Creative Drive

The extensive collections of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB) range across no less than six centuries of art. The many sketches in the collection testify to the creative process driving artworks from all periods.

Creative Drive: Sketches in the Collections of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium presents a rich array of sketches: painted, drawn, or modelled, intended for paintings, tapestries, reliefs, sculptures, or engravings, studies for individual figures, details, or entire compositions, and more. Without exception, they reveal the hand of the artist at work.

A considered selection of 200 works of art and more than 300 illustrations offers unique insight into the creative process, from the first, often tentative steps to the final work, with underdrawings by the Flemish Primitives, brilliant observations from nature, and three-dimensional models for sculpture, as well as the virtuoso oil sketches of Rubens and Van Dyck and intriguing sketchbooks of Fernand Khnopff.

This book is published on the occasion of the exhibition Drafts: From Rubens to Khnopff, organised by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium from 11 October 2024 to 16 February 2025.