9/19/21: Our Last Hurrah in Brussels

Imagine waking up on a Sunday morning in one of the world's capitals and finding barely any cars on any roads, and just exclusively a zillion cyclists of all ages and people on scooters? That's what Steven and I discovered last Sunday in Brussels. Here's a shot of one of the major thoroughfares with the Royal Palace on the right.

In the center of the huge Place Royale square was the massive Eglise St. Jacques-sur-Coudenberg. A couple of days ago we had stopped to look at the church but it was shut then.

Even though eighty percent of Belgians claim Catholicism as their religion, there were fewer than ten people attending Mass on Sunday.

It was great fun seeing literally thousands and thousands of people out getting exercise but we had to be even more careful than we had previously trying to dodge buses, trams, and cyclists and scooter riders!

Three museums that covered much of the history of Western painting comprised the Royal Museums of Fine Arts. Unfortunately, the Old Masters Museum of pre-1850s art was closed so we spent time instead at the Magritte Museum which celebrated the Belgian Surrealist painter, and the Fin-de-Siecle Museum of art from 1850-1910.

We were teased by views of the Old Masters Museum in the galleries above the grand lobby.

Really cute was the Origami for Life art installation that included more than 20,000 origami bird designs by Charles Kaisin I read that last year's origami project was a "Solidarity and participatory project realised by the entire population during the (Covid-19) lockdown." How does one begin to clean these origami pieces?!

An elevator operator took us upstairs to the Magritte Museum's plus third level, not to be confused with the building's minus eight-level that we found ourselves on later! He took careful precautions standing behind the barrier while three groups of just two people each stood in the other corners of the elevator!

We've seen countless signs since the pandemic began about 18 months ago warning people to be careful and the protective measures that must be taken but never had we been asked to 'push doors open with our elbows'!

Rene Magritte was born in 1898 into a middle-class Belgian family and moved at the age of 17 to study art in Brussels. In his 20s he dabbled in a variety of styles - Post-Impressionism, Futurism, and Cubism in search of his unique style. At the end of 1924, Magritte created his first surrealist works. Three books in 1926 announced the constitution of a surrealist group in Belgium with Magritte, Mesens, Nouge, Goermams, and composer Andre Souris at its core.

In 1922, he married his childhood sweetheart, Georgette Berger, who became his lifelong muse, model, and companion.

Influenced by the French Dada and Surrealist movements, travel writer Rick Steves wrote that Magritte became intrigued with "the idea of painting dreamscapes that capture an air of mystery." Though Magritte had painted other surrealist works before 1927, The Man from the Sea was considered his first 'true' surrealist work. The painting featured a man with a wood-block head on a beach pulling a lever.  

Magritte and his friends took wacky photos with them often in distorted poses.

During the Depression years, Magritte did ad work and portraits to survive as the galleries that had supported him closed down. He returned to Brussels from Paris and painted very little until 1934.

I don't ever remember being in an art museum where signs in each room proclaimed 'Silence' and the walls were as black as dirt. I wasn't wild about the ambiance! I wasn't sure whether the second photo below was one of Magritte's paintings or the museum's instruction for us to shh!

The above may well have been Magritte's because he began writing words on paintings. This was called Reflections on Time.

Magritte's most famous work was of a tobacco pipe that is in the LA County Museum of Art. In that painting, Magritte wrote in French, "This is not a pipe." We know, of course, it wasn't a pipe but rather a painting of a pipe! Here was his similar painting that was done two decades later in 1952 that translates to "This is still not a pipe." The title was aptly called Treachery of Images as it made us really examine the painting.

I didn't understand the meaning behind Magritte's use of the word 'canon' again in this painting as it translates to cannon.

A portrait of his wife:

During WW II when Belgium was occupied by the Germans, he began an Impressionist period. Magritte began using birds as a metaphor for the longing to be free as he did in this portrait of Georgette. A common theme of his work was the inclusion of clouds where the foreground and background seemed to shift.

Magritte joined the Communist Party in 1945 and created a series of pen and ink drawings to illustrate a book that appeared in 1948.

I am far too staid to appreciate Magritte's technicolor nude of Georgette. It and the following paintings were created during his Recognition Period up to 1950.

As he went through a period of comic-book-inspired paintings, one included the man with the long green nose, which was very different from his normal photorealistic style. 

During his Mature Years from 1951-1967, he mixed his trademark symbols, including clouds, doves, balls, open windows, and landscapes in new ways. I could not for the life of me understand the title of this one, Married Priest.

Bowler hats became another signature object in his paintings as in this one called Good Faith.

Empire of Lights was a painting of a typical bourgeois house at twilight that suggested even 'well-scrubbed suburbia' might possess a disturbing air of mystery.

Am I the only one who doesn't 'get' the title of this serene cloud painting, The Curse that Magritte painted in 1960?

