Rene Magritte: The Man Behind The Hat

Rene Magritte
The man behind the hat

Magritte in front of his painting The pilgrim, photo by Lothar Wolleh, 1967

Lifeline

Self- portrait, 1923

During my childhood, I liked to play with a little girl in an abandoned old cemetery of a country
town, where I spent my vacations. We used to lift up the iron gates and go down into the
underground passageways. Once, after climbing back up to the light of day, I noticed an artist
painting in an avenue of the cemetery, which was very picturesque with its broken columns of
stone and its heaped-up leaves. He had come from the capital; his art seemed to me to be magic,
and he himself endowed with powers from above.

Youth (Jeunesse), 1924

In 1915 when I began to paint the memory of that enchanting encounter with the painter, turned
my steps in a direction having little to do with common sense. A singular fate willed that
someone, probably to have fun at my expense, should send me the illustrated catalogue of an
exposition of futurist paintings. As a result of that joke I came to know a new way of painting. In
a state of intoxication I set about creating busy scenes of stations, festivities or cities in which the
little girl bound up in my discovery of the world of painting lived out an exceptional adventure. I
cannot doubt that a pure and powerful sentiment, namely eroticism, saved me from slipping to
the traditional chase after formal perfection. My interest lies entirely in provoking an emotional
shock.

The window, 1925

This painting as search for pleasure was followed next by a curious experience. Thinking it
possible to possess the world I loved at my own great pleasure, once I should succeed upon
fixing its essence upon canvas, I undertook to find out what its plastic equivalents were. The
result was a series of highly evocative, but abstract and inert images that were in the final
analysis, interesting only to the intelligence of the eye. This experience made it possible for me
to view the world of the real in the same abstract manner. Despite the shifting richness of natural
detail and shade I grew able to look at a landscape as if though it were but a curtain hanging in
front of me. I became skeptical of the dimension and depth of a countryside scene, of the
remoteness of the line of the horizon...

Dawn in cayenne (Laube cayenne), 1926

In 1925 I made up my mind to break from so passive an attitude. The decision was the outcome
of an intolerable interval of contemplation I went through in a working-class Brussels beer hall: I
found the door moldings endowed with a mysterious life and I remained a long time in contact
with their reality. A feeling bordering upon terror was the point of departure for a will to action
upon the real, for a transformation of life itself

One night museum (Le muse dune nuit), 1927

I painted pictures in which objects were represented with the appearance they have in reality, in a
style objective enough to ensure their upsetting effect- which they would reveal themselves
capable of provoking owing to certain means utilized- would be experience in the real world
whence the object had been borrowed. This happened by a perfect natural transposition.

The garment of adventure 1926

In my paintings I show objects situated where we never find them. They represented the
realization of the real, if unconscious desire, existing in most people. The lizards we usually see
on our houses or on our fences, I found more eloquent in a sky habitat. Turned wooden table legs
lost the innocent existence ordinarily lent to them, when they appeared to dominate a forest. A
womans body floating above a city was an opportunity for me to discover some of love's
secrets. I found it very instructive to show the Virgin Mary as an undressed lover. The iron bells
hanging from the necks of our splendid horses, I painted to sprout like dangerous plants from the
edge of a chasm.

The silver gap (Le gouffre argent), 1926

The creation of new objects, the transformation of known objects, the change of matter of certain
other objects, the association of words with images, using ideas suggested by friends, using
scenes from half-waking or dream states, were other ways of establishing a connection between
consciousness and the real world. The titles of my paintings were chosen in such a way to arouse
mistrust in the viewer
http://www.mattesonart.com/magritte-on-his-paintings--interpreted-and-translated-by-r-
matteson.aspx

Elective affinities, 1933

One night in 1936 I awoke in a room where a cage and the bird sleeping in it had been placed. A
distortion of vision caused me to see an egg, instead of the bird, in the cage. I had just discovered
a new and astonishing poetic secret, for the shock experienced had been provoked by the affinity
of two objects (the cage and the egg), whereas before I had provoked this shock by bringing
together two unrelated objects. From the moment of that revelation I sought to find out whether
other objects might not likewise show the same evident poetry as the egg and the egg had
produced by their coming together. In the course of my investigations I came to a conviction that
I had always known beforehand that element to be discovered; only this knowledge had always
lain as though hidden in the more inaccessible zones of my mind.

The light of coincidence (La lumire des coincidences), 1933

Since this research could yield only one exact tag for each object, my investigations came to be a
search for the solution of the problem for which I had three data: the object, the thing attached to
it in the shadow of my consciousness, and the light under which that thing would become
apparent

Midnight marriage (Le mariage du minuit), 1926

When, moreover, I found that same will allied to a superior method and doctrine in the works of
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and became acquainted about that time with the surrealists,
who were then violently demonstrating their loathing for all the bourgeois values, social and
ideological, that have kept the world in its present ignorable state, it was then that i became
convinced that i must thenceforward live with danger, that life and the world might thereby come
up in some measure to the level of thought and the affections

Study for The infinite chain (La chane sans fin), 1938
http://www.fine-arts-museum.be/fr/la-collection/rene-magritte-etude-pour-la-chaine-sans-
fin?artist=magritte-rene-1

A problem to the solution of which I applied myself over a long period was that of a horse. It
was the idea of a horse carrying three figures. Their significance became clear only after a long
series of trials and experiments. First I painted a jar and a label bearing the figure of a horse and
the letters: Confiture de Cheval (Horse Jam). I next thought of a horse whose head was
replaced by a hand, with its index finger pointing forward. But I realized that was the equivalent
if a unicorn

The fine idea (La belle ide), 1964

I lingered long over an intriguing combination. What finally put me on the right track was a
horseman in the position assumed while riding a galloping horse. From the sleave of the arm
thrust forward emerged the head of a noble character, and the other arm, thrown back, held a
riding whip. Beside the horseman I placed an American Indian in an identical posture, and I
suddenly divined the meaning of the three shapeless figures I had placed on the horse at the
beginning of my experiment.

The infinite chain (La chane sans fin, 1939)

I knew they were horsemen and I then put the finishing touches to The infinite chain. In a
setting of desert land and dark sky, a plunging horse is mounted by a modern horseman, a knight
of the dying Middle Ages, and a horseman of antiquity.

The prepared bouquet, 1957

Nietzsche was of the opinion that without a burning sexual system Raphael could not have
painted such a throng of Madonnas. This is a striking variance with motives usually attributed to
that venerated painter: priestly influences, ardent Christianity piety, esthetic ideals, serach for
pure beauty, etc. But Nietzsches view of the matter makes possible a more sane interpretation of
pictorial phenomena, and the violence with which that opinion was expressed is directly
proportional to the clarity of the thought underlying it. Only the same mental freedom can make
possible a salutary renewal in all the domains of human activity.

Pandoras box (La bote de Pandore), 1951

This disorderly world which is our world, swarming with contradictions, still hangs more or less
together through explanations, by turns complex and ingenious, but apparently justifying t and
excusing those who meanly take advantage of it. Such explanations are based on a certain
experience, true. But it is to be remarked that what is invoked is ready-made experience, and
that if it does give rise to brilliant analysis, such experience is not itself an outcome of an
analysis of its own real conditions.

High society (Le beau monde), 1962

Future society will develop an experience which will be the fruit of a profound analysis whose
perspectives are being outlined under our very eyes. And it is under the favor of such a rigorous
preliminary analysis that pictorial experience such as I understand it may be instituted. That
pictorial experience which puts the real world on trial inspired my belief in infinity of
possibilities now unknown to life. I am not affirming that their conquest is the only valid end and
reason for the existence of man.
http://books.google.gr/books/about/Surrealist_Painters_and_Poets.html?id=-
vwXljjkEU0C&redir_esc=y

(From Magrittes autobiographical text Lifeline (Le Ligne de Vie), published in the magazine
L Invention Collective, 1940).

The threatening weather

Threatening weather, 1929

Space is like an empty room. It is defined by the walls and filled by the various objects. Space
doesnt have meaning without its describing limits, its occupying things. On the other hand,
things cannot exist without space. Space is the background for objects to appear and support
themselves, even if they seem to float.

Even empty space is an object. It is a notion which bares an intrinsic value, and can be
represented by many different symbols. A chair, for example, is equivalent to an empty seat. At
any time, one sitting on a chair may leave, leaving behind the vacuum. The empty chairs in our
home always remind us of people who left and may never come back again. When we leave, the
vacuum stays. When we return, disposing emptiness is our major achievement. Our absence has
always been more important than our presence.

I would dare say that musical instruments contain harmony. Music then unfolds in the hands of
the good musician. A musical instrument is a tool by which the artist discovers new melodies.
Our bodies are like musical instruments too. They breathe and vibrate, they make their souls
move. And as musical instruments perish, so do our bodies. They become motionless and empty.

A statue doesnt need limps or a head. It is there to express what is implied, just like the half-
naked body of a woman. As the vacuum needs its defining limits, so does pleasure need a pocket
to be contained in. Within our bodies there is a small capsule filled with pleasure, always ready
to break. In this sense, our bodies are like the torsos of ancient statues, naked and blind, while
somebody escapes from within the torso. We then chase this person, with its multiple forms, in
the real world.

