Comic Strip City Walk: the Funny Side of Brussels by Kamin Mohammadi
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Long outshone by its glitzy neighbours Paris and Amsterdam, Brussels is often overlooked by travellers. Branded as being ‘boring’, Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union, has a reputation for producing enough red tape to tie the whole of Europe up in knots.
Perhaps this undeserved representation is a conspiracy by the locals, keen to keep this gem to themselves. In truth, Brussels is a city that eats some of the best provincial cuisine in Europe, wears some of its most innovative fashions, has some of the finest architecture on the continent and a lively café culture that could give both Paris and Amsterdam an inferiority complex.
The Most Beautiful Square in Europe
From the architectural masterpiece of the Grand Place which Victor Hugo called "the most beautiful square in Europe", to the steel and glass edifices of the European Quarter which houses the European Parliament, Brussels is an intriguing place of sharp contrasts.
Not just a capital city, but three capitals all at once; the capital of Flanders, of Belgium and of the European Union. Despite being located in the Flemish speaking part of Belgium, Brussels resolutely speaks French.
The grand Royal Palace of the Upper Town reminds you that Belgium still has one of Europe’s monarchies living just miles away from the European Parliament, the engine of the federal super-state: the European Union.
With just a million residents, Brussels’ size belies its many different neighbourhoods each with their own character. The Royal Quarter of the Upper Town is a magnificent collection of palaces housing some of the finest art in the world, while the newly opened Magritte Museum, housed within the complex of palaces, reminds you that Brussels gave birth to one of the most famous surrealists of all: painter René Magritte.
The Humble Comic
A few minutes’ walk away in the Lower Town you can admire a beautiful Art Nouveau building by Victor Horta; the father of the floral architectural style exemplified by Art Nouveau. Get lost in the exhibits presented inside; another art form that Brussels has contributed to the world which is known here as BD (bande desinée) and to the rest of the world as comic strips.
This is the Belgian Comic Strip Centre, a museum dedicated to the 9th Art, otherwise known as the humble comic strip, which has been around for over 20 years. With 700 native comic strip authors, Belgium boasts more comic strip artists per square kilometre than any other country in the world. Here the form was elevated from entertainment for kids to an art form in its own right.
Moving away from the American influences, the Belgian cartoonists were the creators of a @9th Art'that appealed to all readerships. The best known is Hergé: creator of Tintin. There is Marc Sleen, the creator of Nero, who was cited in the Guinness Book of Records as the author of the longest comic strip drawn by a single author, as well as Peyo, the creator of The Smurfs, and many others.
Hergé’s uncluttered technique of clear line drawing did not only influence those comic strip artists who came after him but also the Pop Art movement; both Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein recognised Hergé as an inspiration for Pop Art. Warhol even declared that the Belgian artist “influenced my work as much as Disney,” and his influence continues; with Steven Spielberg's Tintin trilogy being a great example.
Mural Mania
Brussels started to celebrate the art form it has made its own in 1993, when it began decking its walls with a series of large comic strip murals, bringing not just life to drab walls but an awareness of this unique art that blends reality with the imagination.
Now 31 in total, they surprise unwitting passers-by with their larger-than-life characters, rubbing along comfortably with the city’s historic architecture; some of which is blended into the murals with many taking the city as their backgrounds. Armed with a map of the Comic Strip Trail, tracing even part of the route is a good way to penetrate some of the city’s Lower Town neighbourhoods and soak up their different atmospheres.
Start with the Hergé mural on Rue de l’étuve in the heart of the Lower Town. A giant Tintin and Captain Haddock run down a fire escape while across the road, tourists snap away at the tiny statue of the Manneken Pis standing in his marble niche. The 30cm bronze statue, of a boy relieving himself, was first placed here in 1619. The tradition for visiting heads of state, to present the Manneken Pis with a miniature version of their national costume, also dates back to 17th century and the collection of 650 outfits (including an Elvis suit) is housed in the Musée de Ville nearby.
This area, leading to the Grand Place and the streets around it, were the civic and commercial hub of the city as it took shape in 15th century. The winding medieval streets are cobblestoned and pedestrianised, and afford a glimpse of the city as it were with its bustle and noise.
