Posts Tagged ‘Brussels’
Silhouettes September 8th, 2010
There’s something very particular about silhouettes. They can help convey so much mood, drama and mystery.
Here is a small selection of silhouettes taken in places as diverse as London, Brussels and Normandy, France.
Above is a the equestrian statue of Godfrey de Bouillon which stands in the Royal Square in Brussels. The statue was made by Eugène Simonis, and inaugurated on August 24, 1848.
Above is the British Machine Gun Corps Memorial (also knows as The Boy David), which can today be found in the central section of Hyde Park Corner in London.
I couldn’t help but wonder about the link between machine guns and the German Zweihander/Greatsword (Yes, I know. But hey, I’m into swords).
One of the 48 statues representing the Medieval guilds of 16th century Brussels and which can be found atop neo-gothic columns surrounding the Place du Petit Sablon. The Place du Petit Sablon was built in built in 1890, and is a beautiful tree-lined park in central Brussels.
A statue atop a fountain in Hyde Park.
A kite caught in a tree on a beautiful day in Normandy, France.
Pigeon on the rails. Seen in Hyde Park.
More coming soon!
Tags: belgium, bouillon, boy david, british, Brussels, corps, david, England, france, godfrey, godfrey de bouillon, great sword, greatsword, Hyde Park, hyde park corner, kite, london, machine gun, machine gun corps memorial, medieval guild, memorial, normandy, park, petit sablon, pigeon, sablon, silhouette, statue, sword, two handed sword, UK, United Kingdom, zweihander
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Graffiti Town – Part III August 28th, 2010
Carrying on from Part I and Part II, this is the third and last instalment of the series on graffiti, wall art and tagging on the streets of Brussels.
I was struck by the contrast between the different forms of self-expression – the random destructiveness and vandalism that seem to be the hallmarks of tagging, versus the artistry and/or fun of graffiti and wall art.
I found the social commentary, spray-painted on the wall of a gas station, particularly amusing.
We are there. Clearly.
The entirety of the wall was used for the image. Yep, that means that everything from the windows to the drain pipe to the texture of the wall was drawn and painted.
Overkill, perhaps?
More coming soon!
Tags: belgium, Brussels, graffiti, tagging, wall art
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Walls August 24th, 2010
It seems that chunks of the Berlin Wall have found their way around the world. Some have notably settled around the EU Parliament buildings in Brussels.
Below are two pictures of two such segments.
Yep, that’s JFK‘s likeness. The second picture also features a guest appearance by Aung San Suu Kyi.
More coming soon!
Tags: Aung San Suu Kyi, berlin wall, Brussels, chunks, EU parliament, european parliament, european union, fitzgerald, JFK, john f kennedy, john kennedy, kennedy, parliament, segments
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Mirrors August 5th, 2010
I made this picture when wandering down Belliard Street in Brussels, Belgium.
More coming soon!
Tags: belgium, belliard, belliardstraat, Brussels, mirror, rue belliard, street
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Graffiti Town – Part II July 24th, 2010
Carrying on from Part I, this is the second instalment of what I now hope to turn into a three-part series on graffiti, tagging and wall art in Brussels.
These shots here were taken in the underground parking lot of the building one of my friends lives in. The building was named after an English icon and so the running theme seems to be all-English.
According to my friend, the reason all this graffiti was done is as follows: The building was originally a hospital. After the hospital was relocated, the building was left empty for a time. During that period, graffiti artists took advantage and ended up spray painting goodly portions of it. Later, when the building was restored and converted into apartments, the developers chose to commission the wall art a selection of which you see here.
Nothing says posh like fur, clearly.
This way to the basement.
Public school, anyone?
Keeping the peace.
I’m guessing the area, not the football club.
Oddly, rugby was featured, but not football.
Car wash!
And of course, Ascot. I guess you can’t have walls covered in references to everything posh and not cover Ascot.
More coming soon!
Tags: ascot, bentley, bobby, Brussels, building, car wash, carwash, chelsea, converted hospital, eton, graffiti, hospital, Hyde Park, parking, posh, rugby, underground, wall art
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Galerie du Roi July 14th, 2010
This was taken at the Galerie du Roi (Gallery of the King), one of the Royal Galleries of Saint-Hubert in Brussels, Belgium.
I loved the way the light from the arched glass roof high above shone down and transformed people into silhouettes, and the way their shadows stretched out before them.
More coming soon.
Tags: belgium, Brussels, galerie, galerie du roi, galeries, Galeries Royales, Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, galleries, gallery, gallery of the king, hubert, Koninklijke, Koninklijke Sint-Hubertusgalerijen, roi, Royal Galleries of Saint-Hubert, saint hubert, silhouette, Sint-Hubertus, Sint-Hubertusgalerijen, st hubert
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Graffiti Town – Part I June 27th, 2010
This here is the first of a two-part series on graffiti and wall art in Brussels, as promised a while back.
Most of the pictures below were taken on or in the side streets around Rue Haute and Rue Blaes.
More coming soon!
Tags: belgium, Brussels, graffiti, rue blaes, rue haute, wall art
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Flight of the Pigeons June 19th, 2010
I was wandering down a street at one point, when I noticed a large flock of pigeons flying overhead. They were circling and swooping in tight arcs, round and round. Someone was pigeon flying! Naturally, I paused to watch and snap a few pictures.
The art of pigeon flying remains quite popular in the Arab world. I’ve often see flocks of pigeons circling over the rooftops in Cairo, Beirut and Amman, for instance. But the shot above wasn’t taken anywhere in the Arab world. Can you guess where?
Brussels, Belgium. Yep.
