Maghreb artist paintings. Rene Magritte

One of the outstanding artists of the last century, Rene Magritte (1898-1967) was originally from Belgium. In 1912, his mother drowned herself in the river, which apparently had a great impression on the future artist, who was then still a teenager; however, contrary to popular belief, the influence of this event on the author’s work should not be overestimated. Magritte brought back from his childhood a number of other, not so tragic, but no less mysterious memories, which he himself said were reflected in his work.

Educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, he was initially strongly influenced by Dada and Cubism. The year 1925 was a turning point in his work: the painting “Roses of Picardy” marked a new style and a new attitude - “poetic realism”. The artist moves to the “center of surrealism” - Paris, where he participates in all surrealist exhibitions. And in 1938, the first major exhibition of the Belgian master was organized by the London art gallery.

In the early 1950s. Magritte's art is receiving ever-increasing international recognition, as evidenced by his large exhibitions in Rome, London, New York, Paris, and Brussels. In 1956, Magritte, as an outstanding representative of Belgian culture, was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Prize.

The main feature of Magritte is the atmosphere of mystery in his works. A sense of mystery, as we know, is inherent in real art. “I have always considered Magritte an imaginary artist, a master somewhere on the level of Giorgione,” wrote Herbert Read. These words contain the key to Magritte’s poetics.

In the painting “False Mirror” (1929), which expressed the artist’s ideological credo, the entire space is occupied by the image of a huge eye. Only instead of the iris, the viewer sees a summer blue sky with transparent clouds floating across it. The title explains the idea of the painting: the senses only reflect the external appearance of things, without conveying the hidden depth of the world, its secrets. Only the incompatible helps, according to Magritte, to grasp the meaning of existence. An image can only be born from the convergence of two more or less distant realities.

Magritte would follow this method throughout his entire creative career, which is especially noticeable in his “philosophical” paintings. One of them is “Hegel’s Vacation” (1958).

“My last painting,” he wrote, “began with a question: how to depict a glass of water in a picture in such a way that it would not be indifferent to us? But at the same time, in such a way that it would not be particularly bizarre, arbitrary or insignificant. One. in a word so that one could say: brilliant (let’s leave unnecessary shame).
I started drawing the glasses one by one (three sketches), each time with a cross stroke (sketch). After the hundredth or hundred and fiftieth
drawing, the stroke became somewhat wider (sketch). At first the umbrella stood inside the glass (sketch), but then it ended up under it (sketch).
So I found a solution to the original question: how can a glass of water be depicted in a brilliant way. I soon realized that this subject could be of great interest to Hegel (he is also a genius), because my subject combines two opposing
aspirations: does not want water (repels it) and wants water (picks it up). I think he would have liked it or found it funny (for example, during the holidays). That's why I called the painting "Hegel's Vacation."

Magritte stands out sharply among the surrealists: unlike them, he uses not fantastic, but everyday elements, taken in bizarre relationships. This is his famous painting “Personal Property” (1952).

The “key” here also becomes the name. The “personal” is hypertrophied to monstrous proportions. The room turns into a kind of “microcosm”, closed, squeezed, despite the sky with clouds floating across it instead of walls. All the things here have strangely changed, as if they have come to life, acquired a non-utilitarian appearance, although, as always with Magritte, the objects have not changed their appearance, texture, color and are perfectly “recognizable”. The viewer, as if in passing, admires the bluish shine of the glass of the glass, the texture of the wooden furniture, and the skill of conveying mirror reflections. But precisely in passing, because the objects seem to have gained independence, as if they speak on behalf of their owner, completely usurping his “leading” role. They themselves have become “personalities” and seem to be having a conversation among themselves.

One of the features of early Magritte’s painting is its “literariness” in the good sense of the word. Magritte moves in a circle of poets, philosophers, writers, studies the theoretical works of famous romantics of the 19th century. He was greatly influenced by the works of the English romantic poet and philosopher of the early 19th century. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who primarily revered symbolism in art - such “the complete subordination of matter to spirit that matter turns into a symbol through which the spirit reveals itself.”

This idea is illustrated, in particular, by Magritte’s famous painting “Liberation” (“Flight into the Fields”), created in 1933.

A strange landscape opens from a broken window. Greenish evening hills, spherical blue trees, transparent mother-of-pearl sky, blue distances. Brilliantly using the techniques of tonal painting, the artist creates a mood of joyful elation, expectation of something unusual and wonderful. The warm shade of the curtains in the foreground enhances the impression of the airiness of this enchanted landscape... Magritte’s paintings seem to be made with a calm, intrepid hand. Master of color, Magritte uses it sparingly and sparingly. In "Liberation" the symbolism of color is used to express complex associations. Spots of blue, pink, yellow and black give the image an amazing color fullness and liveliness.

