Although I normally write about music, today I'm going to focus on art.
Since I've visited the
Royal Museum Of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB) in Brussels yesterday, I feel the need to tell you guys about it.
The great cities of Europe have their famous museums. Paris has the Louvre and Centre Pompidou, London has British Museum, Tate Modern etc., Madrid has the Prado, Rome has the Vatican Museums. Like those big cities, Brussels has the RMFAB.
In contrast with the 5.000.000 visitors/year of the British Museum, the RMFAB even hasn't got 1/10 of that. And that's absolutely wonderful. You can enjoy the magnificent art, in a quiet environment, how it should be, not with thousands and thousands of annoying idiots around your head.
And if you would think that there aren't many visitors because the art isn't that great, forget it. The RMFAB is the greatest undiscovered treasure of Belgium.
Among many and many others the museum has art of (15th Century) Rogier Van Der Weyden (16th century) Jan Brueghel, Peter Brueghel I & II, (17th/18th Century) Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, Jaques-Louis David, (19th century) Henry Van De Velde, James Ensor, Vincent Van Gogh, Edward Burne-Jones, (20th Century) René Magritte, Pablo Picasso, Paul Delvoux, Karel Appel, Salvador Dali, Panamarenko, Francis Bacon, Jan Fabre, Luc Tuymans, Marcel Broodthaers and Joan Miro.
The museum is quite gigantic with many galleries and a beautiful Big hall. It even has a gallery with enormous paintings of Rubens. I'm talking about paintings which are taller than my house. The RMFAB has probably the second largest collection of
Rubens-art in the world (after the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp).
This is one of the gigantic pieces of Rubens, called the Torture of St. Levinas.
His tongue is pulled out of his mouth and fed to the dog. Great! Isn't it?
Another incredible painting is
The Death of Marat (Le Mort De Marat) of
Jaques-Louis David. This world-famous piece shows Jean-Paul Marat, stabbed in his bath. Marat was a radical journalist and one of the important politicians during the French Revolution. He was killed by one of his enemies who blamed him to be responsible for the September Massacres.
Napoleon exiled David, who was a friend of Marat, to Brussels where he stayed for the rest of his days, that's why his family gave the painting to the museum.
The Death Of Marat is still seen as one of the most important images of the French Revolution.
The museum also has many works of
Jan Brueghel and
Pieter Brueghel the Elder, as well of
Pieter Brueghel the Younger.
For me, the absolute highlight of their collection is Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus.
It's the most famous image about the story of Icarus, and yet the original painting is in the RMFAB.
The English Poet
H.Auden even made a poem about it with the name Musée des Beaux-Arts after the RMFAB.
One of the important themes of the paintings in the museum is "
The Temptation of St. Anthony". You can find a very good copy of The big triptych painting of Flemish primitive
Hieronymus Bosch in the Museum. In those times, the artists made more than one exemplar of their paintings.
And also "The Temptation of St. Anthony" made by Spanish surrealist
Salvador Dali is enjoying the attention in the RMFAB.
It's one of Dali's most important paintings and it is said to be influenced by the version of H. Bosch. Belgium is so proud to have the original masterpiece they've put it on Belgian Postmarks.
When you've seen the ancient art collection you can descend through the museum to the Modern art which is not less than 8 floors under street-level.
One of the finest pieces the museum possesses is
The Pope And The Owls of
Francis Bacon. The Irish painter made 35 pope-portrets, they represent pope Innocentius X and are based on the portret made by Spanish master
Diego Velasquez. Bacon wants to undermine the worthy portret of Velasquez by painting a very expressionistic version of it. Francis Bacon wants to show the true nature of humanity, just like Edward Munch.
Velasquez' version:
Some of my other highlights of the museum are:
Rogier Van Der Weyden - De Bewening, Nood Gods (The Lamentation): beautiful piece of the second most important painter of his time (after Van Eyck).
Pieter Brueghel The Elder - Fall of Rebel Angels:
Jan Baptist Conneroy - View On Brussels: gigantic and amazing view on Brussels in the 17th century.
Edward Burne-Jones - The Wedding of Psyche:
Jan Fabre - : A big globe, full of green bugs.
The museum itself is also one of the most underrated buildings of Brussels, at the back of it there is a magnificent court which is under restoration. But You'll never find a tourist there.
The museum isn't even expensive at all, for 2 euro's you're go to go when you're a student. You can combine your visit with the new museum of the Belgian surrealistic painter Magritte.
I hope I've convinced you all to go and have a look in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium. More information about the Museum and it's collection:
www.fine-arts-museum.be
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