Belgium’s Magritte-Inspired Soccer Jersey Mirrors a Surreal World Cup
The pink-and-blue shirts feature one of the painter's lesser-known motifs, along with the phrase “This is not a jersey" in an homage to the artist.
The Belgian men's national soccer team's Away jersey shows motifs from René Magritte's “Voice of space (la voix des airs)” (1931) (left: photo courtesy Adidas; right: © 2023 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation & Peggy Guggenheim Collection)
The Red Devils, the Belgian men's national soccer team, secured their place in the World Cup quarter-finals after annihilating the United States team 4–1 in Seattle last night. One might not have paid any attention to the Belgian team's pink-and-blue jerseys amid the drama of FIFA's overturned suspension of US forward Folarin Balogun and what transpired throughout the game, but the design's references to Belgian Surrealist painter René Magritte certainly channel the team's lofty performance.
Designed by Adidas, Belgium’s away jerseys are speckled with a layered circular motif Magritte used in a handful of paintings early in his career. The pattern and color palette borrow from Magritte’s “Grelots roses, ciels en lambeaux (Pink Bells, Tattered Skies)” (1930), a trompe l’oeil framed diptych held in the Museo Reina Sofía collection. The left composition depicts a soft, partly cloudy sky, while that on the right shows spherical jingle bells rendered in salmon pink, which cast shadows over an equally fleshy colored backdrop embellished with patches of sky blue.
