- Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish and European painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, …
- Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck or Johannes de Eyck (c. 1385 - July 9, 1441) was a 15th century Early Netherlandish painter who lived in the then Duchy of Burgundy and is considered one of the great painters of the late Middle Ages. It is a common misconception, which dates back to the sixteenth-century writings of the Tuscan historiographer Giorgio Vasari, that Jan van Eyck created oil painting. It is however true that he achieved, or perfected, …
- Anthony van Dyck
Sir Anthony van Dyck (many variant spellings See Van Dyke for other uses of all spellings), (22 March 1599 - 9 December 1641) was a Flemish artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next 150 years.
- Frans Hals
Frans Hals (c. 1580 - August 26, 1666) was a Dutch painter during the Dutch Golden Age. As a portrait painter, considered by some as second in Holland only to Rembrandt, he displayed extraordinary talent and quickness in his art.
- Hans Memling
Hans Memling (Memlinc) (c. 1430 - 11 August, 1494) was an Early Netherlandish painter, born in Germany, who was the last major fifteenth century artist in the Netherlands, the successor to Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, whose tradition he continued with little innovation.
- Filip Dewinter
Philip Michel Frans "Filip" Dewinter (born September 11, 1962, Bruges) is a Flemish politician in Belgium. He is one of the leading members of Vlaams Belang, a right-wing Flemish nationalist and secessionist political party. This party is the ideological and juridical successor of the Vlaams Blok, which, lacking legal personality, was indirectly condemned and fined for racism in 2004 in a trial against three moral persons that constituted the Blok's financial hardware.
- Paul Belien
Paul Belien worked as a journalist in Belgium and the Netherlands from 1982 to 1994. Afterward, he founded the classical-liberal, Brussels-based think-tank, Centre for the New Europe. He acted as CNE's first managing director and research director from 1994 to 2000. Belien is editor of the Flemish quarterly Secessie and the editor-in-chief of the pan-European website the Brussels Journal , which he founded in 2005.
- Hugo Claus
Hugo Maurice Julien Claus is a prolific Flemish novelist, poet, playwright, painter and film director. He is considered to be one of the most important contemporary Dutch language authors. Hugo Claus was born in Bruges. Under the pseudonym Dorothea van Male, he published the novel Schola Nostra (1971). He also used the pseudonyms Jan Hyoens and Thea Streiner. In 1983, he published "Het verdriet van België" ("The Sorrow of Belgium"), …
- Bert Anciaux
Bert Jozef Herman Vic Anciaux (born in Merksem, 11 September 1959) is a Belgian politician, a founder and leading member of Spirit. Serving as Minister for Culture, Youth and Sport in the Flemish Government, he is also Minister for relations with the Brussels-Capital Region and the Brussels Parliament. Anciaux was born into a political family. His father Vic Anciaux was chairman of the Volksunie (VU), a nationalist party, from 1979 until 1985.
- Jan Brueghel The Elder
Jan Brueghel the Elder (b. 1568, Brussels - January 13th 1625, Antwerp) was a Flemish painter, son of Pieter Brueghel the Elder and father of Jan Brueghel the Younger. Nicknamed "Velvet" Brueghel, "Flower" Brueghel, and "Paradise" Brueghel, of which the latter two were derived from favored subjects, while the former may refer to the velveteen sheen of his colors or to his habit of wearing velvet. His father died in 1569, and then, following the death of his mother in 1578, …
- Jacob Jordaens
Jacob Jordaens (May 19, 1593 - October 18, 1678), was a Flemish painter, born in Antwerp. Like Rubens, he studied under Adam van Noort. A marriage to his master's daughter in 1616, the year after his admission to the guild of painters, prevented him from visiting Rome. He was forced to content himself with studying such examples of the Italian masters as he found at home; but a far more potent influence was exerted upon his style by Rubens, …
- Fientje Moerman
Joséphine Rebecca Marie Julienne Bertha "Fientje" Moerman is a Belgian liberal politician.
- Gerard David
Gerard David (c. 1460, Oudewater - August 13th 1523, Bruges) was an early Dutch Renaissance artist known for his brilliant use of color
- Hugo van der Goes
Hugo van der Goes (c. 1440-1482) was a Flemish painter. Born in Ghent, he entered the artists' guild there in 1467. He was later elected dean of the guild. Suffering from a mental illness, he retired to the Red Cloister near Brussels around 1478 in the hopes that living in the monastery would help him overcome his depression. He was considered a lay member of the cloister. Van der Goes attempted suicide in 1480, and died two years later.