Therefore the vacuum stands for emptiness and fullness, the pocket and the base. Its matter full
of holes- like a Swiss cheese- thus able to regenerate and transform. Someday, when our life
ends, we will have to surrender all our beloved objects, back to the vacuum where they belong
It was summertime, along the sea, when the storm was coming, far in the horizon It is this
threat, always approaching, coming from the deepest facets of the vacuum, the sound of silence
itself.

The tempest, 1931

The tempest, 1932

The tempest looks as threatening as the Threatening weather. Instead of the inconsistency
of objects, here the threatening element is denoted by the clouds between the skyscrapers. The
buildings in the first Tempest are found inside a room, therefore intensifying the illusion.

The curse (La maldiction), 1931

The curse, 1960

The sky... Analysis of this considerable object has still not advanced very far. A human history
of the sky should be written, to untangle over the course of time this curious labyrinth of
impressions, provocations and naive insights, more or less exact physics, slender religious
constructions. Here, revelations by painters are rare; and banal if you look through an
encyclopedia of painting. Magritte, however, is an exception, wrote the poet and first owner of
The Curse, Paul Noug, in 1947.

From this canvas, full of sky, emanates a discreet absurdity. The world surrounding the sky
desperately lacks any system of reference. Although the sky, an ongoing theme in the history of
art, has been painted often by many artists, on ceilings for example, and as part of a larger
composition, Magritte questions how the sky is represented in seascapes and landscapes.
Intrigued, the spectator strives in vain to imagine what there is to be seen in this manifestly
empty sky. Here, the painting's meaning lies less its resolution of the enigma, as in the mental
exercise it sets the spectator. This mental exercise cannot be an exclusively visual experience,
but will also involve the grey matter, our desire to comprehend. From this perspective, isnt The
curse a reference to what condemns our gaze to perpetually seek what lies beyond the surface of
things?
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/rene-magritte-la-malediction-5329707-
details.aspx#top

Magritte painted the Threatening weather in Cadaqus, near Barcelona, staying with Dali, and
you see the bay there- Mediterranean landscape. The painting invites us to see the three objects
floating in the sky as cloud forms that may turn into a tempest, or somethingMagritte never
explained his pictures, he always claimed that they did not come from dreams. But they are
dream-like in that the relationship between the objects is irrational and inexplicable and it would
require Freudian analysis perhaps to make some kind of story out of them; make some sort of
sense out of the relationships. But he always leaves it to the spectator to put some kind of story
themselves onto the objects that have been put together in this irrational way.
http://www.vidqt.com/id/CN-aHwALB-A?lang=en (VideoID: YT/CN-aHwALB-A)

The lost jockey

The lost jockey, 1926

One of Magrittes favorite themes was The lost jockey. It is said that Magritte suffered from
dementia. Therefore Magritte would regularly feel ennuied, being bored or annoyed, with all
the things so strongly attached to common thinking. The galloping horse is a means to escape,
and the jockey is bending forward to maintain the speed. It is a way to escape reality, but at the
same time the jockey seems to be entering a new world, consisting of spider- webs on the
ground, and strange looking trees (bilboquets). The curtain has opened into another reality.

Magritte designed theatre sets in Brussels in the early 1920s for Theatre du Groupe Libre. The
Lost jockey is one of many theatre settings with a curtain that Magritte produced in his early
works. It also uses bilboquets with musical notation as bark, possibly as a tribute to Mesens, the
pianist and composer and his brother Paul, a musician who studied with Mesens. The bilboquet
on the right is an impossible object, existing behind and in front of the right curtain.
http://www.renemagritte.org/the-lost-jockey.jsp

The lost jockey inaugurated Magrittes surrealist period, and will reappear in more paintings:



The anger of gods, 1960

Magritte found a means of exposing the mysteries of the world, the poetic associations between
the objects which we all take so much for granted. His strange juxtapositions challenge the
viewer, demanding that we consider afresh the properties of everyday elements which compose
the world around us. So, in the Lost Jockey the racetrack, which would usually host a jockey, is
absent, the jockey having been removed from the context.

The hunt in the forest, Paolo Uccello, 1470

According to David Sylvester, a Magritte scholar, this painting by early Renaissance painter
Uccello, is the basis for the Lost jockey.
http://www.mattesonart.com/1926-1930-surrealism-paris-years.aspx

Another of Magrittes influences is Giorgio de Chirico. Magrittes interest started in about 1925.
The following passage exemplifies Magrittes immense respect for this artist:

This triumphant poetry (of de Chiricos art) supplanted the stereotyped effect of traditional
painting. It represented a complete break with the mental habits peculiar to artists who are
prisoners of talent, virtuosity and all the little aesthetic specialties. It was a new vision through
which the spectator might recognize his own isolation and hear the silence of the world. He was
the first to dream of what must be painted as opposed to how to paint.

Magritte admired de Chiricos use of dislocation, a combination of incompatible elements of
reality, such as a cannon and a clock, within the same picture frame. De Chiricos smooth,
simplified brushwork and pronounced outlines also attracted Magritte who termed this style the
painters version of a collage. Furthermore, Magritte was fascinated by the double illusions de
Chirico produced through the depiction of pictures within pictures. These motifs, such as an oil
painting within a painted room or an interior space with a window view of another world,
interested Magritte because they complicated the relationship between reality and the
illusionistic world of art. The close-up frontality of objects in de Chirico's paintings also
appealed to Magritte because of its directness and gravity.
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/citi/resources/Rsrc_001620.pdf

Love song, Giorgio de Chirico, 1914

It is a tribute to the importance of this theme that Magritte himself would write, with reference to
his original oil of the subject, that The lost jockey is the first canvas I really painted with the
feeling I had found my way, if one can use that term. Magrittes own revelation had occurred
when he had seen a painting by Giorgio de Chirico. Presenting the viewer with an eccentric
assortment of seemingly unassociated objects, de Chiricos Love song introduced the viewer to
a realm in which another hidden logic appeared dominant. While the mysticism of de Chirico did
not influence Magritte, the break with perceived reality and the use of juxtapositions did. For this
reason, Magritte denied the open influence of de Chirico, making specific reference to his first
version of The lost jockey:

If one takes into consideration what Ive painted since 1926 (The lost jockey, for example,
and what followed), I dont think one can talk about de Chiricos influence. I was struck
about 1925 when I saw a picture by Chirico, Love song. If there is any influence its quite
possible theres no resemblance to Chiricos pictures in The lost jockey. In sum, the influence
in question is limited to a great emotion, to a marvelous revelation when for the first time in my
life I saw truly poetic painting. With time, I began to renounce researches into pictures in which
the manner of painting was uppermost. Now, I know that since 1926 this became clear only
sometime after having instinctively sought what should be painted.
http://www.mattesonart.com/le-jockey-perdu-the-lost-jockey.aspx

The blank signature (Le blanc-seing), 1965

Magritte found his way toward nowhereness. According to modern physics, the vacuum is not
empty. It is inhabited by microscopic potential entities appearing and disappearing. It is as if a
horse and a rider appeared in a forest and then disappeared at an instant. There are many people
who have seen such apparitions, referring to them as ghosts. Are they real? What is reality? In
the world of modern physics coincidence has a special place. Objects have a double identity,
both material and wave-like. Even a mountain consists of wave-like components, and it is just a
certain configuration of these components what gives the mountain its compound and rigid
aspect. But in the quantum limit even a mountain can become as fuzzy as the sky above its
summit. Both the mountain and the sky, according to quantum mechanics, are probabilistic
systems, expressed by wave-functions. It is the collapse of the probability function what arranges
things in space at a certain time. But it is the conscious act of the observer what makes the
distribution collapse. In The blanc signature, two systems are superimposed against each other.
However, the final result isnt one state against the other, but both states have been expressed in
reality simultaneously, so that the system consists of both the horse with the rider and the trees.
Of course, the trick is that the image of the horse is not continuous. It is interrupted by the tree
trunks. It is the mind which tries to reconstruct the picture in a complete way. Still, as in the
world of physics, in our minds all objects keep their wave-like behavior, as mere electrochemical
signals. In other words, a horse, a rider, and a forest with its trees are found in our mind
superimposed during the time we think of them, while they simultaneously keep their separate
forms as attention shifts from one object to the other. Therefore ghosts are not less real than real
things. They are real exactly at the moment we pay attention to them, but they are also the
shadows of themselves, representations, ghosts, or wave-functions the rest of the time.
http://www.scottmcd.net/artanalysis/?p=115

The difficult crossing

Cup-and-ball (bilboquet)

During the 1850s in Europe, bilbo catchers or bilboquets became quite the rage for
entertainment. The one shown here is of similar design and the principle is like the ball and cup.
On one end of the shaft, the ball is caught in a shallow depression, requiring considerably more
practice than in the ball and cup shown above. On the other end of the shaft, the hole in the ball
is stuck on the pointed spike of the shaft. For those that thing the action cannot be done, we
watched an interpreter at a historic site succeeding about 60 percent of the time on the cup end
and about one out of three times on the spike end.
http://www.mattesonart.com/biography.aspx

Pleiades, Max Ernst, 1920

Bather between light and darkness, 1935

The balusters- or bilboquets as Magritte called them- a kind of piece not unlike the bishop of a
chess set, constitute a recurrent prop in the artists pictures. Max Ernst called them
phallustrades, thereby indicating their sexual allusion.
http://www.all-art.org/art_20th_century/magritte1.html

Untitled collage, 1925

Aquis submersus, Max Ernst, 1919

Magritte was inspired by the collages of Max Ernst. According to David Sylvester, Magritte
made over two dozen collages from 1925 until he left for Paris in 1927. Note the umbrella
pattern (or spider-web) design Magritte began using in some of his early paintings and collages.
Here the bilboquet/ pawn has clearly taken on human characteristics. What appears to be an
image of Sigmund Freud is pointing the way... but which way?

