The past is 
tangible in Flanders. Proud belfries bear witness to the time when towns were still independent powers. Churches and cathedrals display impressive art collections that attract tourists from all over the world. Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Ghent, Leuven and Mechelen are the Flemish art cities where you can admire this impressive past.
Flanders’ tangible past also extends to the work of the Flemish Primitives, the first golden age of Flemish painting (fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries). At the time, the Van Eyck brothers developed a technique which gave onlookers the impression that light emanated from a painting.
A next milestone came with the great Flemish Baroque painters such as Jacob Jordaens, Sir Anthony Van Dijck and Peter Paul Rubens, reputed for the voluptuous women in his paintings.
From the nineteenth century onwards painting became more important in Flanders again, including the work of Expressionist Constant Permeke and the highly individualistic James Ensor.