A Journey Through Brussels Museums Following Flemish Masters and Magritte

The museums in Brussels intricately connect Flemish master paintings with Magritte's surrealism, Art Nouveau architecture, comics, design, street art, and international contemporary art. Starting from the Royal Museums of Fine Arts at Mont des Arts, moving to the Comic Strip Center in the city center and CENTRALE, as well as MIMA by the canals, WIELS to the south, and the Van Buuren Museum, reveals the various cultural layers of Belgium's multilingual capital.

Although the Royal Museums complex may seem like a single entrance, each museum has different opening hours and ticket prices, making it easy to encounter long closures. MIMA, WIELS, and the Design Museum should be separated as they are located further away from the center. Check for reservations and seasonal operations of the Art Nouveau houses, and before planning your day, check the official sites of major exhibition centers to see if there are any installation periods. It’s better to compare the differing districts and architecture slowly within Brussels rather than fitting in nearby cities connected by train on the same day.

In Brussels, let’s compare Flemish paintings that depict reality intricately, Magritte's works that give reality a strange twist, the sequential images of comics, and contemporary art rooted in street culture. Artists from different eras all use objects and language, expressions and scenes to make audiences believe or doubt the stories they present. The architecture of Horta and Van Buuren is a prime example of art extending into the entire living space.

Multilingual signage may cause confusion in searching for artwork, so it’s a good idea to take note of the names of institutions in French and Dutch. Let’s also explore the classification of European central collections and non-European artifacts in the descriptions. After viewing, try to choose one scene from each genre: classical painting, surrealism, comics, and contemporary installation, to compare how their approaches to representing reality differ. Venturing slightly away from the tourist routes around the Grand Place to the canals and southern residential areas reveals a sharper contrast of urban culture.