The originality of Rene Magritte's work will be revealed more fully if we turn to the topic "Surrealism and Freudianism." The main theoretician of surrealism, Andre Breton, a psychiatrist by profession, attached decisive importance to Freud's psychoanalysis when assessing the artist's work. Freudian views were not only adopted by many surrealists - it became their way of thinking. For example, for Salvador Dali, by his own admission, the world of Freud’s ideas meant as much as the world of Scripture for medieval artists or the world of ancient mythology for the masters of the Renaissance.

The “method of free association” proposed by Sigmund Freud, his “theory of errors”, and “interpretation of dreams” were aimed primarily at identifying painful mental disorders for the purpose of healing. The interpretation of works of art proposed by Freud was also aimed at this. But with this understanding, art is reduced to a private, so to speak, “healing” factor. This was the fallacy of the approach of the theorists of surrealism to works of art. Magritte was well aware of this, noting in one of his letters in 1937: “Art, as I understand it, is not subject to psychoanalysis. It is always a mystery.” The artist treated attempts to interpret his paintings with the help of psychoanalysis ironically: “They decided that my “Red Model” is an example of a castration complex. After listening to several explanations of this kind, I made a drawing according to all the “rules” of psychoanalysis. Naturally, they analyzed it in the same way cold-blooded. It's terrible to see what kind of mockery a person can be subjected to after making one innocent drawing... Perhaps psychoanalysis itself is the best topic for a psychoanalyst."

This is why Magritte stubbornly refused to call himself a “surrealist.” He readily accepted the description of a "magical realist." This direction is characteristic of the “Belgian period” of his work - starting in 1930, when Magritte returned from Paris to Brussels for good.

The traditions of old Dutch art had a beneficial influence on Magritte's work. In the painting “Plagiarism” (1960), several symbolic details attract attention.

On the left on the table we see an image of a nest and three eggs - symbolism of the Trinity. Like a wizard, the artist seems to materialize before our eyes the images of his imagination, and they turn into a beautiful fruit-bearing garden - a symbol of a living creative imagination. Magritte creates a subtle, spiritualized poetic image. Contemplating the picture, one can only admire the most delicate pink, bluish, pearlescent shades - a truly fabulous sight.

In the 1930s Magritte, along with the art of Bosch, deeply studies the work of his compatriot, playwright and philosopher Maurice Maeterlinck, who back in 1889 in the collection “Greenhouses” wrote: “A symbol is a force of nature, but the human mind cannot resist its laws... If there is no symbol, there is no work of art."

Magritte owes Maeterlinck the ability to develop comparison into a whole network of images that the artist’s imagination transforms into the real world. In the painting “Madness of Greatness” (1948), a dying candle is depicted on a stone parapet against the backdrop of the endless azure sea - as a symbol of the frailty of human life. Nearby are several female torsos growing out of each other (a symbol of sensuality). And in the sky with beautiful frozen clouds (for Magritte - a symbol of timelessness), the viewer sees blue “incorporeal” geometric shapes, symbolizing “pure ideas”, and a hot air balloon - a symbol of abstract “pure thought”.

With the help of a finely thought-out color scheme, the artist “clarifies” the main idea. His “sensuality” is a warm flesh color. “Pure Forms” are designed in a cold bluish tonality, corresponding to the symbolism and at the same time creating a feeling of limitless space.

“We wander at random through the valley, not realizing that all our movements are reproduced and acquire their true meaning on the top of the mountain,” Maeterlinck wrote in his treatise “Treasure of the Humble,” “and it is necessary that from time to time someone comes to us and said, "Lift your eyes, look what you are, look what you do. We don't live here, our life is up there. That look we exchanged in the darkness, those words that made no sense at the foot of the mountain, look, what they have become and what they mean there, above the snowy heights."

This idea of Maeterlinck was reflected in Magritte’s painting “The Possession of Arnheim” (1962).

Only by breaking glass with a false image painted on it can one see reality in all its radiant splendor, the artist believes. It is here, on the tops of the mountains that Maeterlinck spoke about, that the Truth lurks.

The painting “An Unexpected Answer” (1933) embodies another thought of Maeterlinck: “There are no insignificant days in life. Go, come back, go out again - you will find what you need in the twilight. But never forget that you are close to the door. This ", perhaps, one of those narrow cracks in the doors of darkness, through which we are given the opportunity to see for a moment everything that is about to happen in the grotto of treasures that have not yet been discovered."

The painting looks like a kind of emblem of an exciting mystery - everything here is so integral, “natural,” if this definition can be attributed to one of Magritte’s most mysterious and mystical compositions. An open “hacked door” is a symbol of another dimension, fraught with many mysteries.

Some authors writing about Magritte declare him an “artist of the absurd,” whose paintings lack any meaning. If this were the case, if the artist's goal was to depict only "the absurdity of our daily existence", it would be creativity on the level of a puzzle, and not the serious art that it is. Magritte wrote: “We ask a picture at random, instead of listening to it. And we are surprised when the answer we receive is not frank.”