The Grand Place itself is an awe-inspiring cobblestone square, a set piece of a place ablaze with elaborate stone work, arcades and luscious gilding. The executions that once drew crowds are no longer but the crowds still come to take in one of the most beautiful squares in Europe.
The Hotel de Ville, with its delicately wrought stone, columns and towers, dates from 1459 and is the finest civic building in the country, filled with 15th-century tapestries and art. The dazzling medieval and baroque facades of the guild houses that line the giant square, are a show of Flemish Renaissance architecture unrivalled anywhere in the world.
The Comic Strip Trail
Picking up the Comic Strip Trail behind the Hotel de Ville, a wealth of murals usher you down the Rue du Marché Au Charbon into the tiny but lively Quartier Saint-Jacques. Typical of Brussels’ propensity for neighbourhood life, and with over 20 bars and restaurants here, this is a place to start sampling some of the 400 varieties of Belgian beer and contemplate the murals that lead through the area. Françoise Schuiten’s mural, Le Passage, is typical of the architectural bent of Brussels’ native comic strips; its grey columns and shadowy figures contrasting sharply with the white spire of the Hotel de Ville peeking over rooftops in front.
Further along is Frank Pé’s jolly scene of two friends strolling in the sky above the city and the Francis Carin mural of Victor Sackville, his sophisticated sleuth, in a tense moment on the streets of 1930s Brussels. Ducking down the tiny Rue de Bons Secours takes you past a Tibet and Duchateau mural. Making ingenious uses of the building by incorporating its drainpipes into the drawing, it brings you to the wide boulevard Anspach.
Birthplace of the City
Striking west of the boulevard Anspach, the Comic Strip Trail leads, via a Marc Sleen mural of Nero (the madcap protagonist of more than 200 stories) into St-Géry. Considered the birthplace of the city, a chapel to the saint was erected here in 6th century. However, it is around the 19th-century Halles St-Géry that the neighbourhood congregates; its elaborate glass and wrought iron façade no longer used as a meat market but instead a cultural centre with a hip café. The bars spill their tables onto the streets, the trees are illuminated with fairy lights and the locals gather to drink and socialise.
The laid-back atmosphere extends to the Rue des Chartreuse where a couple of trees made of steel signal the hip combination of modern and retro, bars and cafés jostle for space with vintage clothes shops and ultra-modern architects’ practices. At the Café Greenwich (no. 7), completed in 1916, the interior remains little changed from the time when Magritte visited, and the toilets downstairs are an ode to Art Nouveau.
Fashionista
The sweeping Rue Antoine Danseart, which runs parallel, is the hub for home-grown fashion. The distinctive style of domestic fashion designers has long since caught the imagination of international fashionista's and, this street, is the one to wander in search of the next Martin Margiela.
At Stijl (no. 74), works of graduates from the acclaimed Antwerp Art Academy are stocked: including Dries Van Noten and Ann Demeulemeester. Annemie Verbeke’s beautiful knitwear features in her shop at no. 64 and Nicolas Woit’s womenswear wows at no. 80. Duck around the corner to Rue du Houblon to see Blake and Mortimer; the well-loved characters of one of Belgium’s most famous comic strip artists – Edgar P Jacobs. The mural was reproduced here after the original building it was painted on was demolished.
Dazzling Brussels
The large Dupa mural of Cubitus, the white talking dog whose adventures are perennially popular, takes the place of the Manneken Pis in its niche in Brussels. Pointing the way to Rue de Flandre; on the corner of which stands an anonymous white building with huge fashion cachet. It is the House of Martin Margiela, the flagship store of the mysterious Belgian designer whose clothes thrill the fashion world each season.
A short walk takes you to the Place St Catherine, where the baroque church of St Catherine looms over a pleasant square; once the city’s fish market and which now lined with seafood restaurants. The Quai aux Briques, which extends away from the church, is a lively parade of seafood restaurants and, despite being in the heart of the city, recalls evenings spent by the sea.
Whether with comic strips or Art Nouveau, with classical painting or surrealist puzzles, Brussels can dazzle. But unlike Paris or Amsterdam, it does not set out to woo. Rather, Brussels entertains itself first and is happy to let the intrepid tourist join in the fun – if they can find it.
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