CLAEISSENS, Antoon
(b. ca. 1538, Brugge, d. 1613, Brugge)

Mars Vanquishing Ignorance

1605
Oil on canvas, 197,5 x 279 cm
Groeninge Museum, Bruges

Antoon Claeissens painted this allegory in 1605, probably for the Town Hall in Bruges. Its principal meaning can be deciphered easily, but it probably also contained a further political significance which has yet to be found. The painting is entitled Mars, surrounded by the Liberal Arts, vanquishing Ignorance. Ignorance may have stood here for Protestantism.