His art was often called "daydreams." The artist clarified: “My paintings are not dreams that put you to sleep, but dreams that awaken you.” It is not for nothing that the prominent surrealist Max Ernst, having seen his exhibition in New York in the early 1950s, said: “Magritte neither sleeps nor stays awake. He illuminates. He conquers the world of dreams.”

“Without mystery, neither the world nor the idea are possible,” Magritte never tired of repeating. And as an epigraph to one of his self-portraits, he took a line from a 19th century French poet. Lautreamont: “I sometimes dream, but never for a moment do I lose consciousness of my identity.”

Hence the unexpected interpretation of “internal and external” in Magritte’s works.

Here is the artist’s commentary on his painting “Frames of Life” (1934): “In front of the window, which we see from inside the room, I placed a painting depicting exactly that part of the landscape that it covers. Thus, the tree in the picture obscures the tree standing behind it is outside. For the viewer, the tree is simultaneously inside the room in the picture and outside in the real landscape. This is how we see the world. We see it outside of us and at the same time we see its representation within ourselves. In this way we sometimes place in the past that which what is happening in the present. Thus, time and space are freed from the trivial meaning with which ordinary consciousness gives them."

Herbert Read noted: “Magritte is distinguished by the severity of his forms and a distinct clarity of vision. His symbolism is pure and transparent, like the glass of windows that he so loves to depict. Rene Magritte warns about the fragility of the world. The glass is broken: significantly freezing in flight, the images fall, lining up in a row like ice floes." This is an example of one possible interpretation of Magritte's polysemous metaphors. This artist’s glass window motif can also be seen as the border between two worlds - the real and the surreal, the poetic and the everyday, between the conscious and the unconscious.

In the painting “Son of Man” (1964), modern man is depicted against the backdrop of a wall separating him from the vast expanses of the ocean and sky, symbolizing infinity. An apple hanging in front of a person’s face adds mystery to the image. This apple can be perceived both as the fruit of the tree of knowledge and as a symbol of nature, which man is trying to understand. At the same time, this detail gives harmony to the prosaic appearance of a neat bourgeois.

The painting “Golconda” (1953) can be seen as an embodied metaphor: people “with weight” have become weightless. There is irony hidden in the name: after all, Golconda is a semi-legendary city in India, famous for its gold deposits and diamonds, and these people seem to be attracted to gold. The artist hangs in a boundless space several dozen neatly dressed rentiers with bowler hats, ties and fashionable coats, while maintaining absolute equanimity.

In one of Magritte’s later paintings, “Ready Bouquet” (1956), a man in the same bowler hat and tails, standing with his back to the viewer on the terrace, contemplates the evening park. And on his back is depicted “Spring” by Botticelli, walking in flowers and the brilliance of colors. What is this? Realization of the aphorism “Man passes, art remains”? Or perhaps a person admiring the park remembered a Botticelli painting? The answer is unclear.

The artist seeks to destroy the usual idea of the well-known, unchanging, to make him see the object in a new dimension, leading the viewer to confusion. In his canvases, he created a world of fantasy and dreams from real things, immersing viewers in an atmosphere of dreams and mystery. The artist brilliantly knew how to “direct” their feelings. It would seem that the world created by the artist is static and strong, but the unreal always invades the everyday, destroying this familiar world (an ordinary apple in a room, growing, displaces people, or a steam locomotive jumps out of the fireplace at full speed - “Pierced Time”, 1939).

The most frequently copied painting is The Creation of Man (1935). The image of the sea in the painting on the easel standing in front of the open window miraculously merges with the “real” sea view from the window.

The theme of many of Magritte’s paintings was the so-called “hidden reality”. Part of the image, for example, the face of the main character, is covered with something (an apple, a bouquet of flowers, a bird). Magritte explains the meaning of these works: “The interesting thing in these paintings is the presence of the open and the hidden that suddenly burst into our consciousness, which in nature are never separated from each other.”

In the painting “The Lovers,” Rene Magritte shows that when we are truly in love, our eyes are closed.

Trying to comprehend the elusive meaning of Magritte’s paintings, to “explain” them, the viewer’s mind frantically grabs at both. The artist "throws" the title of the painting to him (it usually appeared after the work was completed). Magritte gave the title a decisive role in the perception of the painting. According to the recollections of relatives and friends, when coming up with names, he often discussed them with literary friends. Here is what the artist himself said about this: “The title is an indicator of the function of the painting,” “The title should contain a living emotion,” “The best title for a painting is poetic. It should not teach anything, but instead, surprise and fascinate.”

Many of the titles of the paintings are deliberately scientific, and irony is visible in them: “Philosophical Lamp” (1937), “Praise of Dialectics” (1937), “Natural Knowledge” (1938), “Treatise on Sensations” (1944). Other titles create an atmosphere of poetic mystery: “Dialogue Interrupted by the Wind” (1928), “The Key to Dreams” (1930), “Painful Duration” (1939), “Empire of Light” (1950), “God’s Living Room” (1958).

