sold in small, distinctive cardboard boxes. Chocolate is one of Belgium’s main food exports, with the majority being shipped to other EU countries.
Beer is Belgium’s national beverage; the country has several hundred breweries and countless cafés where Belgians enjoy a great array of local brews, including the famed Trappist and lambic varieties. While the reputation of Belgian beer is often overshadowed by that of its larger neighbour, Germany, the brewing and consuming of beer within the country is a cultural institution in and of itself. Most beers have particular styles of glasses in which they are served, and a variety of seasonal brews are synonymous with various holidays and celebrations. It is also common for special brews to be created for occasions such as weddings, a tradition that is reported to have begun in the early 1900s, when nearly every village had a brewery. In many small Belgian villages, the brewer was also the mayor.
Festivals focus on regional history and the celebration of the seasons. In the Walloon area there are joyous spring festivals, such as the carnivals of Binche and Stavelot; summer festivals, such as the procession of giants at Ath and the dragon battle in Mons; and the winter festivals of St. Nicholas, Christmas, and the New Year. In Flanders these festivals have become folkloric celebrations with a religious or historical character. Notable events include the Festival of Cats in Ypres, which is held once every three years and commemorates a practice from earlier centuries of tossing cats from the tower of the Cloth Hall to keep their numbers under control. (The cats helped guard textiles kept in the Cloth Hall from rodents, but once the textiles were sold, the cats tended to proliferate.) Today the festival re-creates this practice with toy cats and, more generally, celebrates cats as a species. Another popular event is the Procession of the Holy Blood; held in Brugge, it is the modern continuation of a medieval tradition of parading through the city with what was said to be the coagulated blood of Christ—taken from his body after the descent from the cross. According to legend, the relic at the centre of the ceremony was brought back to Brugge by Thierry, the crusading count of Flanders, in the 12th century. Finally, marionette shows survive in the Toone Theatre in Brussels. The traditional folk culture is in marked contrast to modern forms of popular culture, which, as everywhere in the West, are dominated by television, cinema, and popular music.
The arts
Belgium’s rich heritage makes it an artistic centre of considerable importance. The paintings of the Flemish masters are on display in museums and cathedrals across the country; Belgium’s contribution to Art Nouveau is clearly evident in the Brussels cityscape, and folk culture is kept alive in a variety of indoor and outdoor museums. Among the most celebrated examples of Art Nouveau architecture in Brussels are the home of architect Baron Victor Horta, which is now a museum, and the Stoclet House, designed by Josef Hoffmann. The latter was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2009.
Belgium holds several significant annual musical events, including the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition. Belgians also have taken a foreign musical form, American jazz, and made it very much their own. The style owes much to Antoine-Joseph Sax, the Belgian-born instrument maker who invented the saxophone. Practitioners of homegrown jazz have included cabaret singer Jacques Brel, jazz harmonica player Jean (“Toots”) Thielemans, and the legendary Django Reinhardt, a Belgian-born Rom (Gypsy) who mastered a guitar style that wedded Duke Ellington to flamenco. Belgium teems with jazz clubs and bistros and hosts a number of respected jazz festivals each year. Belgians also played an important role in the creation of techno music late in the 20th century.
Literary works produced in Flanders have a style peculiar to the region, whereas in the Walloon area and in Brussels most authors write for a larger French readership that is inclined especially toward Parisian tastes. Moreover, some works that are thought of as French are written by Belgian authors living in France, and others are by writers living in Belgium who are considered French.
In Belgium the comic strip is a serious and well-respected art form that has become part of the country’s modern cultural heritage. Children throughout the world became familiar with the adventures of the boy hero Tintin, who was created by Hergé (Georges Rémi) and was featured in a comic strip that first appeared in 1929. The Smurfs, created in 1958 by Peyo (Pierre Culliford), became world famous as a television cartoon series. Brussels is home to a large comic-strip museum that attracts visitors from throughout Europe.
Cultural institutions
The Belgian artistic heritage is represented in major museums in Brussels, Ghent, Brugge, Antwerp, Charleroi, and Liège. Traditional art and architecture are preserved in a large outdoor museum near Hasselt. The most extensive collection of Central African art in the world is housed in a museum in Tervuren, a suburb of Brussels. The National Orchestra and the National Opera in Brussels enjoy world fame. The Museum of Musical Instruments, also in Brussels, has a fine collection. War monuments at Waterloo, Ypres, and Bastogne, among others, attract visitors and history buffs to Belgium from around the world.
Sports and recreation
If Belgians could play only one sport, it probably would be football (soccer). The Royal Belgian Football Association encompasses thousands of teams and clubs. Belgian’s national team, known as the Red Devils, has long been a power in international competitions. Cycling too has numerous enthusiasts, many inspired by the example of Eddy Merckx, who dominated international cycling during the 1960s and ’70s, winning the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia five times each. Belgium also has produced a number of Olympians, including Hubert van Innis, who won six medals in archery events at the 1920 games; Ulla Werbrouck and Robert van der Walle, who dominated women’s and men’s judo in the later 20th century; and swimmer Frederik Deburghgraeve, who set a world record and won a gold medal in the men’s 100-metre breaststroke at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
For daily recreation, most of the major cities have accessible parks. The Ardennes and the North Sea coast are major destinations for Belgians on vacation.
