(28 Aug 2019) LEAD IN: For most of us, the closest we'll ever get to a Belgian masterpiece is on a visit to one of the country's famous museums.
But now, thanks to a partnership between the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium and electronics giant Samsung, art lovers can enjoy famous works on the walls of their their own living room, every day, for a fee.
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In this grand room of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, visitors are studying a masterpiece of the Flemish Renaissance.
The exquisite detail of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1562 painting "The Fall of the Rebel Angels" has transfixed generations.
The work is just one small part of this museum's collection.
But once you've studied up close the works of Bruegel - and those of other masters like German painter Hans Memling - you can't take the images home.
You couldn't, that is, until now.
Isabelle Vanhoonacker is the Managing Director of Public Services at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.
She says this television - manufactured by electronics giant Samsung and marketed as "The Frame" - is the key to bringing the best of the Belgian masters into your living room when it is used in Art Mode.
"We are participating in the Samsung initiative because we think technology has a lot of possibilities to spread our heritage in another way than in the museum. So with Samsung "Frame" we can bring the artwork into the living room of the people, and hope that they will afterwards want to visit the museum and see the authentic work," she explains.
The partnership between Samsung and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium is just the latest between a major art institution and the South Korean company.
As part of the deal, Samsung will display 22 of the Belgian gallery's Flemish masterpieces on its Frame TVs, accessible via the Samsung Art Store.
Samsung has already struck similar agreements with the Tate Gallery in London, the Uffizi Museum in Florence, the Prado in Madrid, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Albertina Museum in Vienna.
Johan Van Campenhout is Samsung Belgium's Lifestyle Project Manager for TV.
"It's subscription-based, so you have two formulas: either you pay either five Euro ($5.60) a month and you have unlimited access - personally I call it the "Spotify of art". So you pay five Euro a month, you have unlimited access to all the artworks that are in there - more than 1,200 artworks. Or you can also decide to pay a one-time fee for one artwork and then that will cost you 20 euros ($22.50)," he explains.
Among the works that Samsung will display is Pieter Bruegel the Elder's "Census at Bethlehem", painted in 1566.
Johan Van Campenhout says the digital copy appears as close as possible to the original work, thanks to QLED lighting technology.
"The brightness sensor measures the lightening (sic) in your living space, and based on these results it adapts the backlight of the panel so it would really look like a real picture, because if you show this picture on another TV you will always have the feeling you are looking at a TV," he claims.
Back at the gallery - and in front of the original work - Vanhoonacker agrees the digital version isn't a bad stand-in.
Samsung says "The Frame" is a long-term project which will be assessed regularly for possible additions and changes.
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts, meanwhile, is already planning to widen the number of works available on Samsung's Art Store, by adding lesser known paintings.
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