The painting "Empire of Light" was painted by Magritte in the last decade of his life, but immediately became perhaps his most popular work. So popular that many collectors were willing to pay any money just to have one of its replicas in their collection.

So what is this picture that has captured the minds of people around the world? At a quick glance, it seems simple and even unassuming. A house on the shore of a small lake is hidden in the shade of spreading trees. The windows on the second floor glow with a cozy light, a lonely lantern gives its friendly light to a traveler who might find himself here on a dark night. It would seem like an ordinary, completely realistic nocturne. Any “traditional” artist can paint something like this.

But is this true? Why, then, does a vague uneasiness arise, forcing the viewer to peer more and more closely into the picture? This anxiety will not leave until it suddenly becomes clear - the sky, that's what it's all about! A blue sky with white fluffy clouds running merrily across it. And this is late at night! Just don’t ask how this is possible, because in Magritte’s world nothing is impossible. Like no other, this artist loves to connect the incompatible, to introduce into his paintings details that contrast so sharply with each other that the viewer first experiences a slight shock, but then his mind begins to work doubly intensely, trying to find a solution to the proposed charade.

Magritte himself said this about it: “I combined different concepts in “Empire of Light,” namely, a night landscape and the sky in all the glory of daylight. The landscape inclines us to think about the night, the sky - about the day. In my opinion, this simultaneous phenomenon of day and night has the power to surprise and enchant. And I call this power poetry.”

Rene Magritte himself

“Self-Portrait” (“Clear Eye”)

Recalling his childhood, he wrote: “I remember my amazement when I first saw the chessboard and the pieces on it. Frightening impression! Sheets of music where mysterious signs denoted sound and were not words!” Here is one small early work of the artist - “The Lost Jockey”, which became his creative manifesto.

A rider, rushing at full speed on a lathered horse, got lost in a surreal grove of huge chess pieces painted with musical notations.

Painting “Carte Blanche” or “The Obstacle of Emptiness”.

Magritte wrote about her: “Visible things can be invisible. If, for example, some people are riding horseback through the forest, then first you see them, then you don’t see them, but you know that they are there. In the painting “Carte Blanche,” the rider obscures the trees, and they obscure her. However, our power of thinking embraces both the visible and the invisible, and with the help of painting I make thoughts visible.”

Painting “Forbidden split”

It is interesting to note that in Magritte only images of birds are free from associative complexities. Birds carry the positive energy of flight, nothing more. There are no dead birds, fallen birds, with broken wings. The birds are alive, and their wings are full of Magritte's bright blue and white cirrus clouds (Big Family, 1963).

On August 15, 1967, Rene Magritte died of cancer. One of the artist-magicians of the 20th century, who in life looked so much like a respectable pharmacist, has passed away.
He led the quiet and calm life of a Belgian man in the street, far from the bustle of bohemians - a man who is difficult to pick out from the crowd. Dreams, paradoxes, fears, mysterious dangers filled only his paintings, not his life. The artist fought boredom only through creativity. The regularity of each day suited him quite well; he even painted most of his paintings in the dining room and until the end of his life he preferred the tram to other types of transport.
Once, shortly before his death, Magritte, this sophisticated master, said: “I still do not understand the reason why we live and die.” Perhaps the artist encrypted the clues to the causes and mysteries of existence in his rebus paintings? Anything is possible. Then it’s worth taking a closer look at them!

On June 2, 2009, a new museum dedicated to the work of the famous surrealist artist Rene Magritte opened in Brussels. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts allocated a room of 2.5 thousand square meters for it. The exhibition of the Rene Magritte Museum includes more than 200 works by the author - this is the largest collection in the world.

(French: Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte; born - November 21, 1898, Lessines, died - August 15, 1967, Brussels) - Belgian surrealist artist. Known as the author of witty and at the same time poetically mysterious paintings.

Rene Magritte was looked at with suspicion. Especially doctors. Especially psychoanalysts. Those who did not notice any mental abnormalities in this artist sharply changed their opinion to the opposite after that. How did you get to know his work?

But in response to their encroachments, the artist himself, not without sarcasm, argued that the best patient for a psychoanalyst is another psychoanalyst. And he did not take Sigmund Freud, who was the most popular in those days, seriously at all. But he continued to draw apples for faces, mirrors with fantastic reflections, coffins for sitting dead people and other oddities and incomprehensibility.

Rene spent his childhood and youth in the small industrial city of Charleroi. Life was hard.

Rene Magritte “Son of Man”, 1964.

In 1912, his mother drowned herself in the Sambre River, which apparently had a great influence on the future artist, who was then still a teenager. When the corpse was found, its head was carefully wrapped in a light gauze cloth.

