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It's an old parlor game: can you name 10 famous Belgians? Belgium may be a tiny nation, and often the butt of its neighbors' jokes, but it can claim two 20th century artistic giants who would make it onto that list: Hergé — or at least his globetrotting comic-strip character Tintin — and René Magritte, the subversive surrealist painter. Both created iconic images that are recognizable the world over. And since June 2, both of them, finally, have museums of their own in their native country, dedicated to their respective contributions to the evolution of 20th century art. The museums trace the bold innovations and ideas that show up in the artists' work while also revealing the contrasting outlooks the two men held in their parallel lives.
Situated in Louvain-La-Neuve, a new town some 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Brussels, the Hergé Museum is a stunning piece of architecture. Designed by Pritzker Prize winner Christian de Portzamparc, its sleek concrete, steel and glass form makes it look like a stranded ocean liner, an image that deliberately echoes Tintin's many maritime exploits. Built at a cost of $20 million, and financed by Hergé's second wife Fanny, the museum reflects Hergé's huge corpus of work, much of which has, until now, been languishing largely unseen in studios and bank vaults. The displays focus not only on Tintin, but also the many other comic-strip characters Hergé created, and the myriad influences on his work. (See pictures of Belgium.)
Hergé's real name was Georges Remi; his pseudonym comes from the French pronunciation of his inverted initials, R.G. He was just 21 when he created Tintin, who made his debut in January 1929 in the children's newspaper Le Petit Vingtième. The comic strip was an instant success. Readers lapped up the stories of Tintin's adventures, which Hergé filled with quick wit and rich personalities (enthusiasts say he should be recognized as a literary great). They were illustrated in a style that Hergé perfected called ligne Claire, or clear line: simple lines of almost uniform thickness, with no shading. His technique, which created an uncluttered image with robust, universal elements, influenced cartoonists that followed, such as Asterix creators Goscinny and Uderzo, and the Smurfs' Peyo. And while Tintin never made it big in America, Pop Art stars Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein recognized Hergé as an inspiration for the Pop Art movement. The museum has three portraits of Hergé painted by Warhol, who once said that the Belgian artist "influenced my work as much as Disney," and Lichtenstein designed the cover for Frederic Tuten's 1996 novel Tintin in the New World. (Read: "Tintin Travels to Tinseltown.")
The Tintin comic strip ran for over half a century, but Hergé maintained that his boy wonder was always just shy of his 18th birthday. Ostensibly a reporter — although he is seen filing a story in only one frame in the entire 24-book oeuvre — Tintin took on various roles as detective, Boy Scout and secret agent. As time went by, he accumulated friends: along with his astute and faithful dog, Snowy, his retinue included cantankerous sailor Captain Haddock; eccentric egghead Professor Calculus; and the doltish, bowler-hatted, doppelgänger detectives, Thomson and Thompson. And his adventures took on more elaborate themes, from drug-smuggling to Cold War spying and even space travel; Tintin reached the moon 15 years before Neil Armstrong. Since Hergé first drew his quiffed hero, about 230 million Tintin comic books have sold around the world, translated into more than 80 languages. And now Hollywood has got its hands on him, with Steven Spielberg producing a Tintin movie trilogy in 3D. (See a TIME video about 3D.)
Hergé rarely traveled to the far-flung places he described so vividly in stories such as Tintin in Tibet and Tintin in the Congo. But he researched fastidiously, and the museum displays some of the 30,000 cuttings from magazines and newspapers that he hoarded over the years. In one of the eight themed galleries, original artwork sits alongside photos of speeding cars, royal palaces and African witch doctors, which Hergé used for reference and inspiration. "He had a forensic dedication to accuracy," says Nick Rodwell, head of Moulinsart, the organization that runs Hergé's estate. "It gave his stories that extra authenticity, making them realistic as well as visually elegant."
There is also a gallery devoted to the science of Tintin, with scale models of cartoon inventions like Professor Calculus' glorious red-and-white moon rocket; another holds examples of imaginative merchandising that Hergé himself oversaw. Together, the displays are a testament to what Michael Farr, author of Tintin: The Complete Companion, describes as Tintin's timeless appeal: "Tintin is universal. He transcends fashion, age and nationality. These are classic, inexhaustible stories, beautifully drawn, beautifully written."
Tintin fans will rejoice in finally having a permanent tribute to Hergé's creation. And the new Magritte Museum in Brussels was also long overdue, says Charly Herscovici, head of the Magritte Foundation: "Brussels needs a Magritte museum just like Paris has a Picasso museum and Amsterdam a Van Gogh museum." Housed in the prim, neoclassical Hotel Altenloh just a stone's throw from the Royal Palace, the Magritte Museum is part of the complex of buildings that comprise Belgium's Royal Museums of Fine Art. But the sober-minded setting is something of a deception: echoing the artist's mischievous streak, the museum's windows have been replaced by realistic paintings of plump clouds against a blue sky.
Inside, the space has been completely remodeled to accommodate the 200 Magritte items on display: paintings, drawings, gouaches, posters, advertising art, letters, photographs, sculptures and films. It cost $10 million to build, most of that paid by Franco-Belgian energy giant GDF Suez, which is using the museum as a laboratory of green technologies like LED lights and climate-control systems.
Unlike Hergé, Magritte was a late bloomer. Born in 1898, his artistic talents initially led him into wallpaper design and advertising (a field in which Hergé briefly moonlighted too). It wasn't until 1945 that he was able to support himself solely though his art. But Magritte's advertising apprenticeship taught him about the efficiency of images, the shock value of a grotesque combination or a violent contradiction. And he delivered them prolifically, from a rainfall of men in bowler hats and portraits of eagles ossified into plants to his famous picture of a pipe, subtitled "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe). Language was a lifelong fixation for the artist. He felt that because it was used to represent the truth, it was a betrayal: his picture of a pipe was only a simulacrum of the real thing.
Although Magritte lived a quiet life with his wife, enjoying simple pleasures like walking his dog and playing chess with his friends, he had a rebellious streak. He briefly joined the Communist Party in 1945 and even contributed poster designs to the cause. "My art is valid only insofar as it is opposed to the bourgeois ideal in whose name life is being extinguished," he said. Hergé admired Magritte, and even bought one of his paintings. Magritte, however, saw Tintin as too colonial, Catholic and conservative. In the 1930s, Hergé drew the cover for a political pamphlet for Léon Degrelle, leader of the Belgian fascists; at the same time, Magritte designed a caricature of Degrelle looking into a mirror and seeing an image of Adolf Hitler looking back at him. (See pictures of Hitler's rise to power.)
But like Hergé, Magritte created his art for mass consumption and strived to reproduce it as widely as possible. One of his most emblematic images is The Empire of Lights, a mysterious and disturbing juxtaposition of a housefront lit by a streetlamp set under a daytime sky. Magritte painted it 16 times in oil and a further seven times in gouache. "Magritte's focus was on images and the spread of ideas," says Michel Draguet, Director General of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. "He was obsessed with the idea of mass representation, and he loved seeing his pictures on postcards."
And there, Hergé and Magritte have perhaps their strongest connection: they created works that had both a lasting artistic impact and an enduring popular appeal. Today, their playful images still feed intellectual debate and drive merchandise sales. And they are both famous Belgians.
Read "Take a Bite of Belgium."
- Leo Cendrowicz / Louvain-La-Neuve
- The tiny nation of Belgium produced two of the world's most well-known artists: Tintin creator Hergé and surrealist painter René Magritte. Now, finally, the country has built two museums in honor of its renowned citizens