Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

When in Brussels it is necessary to visit the museums, given that they have gone to so much trouble to put them all together in one place.  We managed to visit two of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium - the Art and History Museum with a good collection of Dutch and Flemish works and the Rene Magritte Museum - based on the work of Magritte a Belgian Surrealist - over the course of one day.  I am focusing here on the first one. You need to see the Magritte Museum for yourself. 

One needs a theme to survive such a day and I decided to look for details in the paintings. I hit upon this idea when we saw a short film on Bruegel’s “The Census at Bethlehem” which focused on a number of small details in the painting including

     a woman stealing vegetables from someone’s garden, 

You can see here leaning over the fence at the back

    Mary on a donkey, looking different from everyone else in the picture, Joseph who proved he was a carpenter by bring his saw to the census 

why would you bring your saw?

and a range of other totally unrelated scenes including the slaughter of a pig. So inspired, I started looking for details in all the paintings and discovered the murderer of St Livinius feeding his tongue to his dog,

can't waste a good tongue

 

a puppy waiting for drops of blood from a slaughtered boar, 

and a scary woman who was on the losing side during the fall of the rebel angels. 

Pretty impressive elbow flexibility

One other notable painting that managed to find its way here is the murder of Marat painted by David.  It is lucky that it was displayed here, because there has not been any tendency to "Revolution Wash" the painting. Marat was not a nice man, responsible for the deaths of many in the reign of terror after the revolution.  His assassin was a woman who claimed he was responsible for the death of one of her family members and she was happy to take him out as her last act. 

you have seen it before but look as the signature

David, who had made a career in painting large propaganda scenes over the years had managed to become a favoured painter of the revolutionaries and he cemented this by painting Marat as a hero. The commentator in the audio guide felt this was inappropriate and pointed out the many flaws in the representation, the least of which is the dedication above David's name, "A Marat" (to Marat).  I am sure they were good mates before 1789.

While looking for these details I did notice one other thing – the number of paintings which featured only women or women in the prominent or powerful position in the picture. There were many pictures where the subject was deliberately chosen (or so it seemed) to allow as many women as possible to be included. My guess is that the women of this part of the world were the main patrons of the arts, and the artists knew where their bread was buttered.  It makes a refreshing change from the constant portraits and action pictures of men chopping off heads or dominating the centre stage with self-important poses.

At least as many women as men in the wings and more in the main panel

A mother protecting her child

That said, later in the week we did visit the museum of Brussels and there were two exhibits that did stand out – both men.  Louis IVX, you can call him the sun king, and a knight.  Louis (we are on first name terms) stood out because the surrounding information pointed out that all the glorifying historical information you find in France fails to point out that he willfully and without provocation, ordered the Grand Plaza in Brussels to be burnt to the ground. The Brusselians (my word) had the last laugh because they rebuilt it almost immediately in stone and it still stands today.

The knight? Well, I just liked his attitude.

 

Catholics

The interesting part about Belgium is the diversity. It extends to religion as well as everything else, and Brussels claims to be 60% catholic, 30% no religion and 10% for the rest.  My mum always told me that Belgium was a Catholic country. She must have forgotten about the north half of the country.  In Brussels there are plenty of churches including the Cathedral

and St Catherine’s

The Aisle in St Catherine's

St Catherines Organ

St Catherine's famous for the statue of the black virgin which was thrown into the river by some Jews but floated and was later found. A miracle. Unfortunately, the statue was not there, replaced by a picture on a piece of curled up A4 paper.

 There were other interesting people though, like this one holding up the pulpit.

Although we were at the Cathedral at 9am on a Sunday, the turnout was so low that they were happy to see us at the back making up the numbers.  

Just a private service for a few diehards

We did not manage to keep the priest awake, he even slept through the organ playing which was a shame because it was very good.

This one was dozing, but the one up the front was in full voice.

Looking at the statue of the former King out the front of the Cathedral, the flags on the top and the pictures from the wedding of the current royal incumbents inside the church reminded me that Belgium is a constitutional monarchy where church, state and military live in a symbiotic relationship sharing power harvesting the spoils. 

 

On top of the recent British overkill all over Australian TV, it was just a little too much for this republican.

Brugge and Ghent

Belgium is a small place, so it is easy to have a quick look at the nearby cities of Brugge and Ghent. We took a bus tour and were treated to three commentaries – English, French and Spanish – all by the same woman who confessed that she would be starting a German course in January to round out her fundamental European language collection. 

She was very knowledgeable about the history, geography and culture, but did tell me that the sculpture on this building was Cicero being fed by his daughter when he was in prison, but it turns out to be a standard representation of Roman Charity which has several origin stories, none of them including Cicero. 

We also enjoyed some of the other ever present features of Belgium – cold and wind – all part of the experience. 

We met some women from Costa Rica on the bus, and on a particularly cold and wet segment of the tour we all decided that hot chocolate was the right option. Not as good as Spanish hot chocolate, or Costa Rician hot chocolate apparently. 

The buildings were great. 

The lunch equally good – no vegetables notwithstanding. The squares, the canals and the boats, the history and the culture all deserve much more time, better preparation and closer inspection.

The highlight of Ghent was, of course, the busses running along the road where the tram tracks had been filled in to stop the trams using them. 

Seems logical.

 Atomium

The Atomium was built as the centrepiece of the 1958 International Exhibition held in Brussels. Just like the Eifel Tower, it decided to stay around and live a life independent of the International Exhibition and has now become a symbol of Brussels. 

The Atomium was named by combining the word Atom (reflecting the crystal structure of the iron atom chosen as its shape) and the ending of Aluminium to represent the aluminium cladding used to cover the structure. The building fell into disrepair, but was restored in 2005. During the restoration, the aluminium cladding was replaced by Stainless Steel sheeting.  Nobody changed the name.

It is fun inside, with a lot of information about the 1958 IE including the fact that Australia did not attend – something about not being part of the modern world under Menzies – and interesting lighting in the journey through the tubes between the spheres. 

It rains a lot on Brussels

Riding to the top

At the top is, of course, a restaurant which we had to try.