Travel Belgium About Brussels Musees Royaux Des Beaux Arts Cubists Expressionists And Fauvists
A stairway leads down from yellow-coded Level -2 to the green area, whose six subterranean half-floors (Levels -3 to -8) hold a diverse collection of modern art and sculpture. It's a challenging collection of international dimensions that starts as it means to continue - at the entrance to
Level -3/4 - with a lumpy, uncompromising Henry Moore and an eerie Francis Bacon,
The Pope with Owls . Beyond lies an assortment of works by Picasso, Braque and Matisse, a Dufy
Port of Marseilles , and two fanciful paintings by Chagall, one of which is the endearingly eccentric The Frog
that Wanted to Make Itself as Big as a Bull . Another highlight is Léon Spilliaert's evocations of intense loneliness, from monochromatic beaches to empty rooms and train cars. Spilliaert (1881-1946) lived in
Ostend, the setting for much of his work, including the piercing Woman on the
Dyke . Another noteworthy Belgian is Constant Permeke (1886-1952), whose grim and gritty Expressionism is best illustrated by The Potato Eater of 1935.