- Frank Vanhecke
Frank Arthur Hyppolite Vanhecke (born 30 May, 1959 in Brugge) started his career in Belgian politics as a student by joining the Jong Studentenverbond and later the Nationalistische Studentenvereniging. He gave up his membership of the Volksunie in 1977 after it acceded to a much-debated package of federal reforms. Vanhecke subsequently joined the Vlaams Nationale Partij, the predecessor of the Vlaams Blok.
- Robert Campin
Robert Campin (1375 - April 26, 1444) is sometimes considered the first great master of Flemish painting. Although heavily indebted to contemporary masters of manuscript illumination, Campin displayed greater powers of realistic observation than any other painter before him. He was one of the first artists to experiment with reintroduction of oil-based colors, instead of painting with egg-based tempera, to achieve the brilliance of color typical for this period.
- Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator was a Flemish cartographer. He was born in Rupelmonde in East Flanders in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation to parents from Gangelt in the Duchy of Jülich (modern Germany). He lived since 1552 in Duisburg. He is remembered for the Mercator chart named after him.
- Pieter Brueghel The Elder
Pieter Brueghel the Elder or Bruegel was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (Genre Painting). He is nicknamed 'Peasant Brueghel' to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but is also the one generally meant when the context does not make clear which "Brueghel" is being referred to.
- Early Netherlandish Painting
Early Netherlandish painting is a term art historians use to designate the work of a group of painters who were active primarily in the Low Countries in the 15th and early 16th centuries, approximately the period starting with Van Eyck and ending with Gerard David.They embodied at the same time the culmination of the Middle Ages and the transition to Renaissance.
- Kris Peeters
Kris Peeters (May 18, 1962) is a Flemish politician and member of the Christian Democratic and Flemish party who is currently Minister-President of Flanders, Belgium. Peeters served from 1991 to 1994 as Director of the NCMV research department. In 1994 he became Secretary-General of NCMV and when NCMV was reformed into the SME interest group UNIZO in 1999, he became its first managing director.
- Petrus Christus
Petrus Christus was a Flemish painter active in Bruges from 1444.
- Frans Snyders
Frans Snyders (1579 - 1657), or Snijders, was a Flemish painter of animals and still life. Snyders was born and died at Antwerp. He is recorded as a student of Pieter Brueghel the Younger in 1593, and subsequently received instruction from Hendrick van Balen, the first master of Van Dyck. He was a friend of Van Dyck who painted Snyders and his wife more than once (Frick Collection, Kassel etc). He became a master of the Antwerp painters guild in 1602.
- Herman Brusselmans
Herman Brusselmans (born 9 October 1957 in Hamme, Belgium) is a Flemish novelist and poet. He lives in Ghent. Herman Brusselmans studied Dutch and English at the University of Ghent. In his early twenties he was a successful soccer player. He used to play for Vigor Hamme and SK Lokeren. Now he has got his own football team which is called "De Woody's", after his late dog Woody. In 1981 Herman Brusselmans got married but divorced several years later.
- David Teniers The Younger
David Teniers the Younger, Flemish artist was the more celebrated son of David Teniers the Elder, almost ranking in celebrity with Rubens and Van Dyck, was born in Antwerp. Through his father, he was indirectly influenced by Elsheimer and by Rubens. We can also trace the influence of Adriaen Brouwer at the outset of his career. There is no evidence, however, that either Rubens or Brouwer interfered in any way with Teniers's education, …
- Geert Bourgeois
Geert Albert Bourgeois (Roeselare, 6 July 1951) is a Flemish politician and lawyer. He is the current Flemish Minister for Administrative Affairs, Foreign Policy, Media and Tourism.
- Jean-Marie Dedecker
Jean-Marie Louis Dedecker (born Nieuwpoort, 13 June 1952) is a Belgian-Flemish politician. In 1999 and 2003, Dedecker was directly elected to the Belgian Senate. In 2004 Dedecker ran for a seat in the Flemish Parliament, after taking his seat in the Flemish Parliament, Dedecker was elected by his colleagues as a community senator as well. He was a member of the Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD), before being expelled, …
- Adriaen Brouwer
Adriaen Brouwer (1605, Oudenaarde - January 1638, Antwerp) was a Flemish genre painter active in Flanders and the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century. At a young age Brouwer, probably born as "Adriaen de Brauwer", moved perhaps via Antwerp to Haarlem, where he became a student of Frans Hals alongside Adriaen van Ostade. He also was active in stage acting and poetry. He stayed in Haarlem and Amsterdam until 1631, …
- Peter Benoit
Peter Benoit (born August 17,1834, died March 8, 1901) was a Belgian composer and a music teacher. He founded the Royal Flemish Conservatory and had a great influence on modern Flemish music.
