The Groeningemuseum holds one of the most significant collections of Flemish Primitive painting in existence — Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Rogier van der Weyden, Gerard David, Hugo van der Goes. The collection is the reason Bruges remains artistically significant beyond its medieval architecture: these are the paintings that defined European painting's relationship with light, surface, and the representation of cloth, skin, and the Flemish interior for two centuries. The museum building is modest from the street — an entrance on a quiet lane off the Dijver canal walk — and the galleries progress from medieval panel painting through Flemish Renaissance to Baroque and contemporary work. The contemporary section holds work including that of René Magritte and the Belgian Expressionists. The painting by Jan van Eyck, the Madonna with Canon van der Paele, is the correct centrepiece: a room-filling panel of supernatural technical precision, painted in 1436, hanging quietly in a room that is never crowded. The museum is small enough to see properly in two hours.
Historisch Centrum, Bruges, Belgium