Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique

davidx
davidx
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Musée d'Art Ancien visit

  • October 1, 2009
  • Rated 4 of 5 by artslover from Calgary, Alberta
Musée d'Art Ancien visit

The Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique is a collection of four museums with the two most important being the Musée d’Art Ancien and the Musée d’Art Moderne in the museum filled area near the Palais Royal and the Parc de Bruxelles. You can buy tickets to both or one. Too much museum going at one time makes my head hurt so we opted for the Ancien. Admission is €8 for adults, €2 for students – the best deal for students I have ever seen.

Ancien or Ancient is misleading. The museum contains 15th to 18th century art, mostly paintings, from the region. The building was built as an art museum in the early 1800s by Napoleon to house the many works (which had been confiscated during the French revolution) and could not fit into the Louvre in Paris. Because it was intended for viewing, the design works very well as you start on the upper story entrance and work you way around in a loop. No back tracking or dead ends like you get in many museums, including the Louvre.

The circuit starts with early Flemish artists such as Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Hieronymus Bosch, culminating in the Bruegel room. Later centuries include paintings of Pieter-Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacques Louis David.

The main floor contains special exhibits, Rembrandt when we were there, as well as a café and gift shop. The museum café offers beverages and light meals. We enjoyed some refreshments on the outside balcony overlooking a small botanical garden. The adjacent gift shop has a large collection of art books and is worth a visit just to look at the Art Deco design of the building itself.

From journal Weekend in Brussels

Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique

  • August 2, 2006
  • Rated 3 of 5 by Mandan Lynn from Smithwick, South Dakota
Musee Royaux des Beaux-Arts
Tuesday-Sunday 10:00-5:00 pm
Admission: 5,00 euros (students 3,50)

This includes the Ancient Art section and the Modern Art section. I think. At least, nobody stopped me going either place. When I bought my ticket, I was under the impression it was just for the modern art, but I guess it was for both.

I really enjoyed this collection, mostly paintings, some sculpture. Look for Rubens, Delacroix, and Vogels. There are lots of works by Dutch, Belgian, and French artists.

Lengthy captions are in Dutch, French, and English. Paintings that have only a title and artist listed are just in French and Dutch.

From journal Belgium: Waffles, Chocolate and More!

Editor Pick

Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique- Ancient

  • August 23, 2004
  • Rated 5 of 5 by melissa_bel from Hautrage, Belgium
Located on Place Royale, the Royal Fine Arts Museums are a must-see in Brussels.

In fact, there 2 main museums: Ancient Arts and Modern Arts. You enter the museum via a beautiful common room exhibiting giant paintings from the 19th century.

The Ancient Arts covers the 15th to 18th century with such highlights as Primitive Flemish like Rogier Van Der Weyden and Hieronymus Bosch (he has his own room).

One of my favourite of those ancient painters is Bruegel the Elder (I saw "Icarus's Fall" so many times in books... ) and its depiction of everyday life in the early Renaissance in the Low Countries. You can feel he really took pleasure in the little joys of the peasants' life at the time. His popular paintings are like little time capsule and show the simple life and pleasure of simple people.

If there is a Flemish painter I particularly like, it's Pieter-Paul Rubens. He also has his own room. I particularly love the sensuality of his paintings, the colours, the texture... His plump and rosy-cheeked female figures are very characteristic (yeah, they had other beauty criteria at the time). It's the baroque era folks!

One painting that struck me the most though was Jacques-Louis David's "Marat Assassiné". This is a painting that everybody has seen in his/her history schoolbook when it's time to talk about the French Revolution. Marat was a Revolution leader and was murdered while taking a bath by Charlotte Corday, who held him accountable for the Terror regime. After the fall of Napoleon, David lived (and died) in exile in Brussels and that's the reason why this painting is in Brussels and not at the Louvres. The simplicity and realism of this work is touching. Marat is in his bathtub, one of his arm just laying out of the tub with a quill in his hand (he was a writer for the paper called "L'ami du peuple") and looks peaceful, as if asleep. David was a personal friend of Marat so that explains it all. The painting is exposed on its own on an isolated wall leading the 19th-century paintings and marks the transition between the Ancient and Modern Art museums.

From journal Must-See Brussels

Editor Pick

Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique

  • April 20, 2004
  • Rated 4 of 5 by billmoy from Chicago, Illinois
Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique

This underrated museum complex, which contains the largest and most comprehensive art collection in Belgium, consists of the Museum of Ancient Art and the Museum of Modern Art. The Museum of Ancient Art was founded in 1801 and covers works from the 14th to the 18th Centuries. Begun in 1984, the Museum of Modern Art covers the 19th and 20th Centuries and was designed by architects Roger Bastin as a subterranean gallery with eight levels arranged around a light well. The two museums are connected by an underground passage. Try to plot your course ahead of time if you want to maximize your enjoyment, as the complex is quite large. There are color-coded "tours" that you can follow if you want to view the works of a particular century.

The Museum of Ancient Art was designed in a neoclassical style by Alphonse Balat in 1874. It features the great Flemish and Dutch Old Masters like Rubens, Bruegels, Bosch, Van der Weyden, Memling, Van Dyck, Jordaens, Hals, Rembrandt and Van Gogh. This is not exactly the Louvre (but that is an unfair comparison), but it is a very solid collection of art that any visitor will appreciate.

The Museum of Modern Art occupies the ground floor of the original building and the newer wing burrowed underground. My favorite pre-20th Century masterpiece here is the 1793 work "Death of Marat" by the chameleon-like French painter Jacques-Louis David. The main core of the new gallery is a circuit that goes down, sort of like a bunkered version of the great Frank Lloyd Wright spiral at the New York Guggenheim Museum. The new wing features two rooms; one each devoted to Belgian superstars Rene Magritte and Paul Delvaux. Many of your favorite modern artists are here – Ensor, Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Dali, Miro, Ernst, Bacon, Moore, Segal, Flavin, and many more.

South of the museum complex is a pleasant sculpture garden, with the figures intermingling with nature. "The River", a stunning sculpture considered to be Maillol’s last masterpiece, is a nude woman squirming afloat a reflecting pool. There are a few benches in this practically unnoticed garden.

The museum complex is closed on Mondays, and there is a mandatory coat check for security reasons. Some galleries are closed during the lunch hour, and there is a chart showing the daily projected closings. The art shop and cafeteria will help you spend your extra euros.

From journal Bill in Belgium - BRUSSELS

Musées Royaux des Beax Arts de Belgique

  • September 28, 2003
  • Rated 5 of 5 by davidx from Todmorden, United Kingdom
Technically this is two museums, one for Art Ancien [through the 18th century] and the other for Art Moderne [19th and 20th]. However, one ticket covers both and costs €5 for adults [€3.50 for concessionaries]. In many ways, the different centuries are all independent, as they had their own days of closure and meal breaks. Fortunately for me, the rooms containing Bosch, Brueghel, and Rubens were all conveniently timed, and it was fortunate probably that the 19th-century section was closed, as I should probably have missed the Museum of Musical Instuments, which is also a knock-out.

I was sorry that I could not appreciate Memling properly, but I had no problems with Brueghel or Hieronymus Bosch in that section. In particular, I enthused over the elder Brueghel's painting of the census scene at Bethlehem. As closing time was approaching for lunch I went quickly on to see the Rubens works, and again I found no difficulty in appreciating his works and his development. I had certainly not realised the extent to which he had changed after his visit to Italy.

I preferred the idea of the musical instruments to the 20th-century artwork and left accordingly after enjoying a small self-loaded salad plate in the cafeteria.

From journal Brussels without pissing

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