Nocture, 1925

Master of the revels (Le maitre du plaisir),
1926

Nocturne is one of Magrittes important early paintings. It established many of Magrittes icons:
the bilboquet, the spider- web design on the floor, and the curtain. Its also the first painting
within a painting. In the Master of the revels the picture world is connected, literally, to the real
world with a piece of black string. The Master walks the tightrope between the paintings
reality and outside world.
http://www.mattesonart.com/early-years--to-1925.aspx

The encounter (La rencontre), 1926

In The encounter the bilboquets have taken human form with one eye. Clearly the encounter
is the group of three bilboquets meeting the other group. Again this is a stage setting with
curtains found in many of Magrittes work.

The difficult crossing (La traverse difficile), 1926

Another common feature of Magrittes works seen here is the ambiguity between windows and
paintings. The back of the room shows a boat in a thunderstorm, but the viewer is left to wonder
if the depiction is a painting or the view out a window. Magritte elevated the idea to another
level in series of works where outdoor paintings and windows both appear and even overlap.
Note also that the front right leg of the table resembles a human leg and the hand resembles a
mannequin hand.

The difficult crossing, 1963

In the 1963 version, a number of elements have changed or disappeared. Instead of taking place
in a room, the action has moved outside. There is no table or hand clutching a bird and the scene
of the rough sea in the ambiguous window/painting at the rear becomes the entire new
background. Near the front a low brick wall is seen with a bilboquet behind and a suited figure
with an eyeball for a head in front.

Metaphysical interior with biscuits, Giorgio de Chirico, 1916

The birth of the idol, 1926

Both versions of The difficult crossing show a strong similarity to Magrittes painting The
birth of the idol, also from 1926. The scene is outside and depicts a rough sea in the background
(this time without a ship). Objects which appear include a bilboquet (the non-anthropomorphic
variety), a mannequin arm (similar to the hand which clutches the bird) and a wooden board with
window-like holes cut out, which is nearly identical to those flanking both sides of the room in
earlier version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Difficult_Crossing

All three paintings may have been inspired by Giorgio de Chiricos Metaphysical interior,
features a room with a number of strange objects and an ambiguous window/painting showing a
boat. Magritte was certainly aware of De Chiricos work and was emotionally moved by his first
viewing of a reproduction of Love song.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_de_Chirico

The birth of the idol may be considered the culmination of the painters effort to overpass the
difficult crossing from purism to a deeper level of artistic representation, also using surrealistic
objects. The fierce storm, surprisingly enough, is balanced by a feeling of security. This feeling
is enforced by the subtle but good balance of the bilboquet-figurine, which rests on another,
seemingly unfinished, figurine, which, in turn, is lying on the table. This second figurine sharply
points to the rough sea as if it were going to stab the storm. Inside the room, where the storm is
raging, there is a strange calmness, depicted by a mirror lying against the wall, which seems to
form a protective shield against the wind and the waves, while the stairs seem to be leading
nowhere. Apparently, the pose of the painters idol gives the impression that it is able to leave
the room any time it wants to. This is the arrogantly heroic stance of the artist against all odds.

The invention of life

Magritte with his mother, 1899
http://mimisato.blogspot.gr/2011/09/magritt
e-biography.html

Magritte with his wife Georgette
http://www.surrealists.co.uk/magritte.php
One night in 1912, his mother Rgine Bertinchamp, who suffered from depression, left the house
while the rest of the family was asleep and she threw herself over a bridge, into the river Sambre.
Magritte (then only 13) was reportedly present when her dead body was retrieved from the water.
According to one of the many legends associated with Magritte, the image of his mother floating,
her nightgown obscuring her face, influenced a 1927- 1928 series of paintings of people with
cloth obscuring their faces.

The lovers (Les amants), 1928

The incident was described much later by Louis Scutenaire, poet and Magrittes friend, in words
which, according to Georgette, stylized the whole episode into a legend. The only recollection
which Magritte himself admitted to having of the affair was that of a feeling of pride at suddenly
finding himself the focal point of interest and sympathy both in the neighborhood and among his
fellow pupils at the Charleroi grammar school. It is certain that he never saw his mothers corpse,
its face covered with a nightdress.

The lovers, 1928
According to Marcel Paquet, the psychological interpretations of Magrittes work by David
Sylvester and others that the death of Renes mother influenced a series of paintings of people
with cloth obscuring their faces, including The lovers and The heart of the matter are
unfounded. This view is supported by the fact in the previous two paintings the hoods are lifted
and real faces are revealed (although the body of the man is invisible).

David Sylvester proposes that Magritte might have also copied the idea from a Nick Carter
detective magazine (similar to comic book) where the dying heroine mysteriously has her head
covered with a sheet. Magritte, a big fan of detective novels, wrote an article about Nick Carter.

The musings of a solitary walker, 1926

The painting that perhaps deals directly with her death is the previous one. Magritte used many
iconic images to obscure people and objects. The reason for this had to do little or nothing to do
with his mothers death. He obscured faces with sheets, then birds, pipes and finally apples.
Perhaps the real reason for obscuring images besides adding mystery to the person was: the
reclusive Magritte was hiding, not wanting to be recognized.

According to Fred Halper, From the psychoanalytic perspective, the unconscious wishes, needs,
and unresolved psychosexual conflicts of childhood development is the route to understanding
Magrittes creative work. What better candidate for such an approach than the pubescent Rene
Magritte insecurely attached to a mother who throws herself in a nearby river, and whose nude
body he sees retrieved many days later, with wet nightgown pulled up over her head. The
headless body is made visible to him. This, the focus of his Oedipal desire is now uncovered.
The occluded is unoccluded, but lifeless

David Sylvester, the most prominent historian of Magritte, has called into serious question
whether Magritte could have possibly witnessed the retrieval of his mothers body, as he
reportedly told his biographer Louis Scutenaire. Doesnt this deal a devastating blow to a
psychoanalytic understanding of the essential trauma experienced by the thirteen year old
Magritte and its influence on his subsequent work? Interpretation is always nourished by
flexibility. Psychoanalysis is no different. Perhaps it was the fantasy of witnessing the nude
mothers body pulled from the river which is all important? The most recent psychoanalytic
approach accepts the factual basis of Sylvesters finding that Magritte couldnt have witnessed
the event and asks us to understand the trauma as typical of all children who suffer the loss of a
mother.

Kaplan argues that in such cases screen memories, however erroneous, serve to camouflage
and transform the more intense pain of the actual life of the mother. In this case, what is screened
is the long history of deep depression and attempts at suicide by Regina Magritte. Interestingly,
from this point of view, Magrittes strong identification with Edgar Allen Poe has nothing to do
with themes of mystery, poetry or the unknown, but rather their shared trauma of maternal death
during childhood.
http://visionlab.harvard.edu/Members/Fred/reprints/pdf's/construal.pdf

One may say that as soon as psychoanalysis appeared and realized it had nothing to deal with, it
started to create psychological problems to people. We create problems in order to solve them, a
psychoanalyst could say. According to the previous analysis too, Magritte himself was overtly
hostile to Freudian thinking. He resisted the notion of interpretation of his work in general, as
well as drawing any specific connections between his psychological development and his art.
There was no relationship and psychoanalysis could contribute nothing to the mysteries of life.
Therefore, the analysis cancels out itself with the latter statement.

The heart of the matter (L histoire centrale), 1928

In The heart of the matter, the woman, whose face is obscured by a white cloth, has her left
hand around her throat as if strangling herself. Perhaps she holds the hood because she doesnt
want to reveal her identity. Even the painter may be ignorant of who this person really is. Is it his
mother, or another woman? Is it our own mother? Is it the person we most love and who we have
idealized so much that we always try to cover up her real (natural) face? What would we see if
we took off this hood? I find it hard to imagine one getting struggled by ones own hands.
Therefore by narrowing the interpretation down to a suicide event, I believe we deprive the
painting from all other implications.