This is probably why faces, or more precisely, their absence, occupy a special place in Magritte’s work. Most often, the face in a portrait is either covered with a foreign object, or wrapped in cloth, or even the back of the head or another part of the body is simply depicted instead of the face.

Magritte brought back from his childhood a number of other, not so tragic, but no less mysterious memories, about which he himself said that they were reflected in his work.

Beginning in 1916, Magritte studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, and left the Academy in 1918. At the same time, he met Georgette Berger, whom he married in 1922 and with whom he lived until his death in 1967.

The Menaced Assassin – 1927

Magritte's paintings are characterized by a detached, seemingly imperturbable style. They depict ordinary objects, which in Magritte, unlike other major surrealists (Dali, Ernst), almost never lose their “objectivity”: they do not spread, do not turn into their own shadows. However, the strange combination of these objects itself is striking and makes you think. The equanimity of the style only aggravates this surprise and plunges the viewer into a kind of poetic stupor caused by the very mystery of things.

At the age of 14, Rene meets a girl named Georgette. A few years later she becomes his wife, lover, muse, colleague and friend - the artist’s only female model. There were no other women in his life. Georgette's beautiful face is elusive in Magritte's paintings. It is vague and encrypted, like elusive beauty.

The Meaning of Night 1927

Magritte's goal, by his own admission, is to make the viewer think. Because of this, the artist’s paintings often resemble puzzles that cannot be completely solved, since they raise questions about the very essence of existence: Magritte always talks about the deceptiveness of the visible, about its hidden mystery, which we usually do not notice. There is a well-known series of works by the artist in which he writes under ordinary objects: this is not him. Particularly popular is the painting “The Treachery of Images,” which depicts a smoking pipe with the caption “This is not a pipe.” Thus, Magritte again reminds the viewer that the image of an object is not the object itself.

He, like Dali and other surrealists, transferred dreams and thoughts onto canvas. but he couldn’t stand it when critics called him a surrealist. “I am a magical realist,” Magritte said to himself.

At the age of 18, Rene went to study at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts, where he quickly realized that for him transferring the details of real life onto canvas was mortal melancholy. Here he “falls ill” with cubism and futurism in the spirit of Fernand Léger, but is cured after becoming acquainted with the work of Max Ernst and Giorgio de Chirico.

Time Transfixed 1938

In general, the titles of paintings play a special role in Magritte. They are almost always poetic and, at first glance, are in no way connected with the image itself. And this is precisely where the artist himself saw their significance: he believed that the hidden poetic connection between the title and the painting contributed to the magical surprise that Magritte saw as the purpose of art.

In 1921, Magritte was drafted into the army, and a year later, upon returning to civilian life, he got a job as a draftsman at a wallpaper factory, where he spent hours painting roses on paper in the smallest detail (roses would later become one of the leitmotifs of his paintings - a symbol of the fatal and unsafe beauty - “The Fighter’s Grave”, 1961). Then, together with his brother, he opens an advertising agency, which soon allowed them to forget about pressing problems.

In 1930 there was a break with Breton. Magritte returns to Brussels and, together with Paul Delvaux, becomes one of the leaders of the surrealist movement here. During this fruitful period of activity, Magritte created a number of paintings with mysterious and poetic subjects, including his most often copied painting, “The Human Condition” (1935). The image of the sea in the painting on the easel standing in front of the open window miraculously merges with the “real” sea view from the window.

When the Germans occupied Belgium in 1940, Magritte first spent three months in exile in Carcassonne (France), and then returned to Brussels, where he survived the hard times of the war. Immediately after the war, Magritte decided to paint with sweeping strokes, in the style of Renoir and Matisse, explaining this by the need to search for joy as opposed to the general pessimism of those years. This period in Magritte’s work is most often called the period of “bright sun” (“plein soleil”). But the motifs of impressionism and fauvism in the work of the master of mystery paintings did not convince the public and critics, and by 1948 the artist returned to his own style.

“I take an arbitrary object or topic as a question,” he wrote, “and then set about searching for another object that might serve as an answer. To become a candidate for an answer, the object being sought must be connected to the question object by many secret connections. If the answer suggests itself in all clarity, then the connection between the two objects is established.” And again: “For me, thought initially consists only of visible things, and it itself can become visible thanks to painting.” Rene Magritte

In the 50s, the artist created some of his most famous works. Among them is the painting “Golconda” (1953). The artist depicted several dozen neatly dressed rentiers (with bowler hats, ties and fashionable coats) hanging in a boundless space, while maintaining absolute equanimity. Golconda is an ancient city in India that has become synonymous with countless treasures and riches, as many famous diamonds and other precious stones were found here. The people in the picture seem to be attracted by the treasures of Golconda.

In the 1950-1960s, Rene Magritte’s paintings shocked the US art market, where only his exhibitions were held for an entire season. Money poured in from all sides, but this man with the face of a kind pharmacist, as his relatives claimed, remained true to himself: no bohemia, a modest home, a quiet workshop and riding his favorite mode of transport - the tram.

