Brussels has a concentration of art museums located at Art Mountain in the centre of the city and near the palace; there is a wonderful view here with landscaped gardens. There are a couple of art museums located here. The museums form the collective Royal Museums of Fine Art of Belgium. One is the Old Masters, and another is the Magritte Museum. The museums are very different. The museums and Art Mountain are located only a few minute walk from the main central station (not the Eurostar terminal). I visited it twice this year.
My second visit to Art Mountain was in late April, and spring had brought the mountain to life when compared to my earlier visit in early February. The tulips were nearly over, but some of the dark purple or black ones remained, and the colour looked beautiful.
This is compared to the photographs that I captured in early April, which shows that the plants were hibernating.
Looking up Art Mountain, there are an attractive row of buildings and the palace in the background. There was a green apple sculpture on top of one of the museums, but I did not notice it there in April. In April, there were a fw sculptures dotted around in an outdoor exhibition.
I visited the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Dutch Masters collection, which was founded by Napoleon. This collection contains a lot of religious Christian artwork as that was a popular subject then and realistic paintings, but other parts of the museum had modern art and surrealism and special exhibitions, which I did not see. In the Dutch Masters collections, works by Bruegel, Peter Paul Reubens, van Dyck, and others.
I preferred the pastoral and landscape artworks and still life paintings. Dutch artists were known for their still life and floral artwork. I took some photographs of some of the paintings that I enjoyed.
The above photograph is amazing in that the artist captured the wood grain and even etchings in the grain along with the pinned rooster.
Bruegel is one of the most celebrated artists in Brussels, and his paintings contain slice of life themes. I enjoyed seeing the ones in the snow.
The museum is centered around an interior courtyard, and around these are rooms with different artworks.
I just love the landscapes, which give a glimpse at the rural slice of life and depict how people used to live.
The other museum is Magritte Museum, which shows surrealist paintings by Magritte. There are a couple other museums or areas showing more modern artwork too. I think a great place to start is with the Old Masters as these are the historic and popular artworks, and the more modern and surrealist works may appeal to particular lovers of those art genres.
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