The invention of life, 1928

The hood appears several times in Magrittes paintings. What is it trying to conceal? Perhaps
the real face or the true emotions; It certainly gives these paintings a certain degree of
anonymity. Magritte once told that he felt proud for his mothers death, as if she had killed
herself in an act of ultimate self-sacrifice (for the sake of her own son.) Nevertheless, the point is
that the painter had no choice but to idealize the event, and he probably felt uncomfortable when
meeting happy (having both their parents) people. However, not everyone having lost his mother
becomes a Magritte. Therefore his mothers suicide can be regarded as a condition but not as the
cause of Magrittes tremendous creativity, in his own re-invention of life.

The symmetrical trick, 1928

In The symmetrical trick, the problem of the hood reaches, for the sake of the painting,
mathematical proportions. Its not the head but a part of the body (the upper part but the head) to
which the painter attributes facial expressions. Therefore the symmetry is not only mathematical,
but also perceptional.

The discovery of fire

The discovery of fire, 1935

I myself have a memory about a violin that my mother used to have. She often talked about it,
but I never saw it. It was supposed to be kept in a closet in her family house where she used to
live when she was young. I never understood why she left it there, why she never took it with
her. It is like the repressed memory of a person who gave up music, for one reason or another,
but who misses it and keeps on talking about it. I myself gave up the guitar (probably for the
same reason my mother gave up.) I guess I was very pressed by many things at the moment;
finally it proved not to be my main inclination (at least this is what I believe now). The guitar I
used to play was a real object, but my mothers violin may be a hypothetical one. Now my
mother doesnt even remember about any violin!

The ladder of fire I (Lchelle du feu), 1934

Magritte compared this painting to the cavemans first discovery of fire. He said in a 1938
lecture, The ladder of fire afforded me the privilege of being acquainted with the feeling
experienced by the first men who produced a flame by rubbing together two pieces of stone. He
follows this up with his 1936 The discovery of fire. The discovery is more apparent here; the
paper can burn, the chair can burn, but the tuba cannot burn- making the burning tuba an
impossible object. This impossibility is what Magritte is trying to convey.
http://www.mattesonart.com/1931-1942-brussels--pre-war-years.aspx

Trumpets (or tubas) cannot burn. However, trumpets cannot catch fire in the first place.
Therefore there must have been something (a cloth or cover) that could catch fire, which now has
disappeared under the flames. It could be a cover in the form of a hood, or even a memory of a
song, or of someone singing the song, lost forever in the smoke. Whatever the material was, it
has disappeared with the help of fire. The chair and the piece of paper are impossible objects.
Although they are normally made from wood, in this case, (together with the trumpet) they are
made from some extraordinary, thus inflammable in the common sense, material.

What is the common material that all three objects share? Magritte would certainly like us to
think not about the cover but about what the visible object, in this case the fire, implies.
Certainly, it could be artistic inspiration, with the liberating force of fire. What is gone is gone.
But Magritte would again say that things burn only if they have the property of catching fire.
When people discovered fire, they found at the same time the spirit which could make
everything burn. For example, the sun, a gun, or a trumpet can go off to express the spirit of
fire. Therefore the trumpet is, in this case, an object which can burn. Its not a common trumpet
but an object whose surrealistic music can be heard and understood only by trained and
susceptible ears. So this has to be the great discovery after all.

The familiar objects

View from the window at Le Gras, Nicphore Nipce, 1826- 1827

This is the oldest surviving camera photograph, and was created by Nicephore Niepce, in 1826
or 1827, at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes. It shows parts of the buildings and surrounding countryside
of his estate, Le Gras, seen from a high window. Niepce captured the scene with a camera
obscura focused onto a pewter (mainly tin) plate coated with bitumen of Judea (asphalt). The
bitumen hardened in the brightly lit areas, but in the dimly lit areas it remained soluble and could
be washed away with a mixture of oil of lavender and white petroleum. A very long exposure in
the camera was required. Sunlight strikes the buildings on opposite sides, suggesting an exposure
that lasted several hours, or even days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_from_the_Window_at_Le_Gras

19th century studio camera standing on tripod and using plates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography

The Therapist (Le Thrapeute), 1937

The Therapist, 1962

Before the discovery of photography, painters used to make a living by drawing portraits among
other things. Portraits and landscapes were a common feature for a painter during the
Renaissance. But as soon as photography was invented it seemed painters were threatened to lose
their jobs. After all, a photograph was able to depict a face, object or landscape much more
accurately than a painting. Therefore accuracy lost meaning for a painter, while abstraction
began. So painters started to imagine things that didnt exist in the real world. Things that even
an abstract photographer could not capture. This way, painting could still find a place in modern
art, besides photography.

The secret player, 1927

At the same time painters and artists in general began wondering if the unreal (or surreal) objects
they tried to capture could be common objects referring to a collective soul. For example, are
the objects used by Magritte in his paintings recognizable by everyone? Can in The secret
player anyone participate in this secret game? Everyone is familiar with the pieces of chess or
the balusters of staircases. The symbol is the same, recognizable by everyone, only the
interpretation changes. In fact, Magrittes bilboquet is a fundamental structural element in his
paintings. In the form of trees, bilboquets built a forest, and the bat of the cricket player is made
of the same material (wood). As the curtain rises, we found ourselves in the world of dreams.
The creature hovering among the trees looks strangely familiar. It looks like a water bottle
transformed into a headless creature. The gray lines on its black back emphasize its ability to
float or fly, while the woman on the right has her mouth covered. The mysterious secrecy of the
painting points directly to a dream state, while the position of the cricket players (the fieldsman
comes before the batsman) seems to defy causality.

The familiar objects, 1928

The surrealist objects, since they are not found in reality, may gravitate with each other in a non-
physical way. In the previous painting, some of the painters familiar objects float in front of
the spectators eyes. I have the impression that there are not many spectators but just one,
captured in different time frames, watching, or better imagining, the same super-object, or sur-
objet in its different manifestations. Its hard to imagine the common characteristic which could
reveal one of the properties of this super-object. One such characteristic could refer to a
common property of these objects. An alternative explanation is some memory of the painter.
For example, drinking wine (the jar), by the sea (the sponge and the shell), with a woman (the
headdress), bitter as lemon. This is a common memory, referring to anyone of us. However,
neither the sequence nor the combination of these events is unique. For example, what combines
them could be the element of blue. The headdress is blue, the sponge and the shell refer to
water, while the lemon as well as the jar may contain water. In any case, the simplest common
property which unites both the objects and the persons in the painting is their defiance of gravity,
in a mode of meditation. Therefore, these phenomenally incongruous common objects coincide
at a deeper level in a meaningful way.

Personal values, 1952

I found an interesting analysis about this painting, which, by the way, is one of my favorites: In
Personal values, Magritte shows a bedroom filled with everyday objects that are juxtaposed
together in blown up proportions. These everyday objects include a comb, a matchstick, a
wineglass, a bar of soap and a shaving brush. They seem to be scattered around the room with no
apparent order. Their presence in the room and the scale in which they are depicted suggests to
the viewer that the room is fully decorated. The wallpaper of the rooms walls displays white
fluffy clouds and the azure blue sky. From the reflection on the mirror, a single window can be
seen with white curtains draped at the side.

Mirrors, curtains, the sky and the clouds are some of Magrittes favorite items. The relative
proportions of some of the other objects, however, are indicative of the painters personality. For
example, the bed is proportionally the smallest, suggesting that the painter doesnt like to sleep
much. He could equally spend his time sitting on his poof-chair, which is as big as the bed. The
huge comb and shaving brush denote a narcissistic personality, enjoying wine in the enormous
glass, while the big matchstick on the carpet reminds of some equivalence between the shape of
trees and lit matches.

What also makes the painting interesting is its impossible elements. The cupboard, for example,
is a double mirror, since it reflects the poof-seating, but also contains part of the sky, as well as
the window, whose curtain imitates one of the cupboards legs. Therefore, the mirror of the
cupboard is a window itself, both showing the exterior and reflecting the interior.

The same analysis goes on: The strong and rich colors found in the painting add a touch of
exuberance and joy to the painting. The overall mood of the painting is also rather calming and
serene, especially with the clouds painted on the walls of the room. A sense of harmony is also
created with the miraculous sense of balance achieved by Magritte despite the varying textures,
colors, shapes and sizes in which these objects are portrayed.

Despite the uplifting mood created, a sense of confusion or puzzlement is brought about due to
the unusual proportions of the objects. The varying scales of each object draw the attention of the
viewer as he takes in the whole painting. The unrealistic size of these objects holds the
surrealistic quality of the painting

In my opinion, the objects portrayed in this brilliant artwork are likely to belong to the artist
himself. This conclusion is made based on Magrittes writing, saying, Painting for me is a
description of a thought. The thought can only consist of visible objects, which exist in my head
as clear imaged. A comb for example, I make a lot of drawings of it. That in turn will suggest
other images- a wineglass, a shaving brush Magritte may have included these objects in this
work with the objective to cause viewers to think about their own personal values and more
importantly, rethink their significance in their lives. This is where the blown-up proportions of
these objects come into play as Magritte tries to highlight the importance of these objects. The
viewers are then stimulated to rethink about their relationship with their ordinary personal items,
to question their thoughtless, hasty and routine interactions with familiar objects that usually
cause these objects to be belittled and ignored. As such, viewers will stop and assess their values
and importance, thus the title of the work, Personal values.
http://thoughtwithoutabox.wordpress.com/2012/08/26/rene-magritte-les-valuers-personnelles-
personal-values-1952/

What I like most about Personal values is that it explicitly illuminates the painters everyday
life: A small room to paint, some basic commodities (a bed, a cupboard and a poof-chair, a comb
and a shaving brush, etc., and a lot of fantasy of course!

