Magritte, a different view of reality

22/03/2019

Ten years after it opened, the Magritte Museum is the most visited museum in the country, with 300,000 visitors a year, 80% of them from overseas. The world's largest collection of works by René Magritte - no fewer than 230! - can be found at Place Royale, in the heart of the capital.

René Magritte would have celebrated his 120th birthday in 2018. He was born in Lessines, near Charleroi, and is still considered one of the greatest Surrealist painters. The only museum entirely dedicated to this inventor of the Surrealist vision is in Brussels.

Magritte offers a different way of "seeing" what is real. There is also the question of what he meant by the word "reality". His thought process was fundamental, in that from reality comes irony, and from irony, Magritte created the surreal, unless this is a different vision of reality? And what exactly is "reality"? Oils, gouaches, drawings, sculptures and objects, as well as advertisements, sheet music, photos and films... with more than 200 works, the Museum presents the world's largest collection dedicated to this important 20th-century artist.

For a biography of the artist, see this page.