Presentation

Since its creation the Musée Magritte Museum disposes of an on-line research centre with the ambition of becoming the key reference for the study of the œuvre, life and vision of René Magritte. Its major aim is to give an on-line access to all the artworks, records and publications concerning the painter and Surrealism.

 On the website of the Musée Magritte Museum, INEO media system, a subsidiary company of GDF SUEZ, partner of the Musée Magritte Museum, has developed a metasearch engine that enables to consult different data bases simultaneously : FABRITIUS (Fine Arts Brussels InTernet and Intranet USers), ARCHIBALD (ARCHIves of Belgian Art – Letters and Documentation), BDM (essentially devoted to the multimedia files) and - within a near future - the catalogue of the Royal Museums library. Only one request about René Magritte shows for instance at the same time the works he has produced, the archive documents and the publications concerning him or the films he has made.

 Since the opening of the Musée Magritte Museum the data base of the Archives of Contemporary Art in Belgium, ARCHIBALD, has been enriched with detailed notices illustrated with some 350 pictures, 57 music scores and some hundred letters directly linked with René Magritte.

 The possibility of simultaneous consultation of those rich data bases constitutes an important technological progress which extends the projects of digitization of the heritage carried out by the Royal Museums during the last years. These new developments ease the access on a world scale to those data as well for the large public as for the searchers community, and they mark the creation of a true on-line Research centre around the œuvre, life and vision of René Magritte.