Eurostar to Brussels

I’ve never been on Eurostar, so my husband decided we should have a short break in Brussels. He knows it as well as he knows Paris, from working there, and it had the advantage of allowing us to pick off Waterloo – not chronological, but then we’ve given up on that.

So one Saturday we got up early and walked to the station to take the train to St Pancras, and then changed to Eurostar. Two international trains were leaving within three minutes of each other, so the queues for security were a bit fraught, but the journey was uneventful and we got to our hotel (off Avenue Louise and rather smartly modern) mid afternoon.

Unfortunately the journey did rather knock Phil for six – we only had small tow along cases, but maybe it was that, I don’t know. He did recover sufficiently to go down to the Grande Place and we found a good place for moules frites - the restorative effect a plate of chips has on him is amazing. The service and food were both really good for somewhere in such a touristy spot, but halfway through it was afflicted by a crowd of very rowdy drunken men. They were placed as far as possible from us, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the waiters, and worried that they might be British. They did sing a couple of pop songs in English, but that doesn’t prove anything.  No wonder so many landlords hate the customers.

So we had an early night and a late morning and eventually Phil was able to set off the Musee de Beaux Arts. Public transport in Brussels isn’t the easiest thing to navigate – although tram and bus stops are named, there are no indicators inside the bus or tram, and no information at the stops as to how long you might have to wait. It’s like going back ten years in time. Luckily the pile of the Beaux Arts is unmistakeable.

The museum is divided into old and modern. It was the old stuff we particularly wanted to see, which was just as well as a lot of the modern art bit was closed due to problems with the roof.  I think, now, that in spite of not being particularly visual and much more language oriented, I’ve looked at enough pictures to instantly perceive the good stuff. (Like wine – I don’t drink much, but you can keep all your boring “drinkable” Australian stuff. Give me a French claret you can practically cut with a knife and fork, or a Gewurztraminer.  If I like it, it’s invariably expensive. It’s just as well I don’t drink a lot!)

Anyway, there were a number of seventeenth century portraits and the three I liked turned out to be two Rubens and a Rembrandt. I don’t normally like Rubens – all that billowing flesh, tree trunk legs and shiny skin – but there was a study of a black man’s head, a preparation for an “Adoration of the Magi”, and a portrait of a woman. It was a pair, her and her husband, and I’m sure getting painted was the husband’s idea, because she looked faintly surly, face closed, determined not to give anything away.  They were wonderful.

But choosing just one picture was exceptionally difficult.

 They have a number of Breughels, including “Landscape with the fall of Icarus”, about which Auden wrote a poem:

http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/auden.html

There’s always such a lot going on in a Breughel painting, and Auden is quite right – in the “Arrival at Bethlehem”, you have to look quite hard for Mary and Joseph; they are just part of what’s going on, unimportant to everyone else in the picture. They’re all going about their lives, quite oblivious of the momentous event, or the tragedy of Icarus’ fall. There are no shining lights or haloes. But luckily Phil said he’d definitely choose a Breughel, so that let me off the hook.

I was very tempted by a sensitive portrait by Rogier van Der Weyden, but in the end chose a Cranach, of Venus. She’s very slender and stark naked except for a large feathered hat, and has unfeasibly long legs. She’s not at all voluptuous, but she has sly, knowing cat’s eyes and smile, and she’s clearly trouble. She’s accompanied by a cupid who has stolen a dish of honey and is being attacked by bees, just in case you didn’t get the hint from her expression. It’s just gorgeous.

http://www.opac-fabritius.be/fr/F_database.htm

The museum also possesses David’s painting of “The Death of Marat”, which surprised me because I just assumed it would be in France somewhere. It’s very impressive, but the propaganda is just a bit too blatant.

Museum of Musical Intruments

After lunch we went to the Museum of Musical Instruments. It’s in an old Art Nouveau department store, worth seeing for itself, but the museum is great fun. You are given an audioguide and can listen to all the instruments in the cases. The gamelan cases were fun, and the Ivory Coast case makes it quite clear where jazz originated. They also had the curved trumpets which we had at numbers one son’s wedding in Nepal, which look like the ones you see on pictures of the Roman army, and sound like bagpipes. There were a lot of real bagpipes, too, and innumerable versions of the zither.  So a highly enjoyable afternoon, and I’m having a shawm. It’s a lovely sound, and I could probably manage to play it, at least a bit.