Magritte died on August 15, 1967, at the age of 69, from cancer, leaving unfinished a new version of his perhaps most famous painting, Empire of Light. She remained forever in their room on an easel. Georgette said, turning to her husband: “You were mistaken in one thing - in the finitude of your own life, in the victory of death over everything. You remained alive not only for me, but also for all those who look at your paintings: after all, you are all in them. I look at them and talk to you and argue as always. You finally did what you dreamed of. You entered the looking glass, but remained. You have conquered death."

He sought to destroy the usual idea of the well-known, unchanging, to make him see the object in a new dimension, leading the viewer to confusion. In his canvases, he created a world of fantasy and dreams from real things, immersing viewers in an atmosphere of dreams and mystery. The artist brilliantly knew how to “direct” their feelings. It would seem that the world created by the artist is static and strong, but the unreal always invades the everyday, destroying this familiar world (an ordinary apple in a room, growing, displaces people, or a steam locomotive jumps out of the fireplace at full speed - “Pierced Time”, 1938).

Belgian artist - surrealist Rene Magritte - life and work updated: October 21, 2018 by: website

Bella Adtseeva

The Belgian artist Rene Magritte, despite his undoubted affiliation with surrealism, always stood apart in the movement. Firstly, he was skeptical about perhaps the main hobby of the entire group of Andre Breton - Freud's psychoanalysis. Secondly, Magritte’s paintings themselves are not similar to either the crazy plots of Salvador Dali or the bizarre landscapes of Max Ernst. Magritte used mostly ordinary everyday images - trees, windows, doors, fruits, human figures - but his paintings are no less absurd and mysterious than the works of his eccentric colleagues. Without creating fantastic objects and creatures from the depths of the subconscious, the Belgian artist did what Lautreamont called art - he arranged “a meeting of an umbrella and a typewriter on the operating table,” combining banal things in an unusual way. Art critics and connoisseurs still offer new interpretations of his paintings and their poetic titles, almost never related to the image, which once again confirms: Magritte’s simplicity is deceptive.

Rene Magritte himself called his art not even surrealism, but magical realism, and was very distrustful of any attempts at interpretation, and even more so the search for symbols, arguing that the only thing to do with paintings is to look at them.

From that moment on, Magritte periodically returned to the image of a mysterious stranger in a bowler hat, depicting him either on the sandy seashore, or on a city bridge, or in a green forest, or facing a mountain landscape. There could be two or three strangers, they stood with their backs to the viewer or semi-sideways, and sometimes - as, for example, in the painting High Society (1962) (can be translated as "High Society" - editor's note) - the artist indicated only an outline men in a bowler hat, filling it with clouds and leaves. The most famous paintings depicting a stranger are “Golconda” (1953) and, of course, “Son of Man” (1964) - Magritte’s most widely replicated work, parodies and allusions to which occur so often that the image already lives separately from its creator. Initially, Rene Magritte painted the picture as a self-portrait, where the figure of a man symbolized a modern man who has lost his individuality, but remains the son of Adam, who is unable to resist temptations - hence the apple covering his face.

"Lovers"

Rene Magritte quite often commented on his paintings, but left one of the most mysterious - “Lovers” (1928) without explanation, leaving room for interpretation to art critics and fans. The first ones again saw in the painting a reference to the artist’s childhood and experiences associated with her mother’s suicide (when her body was taken out of the river, the woman’s head was covered with the hem of her nightgown - editor’s note). The simplest and most obvious of the existing versions - “love is blind” - does not inspire confidence among experts, who often interpret the picture as an attempt to convey isolation between people who are unable to overcome alienation even in moments of passion. Others see here the impossibility of understanding and getting to know close people to the end, while others understand “Lovers” as a realized metaphor for “losing one’s head from love.”

In the same year, Rene Magritte painted a second painting called “Lovers” - in it the faces of the man and woman are also closed, but their poses and background have changed, and the general mood has changed from tense to peaceful.

Be that as it may, “The Lovers” remains one of Magritte’s most recognizable paintings, the mysterious atmosphere of which is borrowed by today’s artists - for example, the cover of the debut album of the British group Funeral for a Friend Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation (2003) refers to it.

"The Treachery of Images", or This Is Not...

The names of Rene Magritte's paintings and their connection with the image are a topic for separate study. “The Glass Key”, “Achieving the Impossible”, “Human Destiny”, “The Obstacle of Emptiness”, “The Beautiful World”, “Empire of Light” - poetic and mysterious, they almost never describe what the viewer sees on the canvas, but about What meaning the artist wanted to put into the name, in each individual case one can only guess. “The titles are chosen in such a way that they do not allow my paintings to be placed in the realm of the familiar, where the automaticity of thought will certainly work to prevent anxiety,” Magritte explained.