The Magrittes in front of his painting above at a gallery opening in New York: 

Though Magritte is now known as Belgium's most well-known 20th-century artist, it took two decades before his peculiar brand of Surrealism became popular. The juxtaposition of everyday objects made unnaturally large or small, and his use of people morphing into animals or inanimate objects can be seen as playful for some, or disorienting and even disturbing for others. 

As Brussels likes to think of itself as the capital of Art Nouveau and the crossroads of Europe, the Fin-de-Siecle Museum made a compelling case. Many cultural trends converged in the Belgian capital to create great art around the year 1900, the turn of the century or fin-de-siecle. To reach the museum we had to walk down several levels. We were greeted by paintings of distinguished men in suits in ladies in gowns depicting the elegance of the era. These wealthy industrialists were the people who paid for and consumed the art.

Black and white photographs of Brussels showed this was a time of great progress with the train, camera, and telegraph. 

In the late 1800s, the Impressionism revolution caught on in painting with painters emerging from their studios to paint the ‘real’ world rather than serene landscapes, Greek gods, and stuffy aristocrats as Steves wrote. The harsh reality of peasant lives and factory workers was captured as was the hustle and bustle of modern life and painting landscapes in ‘plein air.’ 

One beauty was The Seine at Grands-Jatte by Georges Seurat who took Impressionism to the extreme by painting small dots of primary colors that blended at a distance to form objects. Don’t his bright colors perfectly capture the sunlit atmosphere of this hazy day?

The French artist Seurat introduced Pointillism in 1886 as a personal response to the issues of light, form, and color that had preoccupied the Impressionists up to then. The technique of painting with dots was based on the scientific classification of colors by physicist Michel Chevreul. La Grande Jatte was a small island on the edge of Paris that was a popular Sunday destination. There, people could walk, dance, and practice water sports. It achieved international fame following Seurat's painting.

Though Paul Gaugin was taught the Impressionist style, we know that he soon developed his own unique style. In Breton Calvary aka The Green Christ, he used the bold, black coloring book outlines of more Primitive art. The background looked less like Brittany where I spent a summer in the 1970s and more like Tahiti where Gaugin would soon settle.

When James Ensor (1860-1949), an acclaimed Belgian art prodigy, submitted his Impressionist-style works for exhibition at the Brussels Salon when he was just 22, they were immediately rejected. 

Ensor withdrew from the public eye and went on to paint Shocked Masks, a murky scene that was set in a small room of an ordinary couple wearing grotesque masks. Once again, his painting met with more criticism. Ensor painted the world as he saw it for the next 60 years - full of "stupid-looking crowds of cruel strangers who mocked the viewer."

Down on the minus 7 level, we saw the importance opera played in turn-of-the-century life. Painters, writers, composers, and directors, collaborated to design lavish sets and costumes.

It was hard to walk on by The Caress of the Sphinx by Fernand Khnopff, Ensor's college buddy. The painting depicted a young man cozying up to a cheetah girl. Khnopff was a fan of portraying women as femmes fatales that were intended to provoke base emotions.

I found the following paintings far more my cup of tea. As you may have figured out by now, though I appreciated Magritte's genius as a Surrealist painter and some of the turn-of-the-century painters displayed here, they were not my taste. I was glad to be introduced to works that challenged my taste at the museums more than 'enjoying' what we had seen.

On level minus 8 was a stunning collection of Art Nouveau flowery vases. Those, I emphatically did like!

Next to the museum was a small, pleasant sculpture garden with a statue by Aristide Maillot, a contemporary of Rodin. The River depicted a woman sprawled on her side in the water. If you see her as looking terrified, you'd be right as she was originally to be a victim of war. When Steven and I next visit our daughter and son-in-law in New York, we'd like to see how the copy of this work compares at the New York Museum of Modern Art.

Down the street from the museums was Notre-Dame du Sablon Church, considered one of the jewels of 15th-century architecture even though it took 150 years to build.

Inside, the simple gray stone was 'lit' by the stained-glass windows with rows of saints in Gothic niches topped by coats of arms.

Halfway up the nave was an artistically carved pulpit that was supported by an angel and animals that represented the Evangelists. 

The church's claim to fame was a copy of the small wooden statue of Mary dressed in white with a lace veil next to the altar. The original statue was thought to have miraculous powers that saved Brussels from the plague in 1348. The church was decorated with several images of boats as a religious woman had stolen the Mary statue away from Antwerp on a boat. When Antwerp's citizens tried to stop the woman, the statue froze them in their tracks. The people of Brussels welcomed Mary with a big parade, one that is still held every summer.

Behind the altar were some glorious, original 15th-century windows that bathed the church in light.

Across from the church was a sweet little park, Place du Petit Sablon, which was a delightful respite from the busy city center and all the crazy cyclists.

Its central fountain honored two local nobles who, after promoting tolerance during the Inquisition, were executed. The men, one a Catholic and the other a Protestant were executed on Grand Place in 1568.

