The Magritte Museum, which opened in early June last year, is an elegantly revamped wing of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Brussels, a 10-minute walk from the Magritte-themed Hotel Amigo – of which more later. Previously, the Magritte collection was housed in just one room of the Fine Arts museum, but its 250 works are now displayed in a completely renovated building with a brand-new ticket hall, shop and café, plus three floors dedicated to Magritte’s long journey from young, confused artist to one of the world’s most famous surrealists. We are so familiar now with his iconic images – the bowler-hatted men raining down on a town, the apples, the horse-bells, the perfect blue skies, the pipe – it is fascinating to see his earlier work when he was finding his feet.
The museum features clouds projected out of its windows (almost unnoticeable during the day, alarming by night) and a dark interior laid out over three storeys. Appropriately enough for a surrealist, the collection and the Magritte story begin on the third floor. A word of caution, though: the really famous Magritte images – theDaring Sleeper, The Central Story, The Lovers, This Is Not A Pipe – are still in their various museums in America and Paris. This is a more personal collection, but still features dozens of recognisable images plus some really wonderful designs, photographs, letters and film clips – some 250 pieces in all.
The key to understanding Magritte, as a weekend in Brussels will show, is not to think of him as a painter but as a cross between a graphic artists and an ideas man. His paintings have little in terms of depth – he was not interested in painting as such – but they are visual ideas or conundrums in the surrealist tradition. This becomes apparent as you walk around floor three. After a flirtation with futurism and constructivism – both pretty impressive – you come face-to-face with his designs for cigarette adverts and posters. These are all about maximum effect from simple images, something at which he became brilliant. There is also a quite lovely sketch of Georgette, his wife.
Then, in 1923, Magritte saw his first painting by de Chirico – and the effect was profound. His Man From The Sea (1927) has the same empty landscape and eerie feeling, and from here on he became a fully-fledged surrealist, combining everyday objects in strange juxtapositions. The museum then takes you through a strange journey, with Magritte ultimately thrown out of the surrealist movement because of Georgette’s religious beliefs. Of course, being a surrealist at heart, sex is never far from his mind – his Black Magic (1945) is a nude of Georgette in which her naked body becomes Magritte blue halfway up. The museum ends with one of his most famous images, The Empire Of Lights (1954),a house apparently in darkness but actually featuring daylight.