The promised land

The promised land (La terre promise), 1947

As well as bilboquets, Magritte used cicerones or cicerines in his paintings. The only human
thing in The promised land is the hands of the cicerines. One of them is holding two leaves,
while the other one holds a glass with one hand, while with the other hand it holds the former
cicerine. The glass is empty but it looks red because of the reflection of the cicerines red
garment. The heads of the two cicerines touch one another, suggesting a close relationship,
sexual or kinship. Oddly enough the second cicerine seems to appear from within the mirror as a
reflection of the other cicerine, although parts of it are not inside the mirror. It is a sort of double
reflection, half of which belongs to the real world and the other half to our own perception. The
three bells or spheres suggest a triadic element perhaps related to the religious aspect of the title,
but perhaps they are less than three- the third sphere at the back is most likely a reflection. In any
case, the three spheres offer a very vivid representation of a fixed idea- that of the promised
land, which the painter deserved and gained, a place found in a small room decorated with some
of the painters familiar objects.

Cicero, 1947

Cicero, 1965
Cicero is one of the prominent philosophers of antiquity. According to Michael Grant, the
influence of Cicero upon the history of European literature and ideas greatly exceeds that of any
other prose writer in any language. A characteristic of his is the neologisms he brought into
Latin, and in turn into English, such as the words humanity (humanitas), quality (qualitas),
quantity (quantitas), and essence (essential).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero

Therefore, Magritte had two reasons, among others, to admire Cicero. Firstly Cicero was an
excellent philosopher, and secondly he was also the creator of new objects (words in this case).
Magritte in his paintings presents Cicero as a person possessing the fire of speech, coming out
of his mouth, in the daytime, while at night he stands by the window, under the moon,
contemplating. In his hands he holds the leaf of piece or the triple candlestick (perhaps
corresponding to Ciceros full name, Marcus Tullius Cicero, which incidentally was the same as
his fathers).

The rights of man, 1947

Elementary cosmogony, 1949

Therefore, the identification of Magrittes fire with a spiritual symbolism is confirmed. It may
also be suggested a correspondence between the male-oriented cicerine and the female-oriented
trumpet, as representations of a father-mother pair. In The rights of man Cicero offers earth
and water, corresponding to the leaf and the glass, to cover the basic needs of humanity, while
the burning trumpet represents the other two elements- air and fire. In Elementary cosmogony,
the philosopher rests on the ground, with his sphere of contemplation by his left hand.

Natural graces

Plain of air, 1940
Leaf customs, Max Ernst, 1925

The leaf motif was not unique to Magritte as we see. Max Ernst painted leaves with the water
marks of wood, making thus wood a fundamental structural element in art. In the Plain of air,
Magritte in turn transformed the leaf to the tree itself, suggesting a fundamental unity in nature,
together with the ground and the sky.

Project of poster The center of textile workers in Belgium, 1938

At the first clear word, Max Ernst, 1923

Magritte cannot be considered a major (political) activist, but when he was engaged in painting
posters for trade unions, he left surrealism aside. The spindle however is a common surrealistic
object. In Ernsts painting for example, the symbolism of the spindle overlaps with the
symbolism of a cup-and-ball (bilboquet), which is held by the hand in a very characteristic way.
The sadomasochistic atmosphere inspired by the previous painting, accompanied by the insect at
the top left, toned by the contrast of red and green colors, in not what we want to find out at the
moment. But the match-stick trees resemble representations in Magrittes paintings.

The good season (La belle saison), 1961

Clairvoyance (La clairvoyance), 1962

Leaf-like trees (or tree-like leaves) in Magritte paintings are in fact an ultra-surrealistic
representation of nature, a detailed and consistent reductionism with which we recognize the
whole in the parts, but also a unique harmony between the parts. In the second painting,
Magrittes tree is compared to a real tree. It is remarkable to note that Magritte leaf- trees are
unique, in the sense that they could be real trees, under different evolutionary processes. This is
why Magritte used to say that his paintings were not fantastic, but instead representations of
real things, though depicted in an exaggerated and uncommon way.

Companions of fear, 1942

Island of treasures, 1942

The taste of tears, 1946

The natural graces, 1963

This is a group of paintings where leaf-like representations are transformed into birds. If trees
could fly (or if birds had roots), their leaves may have looked like Magrittes depictions. In the
Companions of fear, the owls grow right from the bush beneath, like the feathers which
sometimes grow from our minds when we dream. The owl could be seen as a scary creature,
passing just above us as we walk in a forest at night, but also, as a bird of wisdom, arriving to
accompany and guide us throw our most thick and dark fears. In The taste of tears, the
caterpillar from the plant has climbed on the bird, leaving its marks on its chest, on which we see
the veins of a leaf. This is a very successful opposition between roughness (the caterpillar) and
tenderness (a leaf), while the bird bends its head in a passive expression.

The treasure island is a novel of Louis Stevenson, first published as a book on 23 May 1883,
and perhaps Magritte had read it or knew the title. Anyway, while the original story was about
pirates and the lost treasure, Magrittes Island of treasures is about a barren island with just a
nest of birds, which are growing from the ground like leaves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Island

Therefore Magrittes lost treasure is not to be found in gold but in the luxury of being able to
enjoy the atmosphere of tranquil eternity on a remote island. The Natural graces epitomize this
message of pure naturalism expressed by the entangled features of surrealism.

The giantess (La gante), 1929-1930

The first of Magrittes Giantess featured a miniature man entering a room with a seemingly
huge nude woman towering above him. The scales of the painting are characteristic: While the
closets and the table have the right dimensions with respect to the lady, the door and the couch
are too small, even for the little man who seems to be approaching the room. Also, the painting
on the wall looks proportionally huge.

The giantess, 1935

The giantess, 1936

In a letter to Andre Breton in 1934, Magritte discussed the seeds of the idea that led to the
creation of the Giantess, saying that he was trying to discover what it is in a tree that belongs to
it specifically but which would run counter to our concept of a tree. This was a part of Magrittes
pioneering adventures into the nature of the world and our perceptions, disrupting the absolute
expectations people have about the nature of specific objects. So with the tree, Magritte sought
the idiosyncratic, signature element that he could disrupt in order to confront the viewer with a
new, fresh view of the tree. He did this by twisting the associated elements of the object, forcing
the viewer's reappraisal of the commonplace. This solution was disarmingly simple: The tree, as
the subject of a problem, became a large leaf the stem of which was a trunk directly planted in
the ground. The name for these leaf-like representations comes from a poem by Baudelaire. In
the poem, which is mentioned by Magritte, Baudelaire imagines himself exploring and roaming
over the body of a giantess. The first verse of the poem goes like this:

Du temps que la Nature en sa verve
puissante
Concevait chaque jour des enfants
monstrueux,
J'eusse aim vivre auprs d'une jeune gante,
Comme aux pieds d'une reine un chat
voluptueux.
At times when Nature expressed herself so
eloquently
Conceiving monstrous children every day,
Id have liked to live beside a young
giantess,
At her royal feet like a voluptuous cat.

Search for the absolute, 1940

Gigantic figures standing, in comparison, against miniscule ones, serve two purposes; firstly, to
expose a game of perspective, of an interplay between the figure and the background; secondly,
and at the same time, to denote the symbolism of the larger figure with respect to the smaller
one. In the previous painting, the gigantic tree and the huge ball stand imposing one beside the
other, in contrast to the two small human figures. The fact that the human figures are two
suggests a dialogue. The painter here is not alone but with somebody, having together a
conversation, perhaps wondering about the miracles of life. Their relative miniscule size
compared to that of the tree and the ball give a sense of humility against the mysteries of nature
and of the human spirit. Therefore the final cause of the high standing leaf-like trees and leaf-
like representations is the Search of the absolute, is a symbolic representation of the tree of
life, which synopsizes in its network of veins the history of mankind, and of the ball of
wisdom, which contains all knowledge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_quantum_mechanics

The rape

Courtesans palace, 1929

The disguised symbol, 1928

The same reductionism or abstraction Magritte used in leaf-life representations (where the leaf
looks like the tree, and vice-versa), is found in body-faces. Here, the characteristics of the
middle part of the human body are painted in a way to imitate the expressions of the human face.
The nipples look like the eyes, and the bellybutton together with the shadowy fold above it
resemble the mouth and a chin dimple. The dark areas of the paintings help this body language
stand out.

The eternal evidence, 1930

In The eternal evidence, a headless body of a woman appears split into sepate frames, as if in a
photographic film, while the parts are recombined in such a way to form the whole picture.

