REOPENING OF THE PERMANENT COLLECTION - BELGIAN ART. Between dreams and reality

25.06 > 20.09.2015
Exhibition extended

The Museum of Ixelles invites you to walk the path of Belgian art, through a selection of masterpieces from the collections.

This panorama provides an insight into the major artistic developments in Belgium in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as illustrating the depth, richness and uniqueness of this artistic period. Cradled between international influences and the development of specific local characteristics, Belgian art unfolds from a fundamental quest of freedom and modernity.  These two objectives serve to sustain coherence in the art as it evolves and forms deep affinity for reality and a propensity for a fertile imagination: an art between dreams and reality.

With works by Constantin Meunier, Eugène Laermans, Théo Van Rysselberghe, Émile Claus, Georges Lemmen, Fernand Khnopff, Gustave De Smet, Constant Permeke, René Magritte, Paul Delvaux and Pierre Alechinsky.

  Catalogue of the exhibition
  Claire Leblanc, L’ART BELGE. Entre rêves et réalités. Collections du Musée d’Ixelles, Bruxelles
  Silvana Editoriale, 175 pages, 119 colour illustrations.
  French edition, 25€.
 

A genuine discovery of Belgian art

Consisting of more than 10,000 works from the 17^th to the 20^th century, the Museum of Ixelles’ collections are particularly rich in works of Belgian art of the 19^th, 20^th and 21^st centuries: a period that corresponds to the history of Belgian modern art. We are pleased to present, in recently renovated galleries, a new exhibition centred on Belgian art.

The exhibition examines the issue of the relationship with reality, a key concern in Belgian art that gave rise to extremely diverse responses from social realism to the fantastic, through various forms of expressionism or humour. Organized by theme in order to highlight the constants and specifics of the art history, the visitor will discover major movements from realism to abstraction to contemporary art, through impressionism, neo-impressionism, symbolism, fauvism, expressionism and surrealism.

We invite you to experience a genuine discovery of Belgian art. Art that on the one hand maintains a continued commitment to reality but at the same time retains an acute sensitivity to fantasy: an art between dreams and reality.