In 1948, he created the painting “The Treachery of Images,” which became one of Magritte’s most famous works thanks to the inscription on it: from inconsistency the artist came to denial, writing “This is not a pipe” under the image of a pipe. "This famous pipe. How people reproached me with it! And yet, you can fill it with tobacco? No, it's just a picture, isn't it? So if I wrote under the picture, 'This is a pipe,' I'd be lying !" - said the artist.

Magritte's Sky

The sky with clouds floating across it is such an everyday and used image that it seems impossible to make it the “calling card” of any particular artist. However, Magritte’s sky cannot be confused with someone else’s - more often than not due to the fact that in his paintings it is reflected in fancy mirrors and huge eyes, fills the contours of birds and, together with the horizon line, imperceptibly passes from the landscape onto the easel (series “Human Destiny” "). The serene sky serves as a background for a stranger in a bowler hat (Decalcomania, 1966), replaces the gray walls of the room (Personal Values, 1952) and is refracted in three-dimensional mirrors (Elementary Cosmogony, 1949).

The famous "Empire of Light" (1954), it would seem, is not at all similar to the works of Magritte - in the evening landscape, at first glance, there was no place for unusual objects and mysterious combinations. And yet such a combination exists, and it makes the picture “Magritte” - a clear daytime sky over a lake and a house immersed in darkness.

Here I have posted paintings by Rene Magritte with titles. Also a few facts about the character and philosophy of this man. For those wishing to learn more about the biography of this artist, I advise you to watch the film “Monsignor Magritte.”

I put off this post for a long time, not because I don’t like Rene Magritte, but rather the opposite because of the significance of this phenomenon. Actually, in my understanding, the pillars of surrealism in painting are two people: Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte. They're like Tolkien and Lewis in fantasy. Magritte and Dali influenced and continue to influence all surrealists.

However, these were two completely different people, as different as their paintings. Rene Magritte, in contrast to Dali and all the other surrealists, did not like to shock the public, did not start fights, did not use fly agarics for inspiration, and spent his entire life with one woman - his wife Georgette, his main muse, soul mate and model.

Philosophy of Rene Magritte

What is curious is that the man who, along with Dali, is considered a classic of surrealism did not even recognize the philosophy of this movement, in which psychoanalysis occupied one of the main places. The Belgian believed that creativity cannot be analyzed, that it is a mystery, a philosophical puzzle, but not the subject of Freudian analysis.

Considering this philosophy, it is not surprising that many of his works often cause bewilderment and the feeling that the artist is making fun of you. Obviously, such ambiguity and symbolism contributed to the fact that many parodies and installations were created on his paintings. The painting “Son of Man” is especially popular in this regard.

Quite a decent burgher :) They didn’t give you that with your spacesuit :)

In general, Magritte was a quiet, calm person, and the most interesting things happened in his head. Perhaps that is why so few films have been made about Rene Magritte, unlike Dali.

I will not dryly list the facts from his biography here; 100,500 other people have already done this for me. I think that’s not why people come to the blog, after all, that’s what pediwiki is for. If you want to get to know the biography of this artist, I advise you to watch the film Monsieur Rene Magritte (Monsieur Rene Magritte) 1978. It is more interesting than reading a dry Wikipedia text (with all due respect to pedivics).

Paintings by René Magritte with titles

Everything this man wanted to tell us, he said with his paintings. The paintings of Rene Magritte, in contrast to the stormy pressure of Dali's whimsical visions, are calmer and more philosophical. In addition, Magritte’s paintings are imbued with a very peculiar sense of humor. Just look at his painting of a pipe with a signature below - it’s not a pipe.

La Philosophie dans le boudoir (Philosophy in the boudoir)

La Magie noire (Black Magic) It is said that all the female images in his paintings are images of his wife. Looking at this picture, you begin to understand why he lived his whole life with one woman. In my opinion, much prettier than Gala.

La Memoire (Memory).

Cosmogonie Elementaire (Elementary cosmogony).

La Naissance de l'idole (The Birth of an Idol).

La Belle captive (The Beautiful Captive).

L’Invention collective (Collective invention), painting by René Magritte.

Les Amants (Lovers), Rene Magritte, paintings, surrealism.

Le Thérapeute II (The Therapist II), Rene Magritte, artists, surrealism.

Le Fils de l'homme (The Son of Man), René Magritte. One of the artist's most famous paintings.

Le Faux miroir (The False Mirror),

Le Coup au coeur (A blow to the heart)

Alogism, absurdity, combination of the incongruous, paradoxical visual variability of images and figures - this is the basis of the foundations of surrealism. The founder of this movement is considered to be the embodiment of the theory of the subconscious of Sigmund Freud at the basis of surrealism. It was on this basis that many representatives of the movement created masterpieces that did not reflect objective reality, but were merely the embodiment of individual images inspired by the subconscious. The canvases painted by the surrealists could not be the product of either good or evil. They all evoked different emotions in different people. Therefore, we can say with confidence that this direction of modernism is quite controversial, which contributed to its rapid spread in painting and literature.

