God and your money: cautionary tale on the excesses of capitalism
An exhibition in Ghent’s Caermersklooster showcases works illustrating the market economy’s early days during the Southern Netherlands' golden age
The birth of capitalism
“The exhibition lets the impressive art works tell the story,” says curator Katharina Van Cauteren. But that’s only part of the truth. The Birth of Capitalism is also home to a part of the collection of The Phoebus Foundation, a fund set up by businessman Fernand Huts to support museums and the academia. A majority of the displayed work is owned by the foundation.
Huts is also CEO of the Antwerp-based Katoen Natie. Set up in 1854 as a shiploading company, it has since diversified its activities and, especially in the past few decades, experienced exponential growth, with more than 12,000 employees worldwide.
At the beginning of this year, Huts announced that he would invest more than €8 million annually in cultural heritage projects with strong links to Flanders. The first notable project was the publication of the hefty and impressive Politiek en schilderkunst (Politics and Painting), an adapted version of Van Cauteren’s PhD thesis on the 16th-century Brussels painter Hendrick De Clerck.
The Birth of Capitalism is another striking project. It focuses on the region of the Southern Netherlands, which encompassed an area slightly larger than modern-day Belgium.
Heart of Europe
According to Huts, the Southern Netherlands was like the Silicon Valley of its time: a booming economy, with innovative ideas in finance and trade. This, he says, led to the blossoming of the arts, placing the Southern Netherlands at the cultural and economic heart of Europe.
While that could just as well be said about other parts of the continent at the time, one must also wonder if all of the art works – and there are some amazing ones on display – are the direct outcome of the birth of capitalism in the region. Coming from Huts, an entrepreneur and former Open VLD politician, this statement doesn’t come as a shock, and he’s right to put his cards on the table.
In the Middle Ages, just like now, things started to go awry: The systems failed, the politics failed
The exhibition is made up of different themes, including how farmers became entrepreneurs, but also topics such as “Textile, the motor of the economy” and “Enterprising creates profit, profit creates money, money creates wealth”.
Many of the works are paintings, like the beautiful “Fortuna Marina” by Gillis Coignet and “A Bathhouse”, with, as you might imagine, dozens of nudes. There are also the fascinating “Portrait of Jodocus Aemszoon van der Burch” by Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen, which adorns the exhibitions promotional materials, and “The Ship of Fools,” the sardonic masterpiece by Frans Verbeeck the Elder.
Other art pieces and artefacts are also on display, including the loom, which revolutionised the textile trade, and the charter stating the wool trade agreements between England and the Burgundian Netherlands.
Warning from the future
You can also find scale models of ships that formed an essential link in the newly-emergent capitalist economy and maps of the Low Countries by Claes Janszoon Visscher and others. Visscher’s “Leo Belgicus”, a map shaped like a lion, may have once served a practical purpose, but by today’s standards, it’s more of an art piece.
All this bustling wealth led to excess. In the once God-fearing society, money became the new dogma, even among the men of the cloth. It eventually led to the birth of Protestantism, which reacted fiercely to Catholic excesses.
This resulted in a separation between the Northern and Southern Netherlands, and the subsequent brain drain from cities like Antwerp and Ghent to Amsterdam. The 17th century would go down in history as the Dutch Golden Age.
Huts firmly believes that history repeats itself and The Birth of Capitalism is a harbinger of things to come. “In the Middle Ages, just like now, things started to go awry: the systems failed, the politics failed,” he says.
The warning reflects the two epilogues he’s included in the accompanying catalogue, in which he stresses that capitalism is the only way to prosperity. If you’ve seen the exhibition, this comes as no surprise.
Until 1 January, Caermersklooster, Vrouwebroersstraat 6, Ghent
Photo: The Mocking of Human Follies by Frans Verbeeck
