The itinerary of Jean-Baptiste!Descamps' 'Voyage Pittoresque de la Flandre et du Brabant' (1769)

When he publishes his Voyage Pittoresque de la Flandre et du Brabant in 1769, Jean-Baptiste Descamps (1715-1791) joins a tradition to which he all the same brings remarkable innovations. The analysis of his itinerary, of the sources and of the content of the work enables us to argue that it is the first artistic guide of the southern Lower Countries published in France. Beside its importance for the study of travel literature, it offers a choice text for the historian of art and of the taste. It defines, indeed, a way of conceiving the various schools of painting and to confront it with the ideas of nation and country, at a time when these three notion are in complete evolution.