- Guillaume Dufay
Guillaume Dufay (Du Fay, Du Fayt) (?August 5, 1397 - November 27, 1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer and music theorist of the late Middle Ages/early Renaissance. As the central figure in the Burgundian School, he was the most famous and influential composer in Europe in the mid-15th century.
- Marie-Rose Morel
Marie-Rose Louise Constant Morel (born August 26 1972 in Antwerp, Belgium) is a Belgian, Flemish politician and member of the Flemish Parliament for the Vlaams Belang since 2004, after leaving the N-VA. She recently moved to Schoten where she became active in local politics. In 1994, she was elected 'Miss Flanders'.
- Abraham Ortelius
Abraham Ortelius appeared before the end of 1572; twenty-five editions came out before Ortelius' death in 1598; and several others were published subsequently, for the atlas continued to be in demand till about 1612. Most of the maps were admittedly reproductions (a list of 87 authors is given in the first "Theatrum" by Ortelius himself, growing to 183 names in the 1601 Latin edition), and many discrepancies of delineation or nomenclature occur.
- Guido Gezelle
Guido Gezelle (May 1, 1830 - November 27, 1899) was a Flemish writer and poet and a Roman Catholic priest. He was born in Bruges in the province of West Flanders, where he also spent most of his life. He was ordained a priest in 1854, and worked as a teacher and priest in Roeselare. He was always interested in all things in English and was given the prestigious right of being the priest for the 'English Convent' in Bruges.
- Karel Dillen
Karel Dillen (16 October 1925, Antwerp - 27 April 2007, Schilde) was a Belgian politician and a Flemish nationalist. In 1977 he established the Vlaams Nationale Partij ("Flemish National Party"), which became Vlaams Blok at the elections of 1978. He was president of the Vlaams Blok (later renamed Vlaams Belang) until he appointed Frank Vanhecke as his successor in 1996. Karel Dillen was a Member of the European Parliament between 1994 and 2004, …
- Frank Vandenbroucke
Frank Ignace Georgette Vandenbroucke (born 21 october 1955 in Leuven) is a Belgian, Flemish politician, and member of the SP.a. He is currently the Flemish minister for Work, Education and Training.
- Louis Paul Boon
Louis Paul Boon (15 March 1912 - 10 May 1979) was a Flemish journalist and novelist who is considered one of the major 20th century writers in the Dutch language. He forsook the literary Dutch of the Netherlands for regional Flemish words and expressions with which he colored his writing. Born Lodewijk Paul Aalbrecht Boon in Aalst, Belgium to a working-class family, Boon left school at age 16 to work for his father as a carriage painter.
- Matthias Storme
Matthias Edward Storme (Ghent, 1959-) is a Belgian lawyer, liberal conservative academic, thinker and politician.
- Koenraad Elst
Koenraad Elst is a Belgian writer and orientalist (without institutional affiliation). He has authored fifteen books on topics related to Hinduism, Indian history, and Indian politics.
- Hendrik Conscience
Hendrik Conscience, "What a Mother can Suffer" (1843), "Siska van Roosemaei" (1844), "Lambrecht Hensmans" (1847), "Jacob van Artevelde" (1849), and "The Conscript" (1850). During these years he lived a variegated existence, for some thirteen months actually as an undergardener in a country house, but finally as secretary to the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.
- Jef Geeraerts
Jef Geeraerts (born Antwerp, February 23, 1930) is a Flemish writer. He was a colonial administrator in Belgian Congo. On the independence of the Congo he sent his wife and children back to Belgium and in August 1960 he himself returned to Belgium. During the next six years he was paid by the government (return program). After that time he needed to find a job to survive. He decided to become a writer and went to the University of Brussels to study Germanic languages.
- Wilfried Martens
Wilfried A.E. Martens (born 19 April 1936) is a Belgian politician. He was born in Sleidinge (East Flanders). Martens has been Prime Minister nine times: four times from 3 April 1979 to 6 April 1981 and five times from 17 December 1981 to 7 March 1992. Martens was Chairman of the Belgian CVP (now renamed Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams CD&V) from 1972 - 79, sitting as a Deputy in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives (federal parliament) from 1974 - 91, …