The eternally obvious (Lvidence
ternelle), 1930

The eternally obvious, 1948

Magritte holding The eternally obvious, Paris, 1930, The Menil Collection
http://www.steeliman.com/2013/11/matin-avec-magritte.html

In The eternally obvious (1939), the whole picture emerges, though again in separate parts, of
Georgette, Magrittes wife and model. In 1948, Magritte replaced Georgette with some other
model.

A famous man, 1926

Representation (La reprsentation), 1937

The same analysis of the whole into parts, which nevertheless may stand on their own, forming
totalities themselves, occurs in the Famous man, with a bilboquet. Its missing head reappears
on the top left of the painting, hanging upside-down. In Representation, a womans vagina is
painted in such a way that it seems to be smiling.

The rape (Le viol), 1934

The rape, 1935

The culmination of Magrittes effort to unify the language of the human body with facial
expression is The rape. Here, the body with facial characteristics reverses into a face with
body-like characteristics. Again the eyes are the same as the female nipples, the naval stands for
the nose, while the mouth takes the place of a vagina. The hair on the head are certainly
suggestive of pubic hair.

The rape, 1948

In the last Rape, the violation of our understanding of the human form is completed, as the face
and the rest of the body of a woman have totally merged together. The legs appear as the jaws of
an alien creature just below its implied mouth, while the growth of the hair covers the body all
the way down. The whole form of the body in the painting stands exactly for the head which is
missing.

In Magrittes own words, in The rape a womans face is made up of the essential features of
her body. So composed, the face reflects the secret desires of the painter and the observer that
some women can convey their sexuality in the way in which they look at one. Painting, the art of
rendering things visible, reveals its ability here to record impressively the constant sex-appeal
which leaves its mark upon almost every moment of our lives. The selection of the works title
indicates the ongoing conflict of the voyeuristic observer; Magritte comes very close here to
Hans Bellmers erotic perversion, albeit without the latters sadness. He has destroyed what is
most obvious of all, namely the face, replacing it with something even more obvious. It is the
shock effect of the picture together with the basic idea lying behind it, which represent the key
components of his work.

The act of violence (Lattentat), 1932

It has been suggested that The rape series of paintings are the painters protest against the war.
However, such paintings find their roots back in collage techniques and the quest of the painter
to cut reality to pieces and recompose it in a unique and indicative way. Magritte was opposed to
reality as we normally conceive it. Neither was he a hedonist, although some translated the
Rape as such. In The act of violence, we see again that the violence taking place is
metaphorical; its a violation of common imagery.

Imp of the perverse

The female thief, 1927

The discovery, 1927

When I first saw The discovery, I thought it was a depiction of a leopard-lady. However, as
the pose of the woman seems to be following the stripes on her body, a better explanation is that
the figure is created by the curvature of the canvas. The painters paint itself has this property
of fluidity, as if the only thing a painter had to do was to follow the paint while flowing.

Imp of the perverse, 1927

In this painting, the principle of fluidity can be better examined in the water marks on a piece
of wood. The marks remind us that the wood used to be alive, so that the marks contain all the
history of the corresponding tree, its environment, the rain it absorbed, the ground it used to
stand on. Therefore, wood serves both as a construction material and as a functional object. It
supports the painters canvas, but also tells the story of its past life to ones trained eyes and ears.

The Imp of the perverse is a metaphor for the common tendency, particularly among children
and miscreants, to do exactly the wrong thing in a given situation. The conceit is that the
misbehavior is due to an imp (a small demon) leading an otherwise decent person into mischief.
The phrase has a long history in literature, and was popularized (and perhaps coined) by Edgar
Allan Poe in his short story, The imp of the perverse. It is also exemplified in The bad glazier,
a prose poem by Charles Baudelaire.
http://www.polishforums.com/off-topic-47/imp-perverse-46151/

The conqueror (Le conqurant), 1926

The man of the sea, 1927

The conqueror depicts a musician dressed in formal attire, sporting by a black bow tie. A
wooden plank replaces the head with two plant like, violin like, decorations. It reminds of a tenor
about to sing an aria. This is a common Magritte use of musical notes in a collage probably used
as a tribute to his brother Paul and close friend E.L.T. Mesens, both musicians.

In the second painting, we realize that the man of the sea, as well as the female thief we saw
before, are depictions of the same persona- the anima and animus of the same person. The
uniform the figures wear is very descriptive of the asexual (or bisexual) representation of a
painters doll. This is very helpful however, because it lets us concentrate on some other,
otherwise invisible, characteristics of the human body. First of all, we may discern its similarity
(in fact its origins) with a tree. We all come from the forest, not only as primitive dwellers, but
also because we recognize a part of our own in the story it tells. The whispers of a forest may
sometimes be printed on the wood, like musical annotations, so that the tree trunk may take half
the shape of a tree and half of a violin. The water marks now become imprints of the spectrum of
the sounds in the forest of our soul.

Magrittes The man of the sea is strongly reminiscent of the Sandman. It is a short story
written by E. T. A. Hoffmann, in 1817. The story revolves around a doll (automaton) called
Olympia. One of the protagonists (Nathanael) falls in love with Olympia. He begins to watch
Olympia from his window through his telescope, although her fixed gaze and motionless stance
disconcert him. Spalanzani (Olympias father) gives a grand party at which it is reported that
his daughter will be presented in public for the first time. Nathanael is invited, and becomes
enraptured by Olympia who plays the harpsichord, sings and dances. Her stiffness of movement
and coldness of touch appear strange to many of the company. Nathanael dances with her
repeatedly, awed by her perfect rhythm, and eventually tells her of his passion for her, to which
Olympia, repeatedly, replies only Ah, ah!

Eventually Nathanael determines to propose to Olympia, but when he arrives at her rooms he
finds an argument in progress between Spalanzani and Coppola (an Italian trader), who are
fighting over the body of Olympia and arguing over who made the eyes and who made the
clockwork. Coppola, who is now revealed as Coppelius in truth (a frightening, large and
malformed man), wins the struggle, and makes off with the lifeless and eyeless body. The sight
of Olympias eyes lying on the ground drives Nathanael to madness, and he flies at the professor
to strangle him. He is pulled away by other people drawn by the noise of the struggle, and in a
state of insanity is taken to an asylum.

A modern version of the Sandman
http://whatculture.com/film/50-greatest-marvel-movie-moments.php

Nathanael recalls his childhood terror of the legendary Sandman, who is traditionally said to
throw sand in the eyes of children to help them fall asleep. Nathanael struggles his whole life
against posttraumatic stress which comes from a traumatic episode with the sandman in his
childhood experience. Until the end of Hofmanns book it remains open whether this experience
was real, or just a dream of the young Nathanael.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman_(short_story)

Landscape, 1926

The wreckage of the shadow, 1926

The similarity between the Sandman and the Man of the sea is apparent. The merge between
human characteristics and inanimate matter (or plant and animals) was further explored by
Magritte in his paintings.

In Landscape there is another representation where the branches of a tree have merged with the
veins of a human body. The head is formed by arm-like extensions; therefore it is more a body-
like tree, rather than a tree-like body. This priority is also depicted in the rocks behind, which
seem to be wearing vests.

In The wreckage of the shadow there is a high degree of symmetry, combining objects and
notions. The upper part wooden frames resemble the eagles head mountain at the left top, while
the mountain on the right reappears within its own cave, at the bottom. The eagle seems to have
left some of its feathers on the panel with the strange grid, which balances on one vertex at the
center of the painting, while, just below, the feathered head of an eagle, standing on a stick and
pointing at the opposite direction completes the symmetries of the composition.

The comic spirit (L esprit comique), 1927

The finery of the storm (La parure de l
orage), 1927

In the previous paintings, meaning has given its place to a more scholastic kind of painting.
Ornamental vertical cutouts placed in front of a desolate seascape appear to be collaged on to the
canvas- so dense, hard-edged and object-like are they. In fact, these ornamental totem poles are
painted on to the canvas, producing a striking juxtaposition of an illusionist background and
relief-like, tangible foreground. In fact, Magrittes father was a taylor, so young Magritte may
have many time watched his father to cut and tie pieces of cloth together, transfering later on hia
father art on the canvas.
http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/magrittes-lonely-art

The end of contemplation (La fin des contemplations), 1927

The same technique is employed in The end of contemplation. The faces, as well as the shape
behind them, seem to be cut out of paper edges, which form the nose, the mouth, the chin, as
well as parts of the body. I would say that by merging or deleting the facial expressions, the
painter forces us to accept a unified sense of reality, consisting of the experience of all senses
simultaneously, making us reach this way the limits of contemplation, where common
experience and artistic creativity come together.

Annunciation

Annunciation, 1930

The double secret, 1927

The iron-like balls (or bells), attached to strings (or just floating) in Magrittes paintings, remind
me of space machines, coming to our world to inspect us, with eyes hidden behind the gap found
all around their perimeter of these spheres, which could be something like flying saucers. But,
despite what most people think, these objects come (at least most of the times) not from outer
space but from within our unconscious mind. This is why all these UFOs seem so familiar to
us.