Media and publishing
The many daily newspapers published in Belgium are controlled by press consortiums. Among the most influential and widely read newspapers are Le Soir, De Standaard, and Het Laatste Nieuws. A German-language daily, Grenz-Echo, is published in Eupen. The majority of newspapers have some political affiliation, but only those of the socialist press are linked to a political party. Belgium has several magazines, but these face strong foreign competition.
Radio broadcasting was born in Belgium. As early as 1913, weekly musical broadcasts were given from the Laeken Royal Park. Radio-Belgium, founded in 1923, was broadcasting the equivalent of a spoken newspaper as early as 1926. Belgian Radio-Television of the French Community (RTBF), which broadcasts in French, and the Flemish Radio and Television Network (VRT; formerly Belgian Radio and Television [BRTN]), in Flemish, were created as public services. Both are autonomous and are managed by an administrative council. Radio Vlaanderen International (RVI) serves as an important voice of the Flemish community in Belgium.
Arthur J.M. Doucy Alexander B. MurphyHistory of Belgium
This section surveys the history of the Belgian territories after 1579. For information concerning the period prior to that date, see Low Countries, history of.
After the Burgundian regime in the Low Countries (1363–1477), the southern provinces (whose area roughly encompassed that of present-day Belgium and Luxembourg) as well as the northern provinces (whose area roughly corresponded to that of the present-day Kingdom of the Netherlands) had dynastic links with the Austrian Habsburgs and then with Spain and the Austrian Habsburgs together. Later, as a consequence of revolt in 1567, the southern provinces became subject to Spain (1579), then to the Austrian Habsburgs (1713), to France (1795), and finally in 1815 to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. While Luxembourg remained linked to the Netherlands until 1867, Belgium’s union with the Netherlands ended with the 1830 revolution. Belgian nationality is generally considered to date from this event. Throughout the long period of foreign rule, the southern part of the Low Countries generally preserved its institutions and traditions, and only for a short interval, under the First French Republic and Napoleon, could integration with an alien system be enforced.
The Burgundian period, from Philip II (the Bold) to Charles the Bold, was one of political prestige and economic and artistic splendour. The “Great Dukes of the West,” as the Burgundian princes were called, were effectively considered national sovereigns, their domains extending from the Zuiderzee to the Somme. The urban and other textile industries, which had developed in the Belgian territories since the 12th century, became under the Burgundians the economic mainstay of northwestern Europe.
The death of Charles the Bold (1477) and the marriage of his daughter Mary to the archduke Maximilian of Austria proved fatal to the independence of the Low Countries by bringing them increasingly under the sway of the Habsburg dynasty. Mary and Maximilian’s grandson Charles became king of Spain as Charles I in 1516 and Holy Roman emperor as Charles V in 1519. In Brussels on October 25, 1555, Charles V abdicated the Netherlands to his son, who in January 1556 assumed the throne of Spain as Philip II.
The Spanish Netherlands
Under Spanish rule, discontent increased in the Netherlands and revolution broke out in 1567, but the union between the south and the north could not be maintained after the first years of conflict.
The formation of the Union of Arras (January 6, 1579) by the conservative Catholic provinces of Artois and Hainaut (fearing the dominance of more urban, more commercial, and therefore more progressive provinces) enabled the Spanish commander Alessandro Farnese to resume war against the rebellious Protestants. William I (of Orange) emerged as the leader of the latter group, supported by the Union of Utrecht (January 23, 1579), and rallied the numerous provinces that opposed a return to Spanish rule. After a series of sieges, however, Farnese made himself master of many towns in the southern part of the country and finally, on August 17, 1585, recaptured Antwerp, which had closed its gates to rebels and government forces alike. Antwerp’s surrender incited the still resisting northern provinces to close the Schelde River to foreign shipping. From this time onward, the whole of the southern part of the Netherlands once more recognized Philip II as its sovereign. In 1598 Philip II granted the sovereignty of the Netherlands to his daughter Isabella Clara Eugenia and her husband, Archduke Albert VII of Austria.
The United Provinces of the north, also known as the Dutch Republic, were never recovered, and in 1609 Albert was even forced to join them in a 12-year truce. He died in 1621, the same year that the war was resumed. Isabella was, from that time on, nothing more than a governor-general. During the resumed course of the war (1621–48), the region to the east of the Meuse, northern Brabant, and Zeeland were lost. Philip IV of Spain agreed to the new northern boundary of the Spanish Netherlands in the Peace of Westphalia (1648). Hostilities between France and Spain persisted, marked by further losses of territory on the southern border (Artois in 1640 and parts of Flanders in the later 17th century).