Some say the use of pigeons to carry messages can be traced back to the ancient Persians (some 2800 years ago). The ancient Romans also used messenger pigeons in their military campaigns over 2000 years ago (for example, Julius Caesar was reputed to have used them in his conquest of Gaul). Use of pigeons to carry messages outside of a military setting – in a postal system – goes back to the late 10th Century at least in the Arab world, where it was developed under Fatimid rule.
The use of homing pigeons by the French during the siege of Paris in 1870-1871 gave new breath to their use in the military in Europe who used them extensively during World War I and again in World War II. You can find out more about war pigeons here.
There’s a memorial to those messenger pigeon trainers who fell in service to Belgium during World War I at one end of the garden at the far side of the Quai au Briques. Here’s a shot of it below.
All this may be interesting but it doesn’t explain why someone was flying pigeons in Brussels.
Turns out that the (modern) sport of pigeon racing was developed and gained immense popularity in Belgium in the middle of the 19th Century. The sport has since spread all over the world, though it seems to be suffering from a lack of interest by the general public. You can find out more about pigeon racing here.
More coming soon!
Tags: amman, ancient persian, ancient roman, arab, Beirut, belgium, bird training, Brussels, cairo, carrier, carrier pigeon, conquest of gaul, egypt, fatmid, gaul, great war, homing, homing pigeon, jordan, julius caesar, lebanon, message, persian, pigeon, pigeon post, pigeon racing, pigeon voyageur, post, postal system, racing, racing pigeon, roman, voyageur, war, war pigeon, world war i, world war ii, WWI, WWII
Posted in Animals, Travel/Urban | Comments (0)
Wall Art & Comics June 13th, 2010
Early this year I took a trip to Brussels to visit a friend.
I’d visited Brussels only once before for a day. And that as a small child. The one enduring impression I had of the city then was the sheer amount of graffiti all over the place.
After my visit this time, I can certainly confirm that wall art is certainly big over there.
I hope to share with you a short a series on graffiti and wall art in Brussels soon. Meanwhile, this here is a picture of the very first thing I saw upon exiting the Brussels Midi train station following my arrival:
The image, which took up the entirety of the wall of a tall building, is a spectacular reference to all manner of comic books characters prominent in popular culture in Europe and which were created by Belgian artists.
You can see characters from and references to: The Smurfs, Tintin, Leonard, Blake & Mortimer, Thorgal, Spirou, and many many more. Belgium has a long and illustrious history producing some of the best in comics and has been a major influencer in the development of comics in Europe. If you’d like to know more, see here and here.
More coming soon!
Tags: belgian comics, belgium, blake & mortimer, blake and mortimer, Brussels, brussels midi, comic book, comics, european comics, fantasio, franco-belgian comic, graffiti, leonard, smurfs, spirou, thorgal, tintin, train station, wall art
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Dinosaurs! June 3rd, 2010
I’m back from the pilgrimage! And I seem to finally have access to both my laptop and the internet on a semi-regular basis.
What can I tell you about the pilgrimage? No words can describe it really. Suffice it to say it’s probably the best single thing I’ve ever done in my life. Quite the eye-opener on a lot of levels. I’ll share more on that later.
For now, I’m sorting through the pictures I took on the way. Stay tuned for more updates on that soon.
Meanwhile, here’s a little something for the little kid in all of you.
A while back I had the opportunity to visit the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. I’d been wanting to visit the place for ages now for one reason: Iguanodons! You’re probably going “What’s he on about?”
The story of Iguanodons is the one which first got me interested in dinosaurs as a kid.
Iguanodons were first discovered in 1822 and were one of the three types first used to define dinosaurs (They were also one of the dinosaur types which inspired Godzilla!). The story of the Iguanodon has had scientists of repute at each others’ throats for decades. After the idea that dinosaurs existed was finally accepted by the scientific community, then came the fighting over what Iguanodons looked like. Their reconstructions went through several stages. First they were described as massive quadrupedal reptiles with a rhinoceros-style horn on their snouts. Then came a second representation which lasted for over a century: a bipedal animal with spikes for thumbs which used its tail to prop itself up. Finally, as of the 1960s, this last gave way to the current interpretation: a versatile reptile able to shift from all fours to two at will. Trust me, all very interesting to a 6 or 8 year old when condensed into 10-minutes in a documentary.
In 1879, 29 skeletons were found in a coal mine in Bernissart in Belgium at a depth of some 322 meters. These skeletons were painstakingly excavated and put together (incorrectly) by Louis Dollo. Nine of these skeletons can now be seen at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. They can’t take them apart and put the bones together as they currently believe they should be as the skeletons are now too fragile to disassemble and reassemble.
Anyway, enough talk. If you want to know more about the Iguanodon, you can start here.
Here is a shot of Dollo’s Iguanodons, standing to attention. Below that is one of an Iguanodon assembled as currently accepted by the scientific community.
Below is another childhood favourite, Dimetrodon. It’s not a dinosaur, but a pelicosaur. Dimetrodon was an apex predator which lived between 280-265 million years ago. Dinosaurs showed up about 230 million years ago.
I leave you with a shot of a beast which needs no introduction: the T-Rex.
Do make time to visit the museum if you have the time when you’re next in Brussels. They have the largest dinosaur gallery in Europe and (if dinos aren’t your thing) have loads more besides.
More coming soon!
Tags: belgium, Bernissart, Brussels, coal, coal mine, dimetrodon, dinosaur, dollo, godzilla, iguanodon, institute of natural sciences, louis dollo, mine, natural sciences, pelicosaur, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, t-rex, tyrannosaur, tyrannosaurus, tyrannosaurus rex
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