Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
Encyclopedia
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, French:
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique), is one of the most famous museums in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
.
The museum
The museums are situated in the capital BrusselsBrussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
in the downtown area on the Coudenberg
Coudenberg
Coudenberg or Koudenberg is a small hill in Brussels where the Palace of Coudenberg was built.For nearly 700 years, the Castle and then the Palace of Coudenberg were the seat of government of the counts, dukes, archdukes, kings, emperors and governors who from the 11th century until its...
. There are four museums connected with the Royal Museum, and two of them (the Museum of Ancient Art and the Museum of Modern Art, Brussels), are in the main building. The other two (the Constantin Meunier Museum and the Antoine Wiertz Museum) are dedicated to specific Belgian artists, are much smaller, and are located a few kilometers from the city center.
The Royal Museum contains over 20,000 drawings, sculptures, and paintings, which date from the early 15th century to the present. The museum has an extensive collection of Flemish painting
Flemish painting
Flemish painting flourished from the early 15th century until the 17th century. Flanders delivered the leading painters in Northern Europe and attracted many promising young painters from neighbouring countries. These painters were invited to work at foreign courts and had a Europe-wide influence...
, among them paintings by Bruegel and Rogier van der Weyden, Robert Campin
Robert Campin
Robert Campin , now usually identified as the artist known as the Master of Flémalle, is usually considered the first great master of Early Netherlandish painting...
(the Master of Flémalle), Anthony van Dyck
Anthony van Dyck
Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next...
, and Jacob Jordaens
Jacob Jordaens
Jacob Jordaens was one of three Flemish Baroque painters, along with Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, to bring prestige to the Antwerp school of painting. Unlike those contemporaries he never traveled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their...
. The museum is also proud of its "Rubens Room", which houses more than 20 paintings by the artist.
The painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
Landscape With The Fall of Icarus
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is a painting in oil on canvas long thought to be by Pieter Bruegel, although following technical examinations in 1996, that attribution is regarded as very doubtful, and it is now seen as a good early copy by an unknown artist of Bruegel's original, perhaps...
, long-attributed to Brueghel, is located here and forms the subject of W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
's famous poem Musée des Beaux Arts, named after the museum.
There are constant changing exhibitions.
The building
The main building which now houses the Museum of Ancient Art was built as the Palais des Beaux-Arts, designed by Belgian architect Alphonse BalatAlphonse Balat
Alphonse Hubert François Balat was a Belgian architect.He studied at the Academie of Namur and obtained his degree in architecture from the Academy of Antwerp in 1838....
and funded by King Leopold II. Balat was the king's principle architect, and this was one part of the king's vast building program for Belgium. The building was completed in 1887, and stands as an example of the Beaux-Arts architecture use of themed statuary to assert the identity and meaning of the building.
The extensive program of architectural sculpture includes the four figures of Music, Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting atop the four main piers, the work of sculptors Égide Mélot, Georges Geefs, Louis Samain, and Guillaume de Groot
Guillaume de Groot
Guillaume de Groot was a Belgian sculptor.Born in Brussels, he trained with sculptor Égide Mélot. His work includes:* figures of Namur and Luxembourg at the arch of the Cinquantenaire in Brussels...
respectively. The finial, gilded Genius of Art was also designed by de Groot. The three rondels of Rubens, van Ruysbroek
Jan van Ruysbroek (architect)
Jan van Ruysbroeck was a Flemish architect of the early 15th century . His best known work was the belfry of the Brussels Town Hall...
, and Jean de Bologne, who represent painting, architecture, and sculpture, are the work of Antoine-Joseph Van Rasbourgh, Antoine-Félix Bouré
Antoine-Félix Bouré
Antoine-Félix Bouré , known in his own time as Félix Bouré but sometimes found in modern scholarship as Antoine Bouré, was a Belgian sculptor, best known for his monumental lions.-Life and career:...
and Jean Cuypers. The two bas-relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
panels are Music by Thomas Vincotte
Thomas Vinçotte
Baron Thomas Jules Vinçotte was a Belgian sculptor and medallist.- Life :Vinçotte was the son of Jean-Marie Vinçotte, born in Borgerhout and brother of the engineer Robert Vinçotte...
and Industrial Arts by Charles Brunin. The two bronze groups on pedestals represent The Crowning of Art by Paul de Vigne
Paul de Vigne
Paul de Vigne , Belgian sculptor, was born at Ghent. He was trained by his father, a statuary, and began by exhibiting his Fra Angeico da Fiesole at the Ghent Salon in 1868. In 1872 he exhibited at the Brussels Salon a marble statue, Heliotrope , and in 1875, at Brussels, Beatrix and Domenica...
, and The Teaching of Art by Charles van der Stappen
Charles van der Stappen
Charles van der Stappen , was a Belgian sculptor, born in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode.- Life :Educated at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels , van der Stappen's contribution to the Brussels Salon was "The Faun's Toilet" of 1869, and thereafter he began to produce work of a high and novel...
.
See also
- Belgian Federal Science Policy OfficeBelgian Federal Science Policy OfficeThe Belgian Federal Science Policy Office or BELSPO is a Belgian government institution responsible for coordinating science policy at a federal level. It designs and implements research programmes and networks and manages the participation of Belgium in European and international organisations...
- Centre for Fine Arts
- Colijn de CoterColijn de CoterColijn de Coter was an early Netherlandish painter who produced mainly altarpieces. He worked primarily in Brussels and Antwerp in present-day Belgium . His name was sometimes given as Colijn van Brusele , indicating that he hailed from Brussels or at the least lived there most of his active life...
- Culture of BelgiumCulture of BelgiumA discussion of Belgian culture requires the language and what they eat discussing both those aspects of cultural life shared by 'all' or most of the Belgians, regardless of what language they speak, and also, the differences between the main cultural communities: the Flemish people from...
- Royal Museums for Art and History
External links
- Official website (EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
) - Search collections