Administration
The government of the Spanish Netherlands, though not independent, enjoyed a large degree of autonomy. A governor-general, usually a member of the Spanish royal family, represented the king in Brussels. Local leaders held most positions on the three councils that assisted the governor (the Council of State, the Privy Council, and the Council of Finances). The president of the Privy Council became a kind of prime minister; although holders of this office did not hesitate to show independence of Madrid in order to protect their interests, they remained supporters of absolutism, regularly asserting the authority of the royal government at the expense of regional and local rights. After 1664 the Council of Finances, under its chief official, the treasurer-general, began to function as a sort of ministry of economic affairs. The councils exercised considerable autonomy domestically. With respect to foreign policy, however, they were controlled less by the governor-general than by a Spanish official in Brussels called the secretary of state and war. In Madrid there was a council of state for the Netherlands made up of natives of the Belgian provinces.
The bishopric of Liège (in present-day eastern Belgium) was ruled as a separate principality by its prince-bishops, as had been the case since the Middle Ages. During the revolt against Spain, Liège maintained a strict neutrality and continued to do so through most of the 17th and 18th centuries. Its institutional development paralleled that of the neighbouring regions.
The most important of various representative bodies in the Spanish Netherlands were the provincial estates or assemblies. Their authority to levy and collect taxes enabled them to ensure that a considerable portion of the revenue was spent within the country. A permanent deputation drawn from the estates supervised public works. The States General, consisting of delegates from all the provincial estates, had enjoyed great influence before and during the revolt against Spain. From that time their role diminished, and after 1632 the States General no longer met. Regionalism, deep-rooted in the provinces during the 16th century, gave way in the 17th century to a wider unity. The aristocratic provincial governors revolted against the government’s centralizing policy in the early 1630s but were forced to flee the country for lack of urban support. By 1700 only Hainaut, Luxembourg, Namur, Limburg, and south Gelderland, all of which had proved their loyalty, still had provincial governors.
The supreme authority in judicial matters was the Great Council of Malines, founded in 1504. This body, however, had to defend its jurisdiction against the encroachments of the Privy Council. The provincial courts of justice were the councils of Flanders, Brabant, Namur, Luxembourg, southern Gelderland, Hainaut, and Artois (until 1659). The unique autonomy of the Council of Brabant had been granted by the king in conformity with the provincial liberties of that region. Nevertheless, after 1603 the king was represented in Brabant by financial officials under a procurer-general. In addition to their judicial duties, all these magistrates had increasing administrative functions.
Nearly constant warfare made the administration of the country increasingly difficult. Foreign troops manned the fortresses of Antwerp, Ghent, Ostend, and Charleroi, and other armed forces were raised locally. Government finances, weakened by the loss of revenues from the northern provinces, suffered still further from the enormous military expenditures.
Economic developments
The revolt against Spain in 1567 and the military campaigns it provoked in the following years were detrimental to industrial activity in the southern provinces. Moreover, the Spanish reconquest of the territory caused a major emigration of merchants and skilled artisans. Amsterdam replaced Antwerp as the chief trading centre of Europe. Many towns facing industrial decline reacted by restructuring their economic bases. Antwerp fostered new enterprises in silk weaving, diamond processing, and the production of fine linen, furniture, and lace; in addition, it resuscitated many old export products, such as musical instruments, tapestries, embroidery, and brass. Although English competition had crippled the Flemish woolen industry, Ghent developed a specialization in luxury fabrics, and Brugge in cloth for everyday use.
From the end of the 16th century on, import and export duties provided a new source of revenue. Taxes on foreign trade originated from permits allowing commerce with the rebellious United Provinces of the north. By the middle of the 17th century, these taxes had become real customs tariffs. The financial problems of the government also made the sale of public offices a common practice.
The commercial revitalization of the southern Low Countries, particularly of Antwerp, was gradual, but it no doubt partly explains the flourishing artistic life during the period. This was chiefly evident in the works of the Flemish school of 17th-century painters—among them Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, and Jacob Jordaens. The ongoing Counter-Reformation stimulated demand for art in the triumphant Baroque style. Rubens, court painter to Isabella and Archduke Albert, made Antwerp one of the cultural capitals of Europe. In the area of scholarship, the Bollandists, a group of Antwerp Jesuits, made valuable contributions to historical methodology.
The Peace of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Eighty Years’ War between Spain and the Dutch and the German phase of the Thirty Years’ War, stimulated economic competition between the countries of northern Europe. As a result, Flemish textile manufacture once again shifted from the towns to the countryside, where production costs were lower. In addition, the burgeoning bureaucracies and new mercantilist policies of rival capitals attracted many Flemish artisans. Emerging fashions abroad, particularly the Enlightenment Classicism and colonial exoticism of France and England, were soon to overtake the Baroque style of the Spanish Netherlands.