Annunciation means the announcement of divine incarnation. Therefore, in this painting,
whether its implications are religious or not, we have the materialization of Magrittes familiar
surrealistic objects, such as the bilboquets, collage paper, together with an iron curtain full of
iron balls or bells. The iron curtain certainly implies segregation, either religious or political.
Someone could say that with this painting the painter wants to split parts with the rest of the
surrealists or with the church or, on the contrary, that he wants to protest against the division
between the surrealistic and the divine.

Magritte certainly was not a strong believer in religion, and he probably considered the mystery
of annunciation in a secular sense. From the surrealistic point of view of course, the title could
only be ironic. Magritte had quarreled with the leader of the French surrealists, Andr Breton, on
a matter relating to religion in December 1929, and the rift between the two men was to last until
1933. At a gathering at his home, Breton, who, like all the surrealist writers, was an arch-atheist
and anti-cleric, noticed that Georgette was wearing a cross, and asked her to take off that
object. Georgette habitually wore the cross, which had belonged to her grandmother, and
preferred to leave with her husband rather than remove it. Magritte was deeply angered and upset
by this seemingly rather trivial incident, and rejected attempts by friends to effect reconciliation.
Yet the fault was not all on one side: many present at the incident felt that Magrittes hostile
response was not entirely justified, particularly as it seems that he had long attempted to provoke
Breton on the subject of religion. Patrick Waldberg writes, At the meetings Magritte had for
some time been making a custom of harrying Breton with embarrassing questions bearing upon
religion- Tell me, Breton, what do you think of Jesus Christ? What is the view you take of the
Virgin Mother? Breton, have you pondered the Catholic mystery?
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/magritte-the-annunciation-t04367/text-catalogue-entry

However, the message has to go much deeper than this. The iron curtain certainly implies a
division, which is exaggerated by the other surrealistic objects, such as the cutout paper and the
bilboquets against a natural landscape with trees, rocks and the sky. But this division is between
the painter and the rest of the world. On the one hand, there is the surrealistic expression and
understanding of things, while, on the other hand, there is the common interpretation of everyday
objects. But the iron curtain itself with its strange hanging balls forms itself a strange wall, a
metaphysical limit which everyone would like to pass to see whats happening on the other side.
Also, the one-to-one correspondence between the sky and the curtain, the trees and the
bilboquets, the rocks and the cutout paper, suggests that this interpretation is correct. The painter
wants us to see the other side of familiar objects, and help us pass to a parallel, transcendental
world.

The same sort of comparison is proposed by the two faces in The double secret. One face is
normal but its missing parts are suggestive of its susceptibility to transformation. This
transformation takes place with the second face, inside which we find the strange strings with
bells. The first face is standing at the back, and its missing parts are parts of the sky or of the
ocean, while the second face is a bit forward with no parts missing, except his interior organs
which are substituted by the string of bells. Therefore, the painter brings forward the secret of
this double reality, the inside world against the outside world, giving the impression of two faces,
whereas there is presumably only one.

The pleasure principle

Simply put, the pleasure principle, which is a Freudian concept, states that people have the
instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain. It is contrasted to the reality principle. During adulthood
one must pass from the world of pleasure to the world of reality, abandoning ones ego for the
sake of finding ones id. However, things are much more complicated than that. First of all,
pleasure is always accompanied by pain. Pleasure is gained through the excitation of the senses
(and of the brain), therefore it is always an apocalyptic process. In other words, pleasure and pain
are two complementary concepts, which tend to find a point of balance. Secondly, the principle
of reality could be the same as the principle of pleasure. People understand, and adopt
themselves to, reality through pleasure. Painful elements of reality which we are forced to accept
are always filtered by our brain within the context of the pleasure principle. For example, when
an adult has to give up masturbating for the sake of maturity, he will adopt another method to
fulfill the pleasure principle (by painting lets say representations of masturbation). So, we dont
really overpass the pleasure principle, we transform it on a more sophisticated level.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure_principle_(psychology)

Freuds perverse polymorph, Salvador Dali, 1939

The story of the Sandman is interpreted by Freud in his 1919 essay, The Uncanny. It is the
concept of an instance where something can be both familiar yet alien at the same time, resulting
in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange. Because the uncanny is familiar, yet incongruous,
it often creates cognitive dissonance within the experiencing subject, due to the paradoxical
nature of being simultaneously attracted to yet repulsed by an object. This cognitive dissonance
often leads to an outright rejection of the object, as one would rather reject than rationalize.

The state of the uncanny was first identified by Ernst Jentsch in a 1906 essay, On the
psychology of the Uncanny. Jentsch defines the uncanny as being a product of intellectual
uncertainty; so that the uncanny would always, as it were, be something one does not know ones
way about in. The better orientated in his environment a person is, the less readily will he get the
impression of something uncanny in regard to the objects and events in it, and expands upon its
use in fiction, focusing specifically on Hoffmanns Sandman, which features the lifelike doll,
Olympia:

In telling a story one of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to
leave the reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure in the story is a human being or an
automaton and to do it in such a way that his attention is not focused directly upon his
uncertainty, so that he may not be led to go into the matter and clear it up immediately.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny#Sigmund_Freud

Scene from the film Un chien Andalou

Freud drew attention on the idea of being robbed of ones eyes, as the more striking instance
of uncanniness in the tale. This uncanny effect was used by the surrealists extensively, as in the
1929 film, Un chien Andalou, (An Andalusian dog) by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. The
film has no plot in the conventional sense of the word. The chronology of the film is disjointed,
without the events or characters changing very much. It uses dream logic in narrative flow that
can be described in terms of then-popular Freudian free association, presenting a series of
tenuously related scenes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_Chien_Andalou

Young girl eating a bird, 1927

Murderous sky (Le ciel meurtrier), 1927

Gruesome scenes with sexual context were very common among the surrealists. Dali, for
example, also painted humans eating animals alive, as in the previous painting. Certainly,
Young girl eating a bird is the most gruesome painting Magritte ever did. Its a companion
piece to Murderous sky, depicting four identical bloody dying birds flying in front of a
mountain of rocks.

David Sylvester suggests that this painting might be based on a poem by Paul Noug which is
considered to have been written at about the same time. Its also possible that the poem could
also be based on the painting. The poem goes like this:

We find her in the heart of summer, in the shadow of a sturdy tree thronged with calmed birds
unalarmed by her presence. The schoolgirl demeanor would be excuse enough, and her modest
dress, her neat hair... It is then that one notices the pallor of joy, the eyelids closed over the
cruelty of her dreams, the teeth pressed to the blood-stained lips, the woman engrossed in her
pleasure and savoring, through the caress of its plumage, a creature docile to the point of
continuing to live. Since one has to hold one's own, one invents, as an afterthought, the girl who
ate birds.

According to other sources the explanation behind this painting is rather simple: One day
Magritte saw his wife eating a chocolate bird, so he decided he would do a painting of a young
woman eating a live bird. Evidently he decided not to use an accurate portrait of Georgette
because of the graphic nature of the subject material.
http://www.renemagritte.org/young-girl-eating-a-bird.jsp

Magritte relationship with the French surrealists was rather distant or even turbulent in some
instants. He had a rocky relationship with Breton over the years and generally disregarded
Bretons Freudian interpretations:

Psychoanalysis has nothing to say, not even about works of art, which evoke the mystery of the
world, said Magritte. Perhaps psychoanalysis itself represents the best case for
psychoanalysis. Magritte regarded it as a pseudo-science of the unconscious, a criminological
and ideological starting point. As Michel Foucault- with whom Magritte had an interesting and
instructive correspondence in the 1960s- succinctly explained, psychoanalysis aims at finally
confirming existential repression by restricting desire to the family triangle, to the legally
legitimized married couple.

Magritte was his own Surrealist once writing: Happy is he who betrays his own convictions for
the love of a woman. He opposed Freuds theses, automatist experiences based upon the power
of the unconscious, and everything that all too often in the circle around Andre Breton, the artist,
threatened to become dogma and law. It was unavoidable that those artists who were obviously
permeated by Surrealism would be excluded sooner or later from the Surrealist movement.
Andre Masson had realized this, and himself demanded his own exclusion. Bretons reply to this
was remarkable: Why? I have never exerted any pressure upon you. Proof, retorted Masson,
that you have exerted it upon others. Magritte, for his part, to whom Breton had written
indignantly in the late 1940s, Your dialectics and your Surrealism en plein soleil are
threadbare, answered, Sorry, Breton, but the invisible thread is on your bobbin.

The point is that Magritte, who wasnt generally a hedonist, decided to paint a hedonistic scene.
We know that cats (as well as other animals) are used to playing with their victims (birds or
mice) before they eat them, and sometimes they dont eat them at all. Humans also used to go
hunting (and still do), killing animals for fun (fox hunting, or safari, for example). It is this,
almost perverse, instinct of pleasure that goes far beyond mere survival. We like to play with our
victims, sometimes also enjoying seeing them suffering, just for the sake of fun. This is dreadful,
but true.

