The garden is a kind of ‘biographer’ and offers a good introduction to the figure of Rubens. His fellow artists, too, incorporated the garden in their paintings on more than one occasion. Sources on Rubens’ garden as such are scarce. The new design will be an idiosyncratic evocation of the 17th century, with garden paths and leafy corridors. The choice of plants refers back to varieties used in Rubens's time.
The new museum garden offers you the opportunity to pause and enjoy the absolute genius of the artist, his flawless feeling for combining past and present, peace and movement, color after color. This will give the new museum garden a more international appearance and make it a prime example of innovation rooted in tradition.
Paul Robbrecht:
"Rubens decided to live on Wapper, which was a kind of boundary in his day between city and countryside."