7 Best Sights in Brussels, Belgium

It fell to the land of Tintin to create the world's first museum dedicated to the ninth art—comic strips. While comics have often struggled for artistic recognition, they have been taken seriously in Belgium for decades. In the Belgian Comic Strip Center, they are wedded to another strongly Belgian art form: Art Nouveau. Based in an elegant 1903 Victor Horta–designed building, the museum is long on the history of the genre, if a little short on kid-friendly interaction. In addition to Tintin, the collection includes more than 400 original plates and 25,000 cartoon works. A library and brasserie are added incentives, but best of all is the bookshop, which sells a comprehensive collection of graphic novels and comic books, albeit largely in French or Dutch. Keep an eye out for the comic-strip murals that dot the city; walking maps showing the location of each one can be found at the tourist information office.

After years of sharing display space in the neighboring museum complex on rue de la Régence, Surrealist genius René Magritte (1898–1967) finally got his own, much-deserved space. The collection starts on level three, tracing Magritte's life and work chronologically. The artist's mother committed suicide when he was 13; certainly, her profession as a milliner is difficult to separate from his later obsession with hats. The museum expands key moments through letters, sculptures, films, and, of course, some 200 paintings, including the haunting The Domain of Arnheim.

An art gallery that focuses on Leuven and Flemish Brabant artists from the Middle Ages until the 19th century. Its permanent collection includes the work of sculptor Jef Lambreaux, whose mildly erotic Temple of Human Passions caused such a scandal when it opened in Brussels in 1886, and George Minne, a leading figure from the Latem School of Impressionists who set up their base in the villages south of Ghent. Temporary exhibitions ranging from the Old Masters to more contemporary art mix things up a bit. 

Nineteenth-century painter and sculptor Constantin Meunier (1831–1905) made his mark capturing the hardships of Belgian workers in a distinctive, realistic style. Examples of his work are displayed in his former house and studio.

Art from the fringes. Set in an old print house, this museum turns its lens on outsider, naive, and folk art in particular, though you'll find more traditional pieces as well among its rotating collection, 

The Oldmasters Museum pays special attention to the so-called Flemish Primitives of the 15th century, who revolutionized the art of painting with oil. The Spanish and the Austrians pilfered some of the finest works, but there's plenty left to savor, including works by Memling, Petrus Christus, Rogier van der Weyden, and Hieronymus Bosch. The collection of pieces by Pieter Bruegel the Elder is particularly eye-catching; it includes The Fall of Icarus, in which the figure of the mythological hero disappearing in the sea is but one detail of a scene where people continue to go about their business. There are English-language brochures and guided tours available.

This workshop-museum began life in 1850 when the painter, sculptor, and writer Antoine Wiertz (1806--65) agreed to leave his collection to the Belgian government before his death. All the more surprising given he was a somewhat controversial figure, drawn to create huge canvases of often shocking subjects, from a naked woman staring down a skeleton, to gruesome accounts of Greek history, and the truly macabre Premature Burial, where a hand is seen clawing its way out of a coffin.