Surrealism as an illusion and literature of the 20th century

Salvador Dali, Paul Delvaux, Rene Magritte, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, Yves Tanguy, Michael Parkes and Dorothy Tanning are the pillars of surrealism that emerged in France in the 20s of the last century. This trend is not limited to France, but has spread to other countries and continents. Surrealism greatly facilitated the perception of cubism and abstractionism.

One of the main postulates of the surrealists was the identification of the energy of creators with the human subconscious, which manifests itself in sleep, under hypnosis, in delirium during illness, or in random creative insights.

Distinctive characteristics of surrealism

Surrealism is a complex movement in painting, which many artists understood and understand in their own way. It is therefore not surprising that surrealism developed in two conceptually different directions. The first branch can easily be attributed to Miro, Max Ernst, Jean Arp and Andre Masson, in whose works the main place was occupied by images that smoothly turn into abstraction. The second branch takes as a basis the embodiment of a surreal image generated by the human subconscious, with illusory accuracy. Salvador Dali, who is an ideal representative of academic painting, worked in this direction. It is his works that are characterized by an accurate rendering of chiaroscuro and a careful manner of painting - dense objects have tangible transparency, while solid ones spread, massive and three-dimensional figures acquire lightness and weightlessness, and incompatible ones can be combined together.

Biography of Rene Magritte

Along with the works of Salvador Dali is the work of Rene Magritte, a famous Belgian artist who was born in the city of Lesin in 1898. In the family, except for Rene. there were two more children, and in 1912 a misfortune happened that influenced the life and work of the future artist - his mother died. This was reflected in Rene Magritte’s painting “In Memory of Mack Sennett,” which was painted in 1936. The artist himself claimed that circumstances had no influence on his life and work.

In 1916, Rene Magritte entered the Brussels Academy of Arts, where he met his future muse and wife Georgette Berger. After graduating from the Academy, Rene worked on creating advertising materials, and was quite dismissive of this. Futurism, Cubism and Dada had a huge influence on the artist, but in 1923 Rene Magritte first saw Giorgio de Chirico's work "Song of Love". It was this moment that became the starting point for the development of the surrealist Rene Magritte. At the same time, the formation of a movement began in Brussels, of which Rene Magritte became a representative along with Marcel Lecampt, Andre Suri, Paul Nouger and Camille Gemans.

The works of Rene Magritte.

The works of this artist have always been controversial and attracted a lot of attention.

At first glance, Rene Magritte's painting is filled with strange images that are not only mysterious, but also ambiguous. Rene Magritte did not touch upon the issue of form in surrealism; he put his vision into the meaning and significance of the painting.

Many artists pay special attention to titles. Especially Rene Magritte. Paintings with the titles “This is not a pipe” or “Son of Man” awaken the thinker and philosopher in the viewer. In his opinion, not only the picture should encourage the viewer to show emotions, but also the title should surprise and make you think.
As for descriptions, many surrealists gave a brief summary of their paintings. Rene Magritte is no exception. Paintings with descriptions have always been present in the artist’s advertising activities.

The artist himself called himself a “magical realist.” His goal was to create a paradox, and the audience should draw their own conclusions. Rene Magritte in his works always clearly drew a line between the subjective image and real reality.

Painting "Lovers"

Rene Magritte painted a series of paintings called “Lovers” in 1927-1928 in Paris.

The first picture shows a man and a woman who are united in a kiss. Their heads are wrapped in white cloth. The second painting depicts the same man and woman in white cloth, looking out from the painting at the audience.

The white fabric in the artist’s work causes and has caused heated discussions. There are two versions. According to the first, white fabric in the works of Rene Magritte appeared in connection with the death of his mother in early childhood. His mother jumped off a bridge into the river. When her body was removed from the water, a white cloth was found wrapped around her head. As for the second version, many knew that the artist was a fan of Fantômas, the hero of the popular movie. Therefore, it may be that the white fabric is a tribute to the passion for cinema.

What is this picture about? Many people think that the painting “Lovers” personifies blind love: when people fall in love, they stop noticing someone or something other than their soul mate. But people remain mysteries to themselves. On the other hand, looking at the kiss of lovers, we can say that they have lost their heads with love and passion. Rene Magritte's painting is filled with mutual feelings and experiences.

"Son of Man"

Rene Magritte's painting "The Son of Man" became the hallmark of "magical realism" and a self-portrait of Rene Magritte. This particular work is considered one of the most controversial works of the master.

The artist hid his face behind an apple, as if saying that everything is not as it seems, and that people constantly want to get into a person’s soul and understand the true essence of things. Rene Magritte's painting both hides and reveals the essence of the master himself.

Rene Magritte played an important role in the development of surrealism, and his works continue to excite the consciousness of more and more generations.