On either side of the fountain were statues representing hometown thinkers of the 16th-century, a time of great intellectual accomplishments.

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Around the park were a further 48 much smaller statues atop the wrought-iron fence that symbolized 16th-century craftsmen guilds.

As we strolled down the street, we paused to admire the Royal Musical Conservatory that was built between 1872 and 1876 and inspired by the Louvre.

Almost next door was the Great Synagogue of Brussels in 'romano-byzantine white stone' in 1878. The huge facade was topped with a niche holding the Star of David and the Tables of the Law.

Up ahead was the Palais de Justice that we'd first seen from a distance several days before. Although it was almost impossible to appreciate because of the scaffolding that had covered it since the end of WW II after the Nazis had set fire to it. The late 19th-century building, built with proceeds from when tiny Belgium was a world power and Africa's wealthy Congo region became King Leopold II's personal fiefdom. The building's six-acre size was as big as a baseball stadium and its dome taller than St. Peter's in Rome!

Crossing over Place Poelaert, the square in front of the Justice building, was a tad nerve-wracking with the constant stream of bikes coming from all directions!

From an elevated viewpoint beyond the square, we had some panoramic views of the entire city.

I liked being able to pick out the Atomium sculpture in the middle background that we'd had fun seeing up close our first day in Brussels. I wondered if someone there was looking right back at us!

On the square was a memorial to the two world wars that had a devastating effect on Belgium.

One of the countless charming squares in Brussels:

Rue de Rollebeek was another delightful pedestrian-only lane that looked like it did back in 1695 before the city was bombarded by Louis XIV of France during the Nine Years' War when France fought against almost everyone else in Europe. 

Chocolatier Wittamer served to-die-for looking bonbons but the line was long.

The Corner Tower was one of the few sections of Brussels' medieval city wall that stood over one of seven gates along the 2.5- mile-long wall that enclosed 13th-century Brussels.

In a most charming square called Place de la Vieille Halle aux Bles was a statue that honored famous crooner and Brussels native Jacques Brel. I was very familiar with his music but had thought he was French.

It was amusing seeing the Garderobe Mannequis Pis, the small museum dedicated to the peeing boy's costumes through the years.

I loved the vibrant arts scene throughout the capital city with eyecatching murals on the sides of buildings. 

For several minutes before reaching this cafe/bar Steven and I had heard the achingly familiar tunes of Neil Young being sung. 

I don't know whether it was because it was a weekend or the car-free ban had brought everyone and their uncle out downtown but there was a huge crowd around the Mannequin Pis. It had been nothing like that just a few days ago!

The mob of people precluded our seeing the sign which listed which outfit the boy was wearing that day. 

Even the nearby chocolate shop got into the Mannequin Pis frenzy!

Thanks to our hometown reader and good friend John for sending me this photo from his family's visit to Brussels way back in 1958 for the World's Fair when they stopped to see the peeing boy! Thanks, John, as it's fun to see a black-and-white photo for the first time in ages and wondering what outfit he might have been dressed in then.

Thanks to UK readers and bloggers Phil and Michaela for commenting on my earlier post about the peeing boy statue and saying there was also a peeing girl statue, Jeanneke Pis. Nothing like equal opportunity when it comes to peeing statues in Brussels is there?! Not many people must be aware of this one, or possibly care, because there were only a handful of people traipsing up the narrow, dead-end alley to reach it. In addition, there was absolutely no signage pointing visitors to its location unlike all those to the extremely popular Mannequin Pis.

According to legend, this fountain was built in honor of loyalty as a very old 'custom' had it that one's wish would be granted inf coins are thrown into the fountain's bowl. The coins "bear witness to tenderness, virtue, and admiration for the loved one with the wish to remain faithful to one another." Sounded like a swindle to me! 

When Steven and I were in the huge park opposite the Royal Palace a couple of days ago, there was a reference to this fun statue located by the beautiful glass-covered arcade.

We found Brussels to be fascinating and very vibrant with its mix of Old World charm, fun-to-explore neighborhoods, and irreverent statues! We were quite happy that we'd been able to tack on several days in Brussels after not being able to stop in the Netherlands initially as planned because of their Covid-19 restrictions as we were able to get a fuller sense of Europe's capital city and also explore nearby Waterloo.

Next post: On to Antwerp, the city of diamonds, the art of Rubens, a red light district to rival Amsterdam's and so much more!

Posted on September 24th, 2021, from Bruges, the most charming city in all of Europe! Steven and I are in a bit of a quandary now as we just discovered yesterday that no Americans, regardless of vaccination status, are permitted to travel to Luxembourg which was supposed to have been our next destination. We canceled our hotel reservation with no penalty but have to 'eat' our Swissair flight that we had booked from there to Zurich. So, we have four days to go somewhere before arriving in Switzerland - I wonder where that will be. Ahh, the joys of traveling in the midst of Covid!