In the early 1500s, Antwerp briefly became one of the Western World’s main trade centers. “Up to 40% of the globe’s trade passed through Antwerp’s port, and along with silk from Turkey, peppercorns and diamonds from Africa and silver from America came immigrants and new ideas,” Newell-Hanson points out in her T Magazine article. “Although this golden age was short lived, it forged the city’s rich and enduring cultural life. The economic boom created a market for art, allowing for printing shops, coffee houses and guilds to form.”  

It’s in this historic yet dynamic context that Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts came into being. Established in 1663 by David Teniers the Younger (painter to the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm and Don Juan of Austria), the academy is one of the oldest of its kind in Europe. “Its alumni, ranging from Vincent van Gogh (1885-86) to fashion designer Demna Gvasalia (2002-06), have continued to shape the world’s culture,” Newell-Hanson continues.  

Another reason why Antwerp’s cultural scene flourishes resides in the way the worlds of business and art seamlessly come together and find one another in the city. Indeed, “Antwerp’s mercantile and artistic communities have converged in its social life,” Newell-Hanson indicates. “In the 1980s, for example, the city’s abundant warehouses helped cultivate a thriving underground scene.”  

The New York Times journalist further illustrates Antwerp’s “historic marriage of art and commerce” through a series of entertaining yet insightful anecdotes shared by artists such as Ann Demeulemeester, Luc Tuymans, Kati Heck and various others. These stories lead Newell-Hanson to conclude: “For a city whose culture has depended on trade since its inception, on an openness to whatever innovation comes through its docks, the burden of tradition is less stifling in Antwerp than it might be for young artists in less changeable cities. While there is an artistic legacy, there is also a desire for knowledge that is outward-facing rather than self-contented.”