Apr 27th - Brussels

 Off ‘Museuming’(!) today and to the ‘3 in 1’ the ‘Museum of Fine Arts’.  The three different museums housed here are the ‘Fin de Siècle’ (End of the Century), the ‘Magritte’ (the Belgian surrealist), and the ‘Musée Oldmasters’ (not surprisingly home to a number of old masters! 😊).  

The ‘F de S’ covers a number of artistic movements from the late 1800’s, such as Impressionism and Art Nouveau, while being represented by artists including the likes of Gauguin, Seurat, van Gogh, and Rodin.  There’s some great artwork here and it’s also been really well curated. 

The ‘Magritte’.  As one of the founding fathers of the Surrealism movement Magritte is celebrated as one of Brussels' finest artists and it was interesting to see how his style had changed over the years. 

In the ‘Old Masters’ we saw works by such noted artists as Hieronymus Bosch, Rubens, van Dyck, Steen, and a large collection Bruegel. The latter, I have to admit, is up there among my favourite artists.  There were also many more works by other Flemish, Dutch, French and Italian masters.

Post-museums we went for another wander around town, making sure we took in ‘Mannekin Pis’, an early 1600’s Brussels landmark, that is a bronze fountain sculpture depicting a little naked boy pissing into the fountain's basin.  To ensure equality we also visited the much younger and female equivalent, ‘Jeanneke Pis’, made in the 1980’s.  Both quite amusing but also coin collectors for local charities which is nice.