The pleasure principle (Portrait of Edward James), 1937

This is one of Magrittes most significant paintings. It synopsizes the pleasure principle. The
portrait is supposed to be depicting Edward James, who was a sponsor of surrealist painters,
including Magritte and Dali. Whoever was James, the portrait I believe depicts the painter
himself, or one of his personas in a state of pleasure. The sponge is a surrealist object, so
porous that it is able to fully absorb pleasure. It could also represent the female sexual organ. It is
placed on the table in the foreground, so that it is visible by everyone. This way, it gives a
warning that one should know what one is searching for, otherwise one may end up unhappy.
The table itself divides the painting in two parts, one visible and one invisible. The right hand of
the painter is very expressing, with the finger stretched trying to reach the sponge, while the
left hand is hidden beneath the table, suggesting that it is heading towards the sponges
counterpart (the male sexual organ). The head of the painter is covered with a glowing, alien
light, as if it were a metaphysical lamp, lightened by some sort of tremendous apocalypse. All
the painting is filled with calmness, showing that the painter has reached the state of
enlightenment.

The explanation, 1952

Pleasure is like a vessel, always ready to be filled with a liquid of satisfaction. When we find
pleasure, we have a feeling of fullness; when we dont get satisfaction we fill empty. Things tend
to move from higher states of energy to lower ones, from states of fullness to states of emptiness,
like the feeling we have in crowed places, making us search for quieter places. Quiet places are
hard to find nowadays. But the same goes for empty spaces. As the air and the water rush to fill
all the caves and empty cavities, so the spirit is always preoccupied with emptiness. The absolute
vacuum is the ideal place for creativity, for the mind to begin a new creation.

In fact there are no such things as empty holes, but objects with a high level of plasticity.
Holes are the objects more searched for by the pleasure-seeking mind. What the body feels by
penetration, the spirit understands through peering. When a woman puts some lipstick, the
allusion is not only aesthetical but also sexual, as the sharp edge of the stick penetrates the lips of
the woman. Any woman wearing lipstick must have felt this pleasure of subtle penetration. There
are lipsticks with vitamins, like those contained in fruits, such as carrots. A carrot combines
therapeutic properties which match with its lipstick- like color.

This is what is implied in The explanation. In the painting there are also two bottles; one is
regular but the other one is sharp with a carrot-like lipstick color. The symbolism of sexual
penetration is explicit, although the sharp bottle looks like an object used by women (a lipstick).
However, this is an intelligent implication: As men use bottles as substitutes for sex while they
drink, so women regard the male sexual organ in the same way they use their lipstick. Using a
sex partner as an object of pleasure is the rule, the exception being true love. Therefore, the
painter here offers the best explanation for the problem of love, and pleasure in general. The
carrot stands out just to remind us that most of the times we behave like bunnies. When we
treat things or people as sexual objects, at the same time, we become such. This is not necessarily
bad, if we are really aware of what we are doing.

On the threshold of liberty

The palace of curtains (1928-1929)

In The palace of curtains we see two mirrors, or two paintings of mirrors, lying against the
wall. The mirrors themselves can been seen as reflections of real objects and notions of objects
(the sky and the blue (ciel) respectively), or as entrances into what lies behind them. But
paintings, as well as mirrors, are two-dimensional objects. In this two dimensional perspective,
Magritte compares objects and notions concerning these objects. The notion of blue is one of
the basic elements of Magrittes cosmogony, related to the notion of the sky.

The empty mask, 1928

The fixed idea (L ide fixe), 1927

The six elements, 1928

In The empty mask, Magritte reveals more of his basic elements. Four words correspond to six
images. The blue on the left corresponds to the sky with clouds on the right, the face of a house
(faade de maison ) corresponds to the same image on the right, the human body corresponds to
the forest, while what remains is representations of the notion of a curtain (rideau). Therefore the
prevalent characteristic of the painter is his tendency to hide clues behind curtains.

There is some uncertainty about Magrittes titles, but it is worth comment that both assemblies
are called empty, perhaps for different reasons. That is, it is easy to see the absence of images
in the first version as the emptiness of the frames, but in the second, the mask is still empty
because all masks are empty, at least those that do not represent anything, that are merely a
decorated screen. Here Magritte may be playing off of the frame convention: these segments
cant represent because they are not presented in proper rectangular frames. The title evokes the
fear of the invisible which pervades the artist's work and reflects the surrealists' fascination with
the subconscious.
http://courses.washington.edu/hypertxt/cgi-bin/book/wordsinimages/magritte.html

Again, there is a perfect correspondence between the words in The empty mask and the images
in The fixed idea, except one- the curtain of course. I guess this is not coincidental, either it
was intentional or not. What is also strange in The fixed idea, is the identification of the
human body with a hunter, probably Magrittes friend Luis Scutenaire. At least this is what
one might first think, because if either the forest or the human body are represented by the
forest, then the hunter can only be identified with the curtain.

The Six elements therefore combine the basic elements of Magrittes cosmogony. If we
compare this paining to the images in the Empty mask, we find that the body- face is
identified with the cutout paper. While all images in Magrittes paintings can be representations
of other images hiding behind mirrors or curtains, the constant element is that of blue. I would
say that blueness is the painters last stop before absolute emptiness (or fullness).

The conquest of the philosopher, Giorgio de
Chirico, 1914

On the threshold of liberty, 1930

It is perhaps interesting to compare this notion of blueness with the notion of the vacuum in
modern physics. In contrast to what was previously believed, the quantum vacuum is not empty,
but it is full of elementary and subtle motions of particles, or entities, which finally form
everything we know. We consider particles as very small round objects, but they can be of any
shape, or of no shape at all. In fact quarks are identified with flavors (up, down, strange, charm,
bottom, and top), and their charges with the three basic colors (red, green, and blue).

Wikipedia warns us that, the color charge of quarks is completely unrelated to visual
perception of color.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_charge

However, there is certainly an analogy between color charge and mental perception of colors.
Although we have words for everything that we can perceive (even if we may use more than one
word to describe something new), there are many notions that lie above the field of perception.
For example, the word liberty cannot be visualized, or be listened to. Therefore when the
painter decides to find an artistic representation for the notion of liberty, he must use all his
powers to reach the limits of free expression.

Magritte finds himself on this threshold of liberty. The painting contains eight frames, or eight
building blocks. Interestingly enough, the building blocks which Magritte uses are much more
inspired than those of modern physics, which are almost identical. Magritte managed to create
the building blocks of a new entire universe, albeit not physical, but artistic. But the artistic
interpretation is as real as any physical one can be. We shouldnt consider, for example, atomic
particles more real than Magrittes space-bells. They just serve the formulation of different
theories, but are equally important expressions of human creativity and, probably,
representations of reality.

The balcony, Edouard Manet, 1868-1869

Perspective: Manets Balcony, 1950

When I first saw this Manets painting, I thought that the ladies were holding guns instead of
umbrellas or hand-fans. The austerity on their faces reinforces that impression. It was an
instantaneous hallucination of my own. However, there really is something negative about the
figures as Manet drew them (although all figures represent friends and relatives of his)- boredom
or indifference. I dont know if Manet was feeling angry about something or if he was just trying
to (cynically) express the bourgeois spirit of his age; but Im sure that the surrealist version of
such a painting could only be with knives or guns, instead of elaborate hand-fans and umbrellas.

Portrait of Madame Rcamier, Jacques-
Louis David, 1800

Perspective: Madame Rcamier by David,
1950

I believe it is almost certain that Magritte painted the coffins to bury the people depicted in
Manets balcony, together with Madame Rcamier, in an act of perversity, or simply as a protest
against everything the declining bourgeoisie represented.

Juliette Rcamier, known simply as Juliette, was a French society leader, whose salon drew
Parisians from the leading literary and political circles of the early 19th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliette_R%C3%A9camier

David shows her in the height of Neoclassical fashion, reclining on a sofa in a simple empire line
dress with almost bare arms, and short hair. Many David portraits have the same bare
background. Magritte also parodied Davids painting in his own Perspective: Madame Rcamier
by David, showing a coffin reclining.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Madame_R%C3%A9camier

Grande odalisque, (La grande odalisque), Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1814

The pose of a reclining figure looking back over her shoulder was adopted in 1814 by Ingres for
his Grande Odalisque. The painting depicts an odalisque, or concubine. Ingres contemporaries
considered the work to signify Ingres break from Neoclassicism. Grande Odalisque attracted
wide criticism when it was first shown. It has been especially noted for the elongated proportions
and lack of anatomical realism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Odalisque

Magritte sleeping, by Lothar Wolleh
http://pictify.com/453975/ren-magritte-sleeping-by-lothar-wolleh-a-photo-on-flickriver

Magritte didnt paint another coffin for the Grande odalisque. Nevertheless the surrealist
weapons were symbolic. The coffins Magritte painted in his Perspectives are used as a means to
imitate the analogies of the pose, not as burial containers. In the same sense, the canon depicted
On the threshold of liberty means both gun but also philosophical method. The title of De
Chiricos painting The philosophers conquest certainly suggests that the canon represents a
philosophical method (with the two balls below the canon implying probably an Epicurean one.)
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/giorgio-de-chirico/the-conquest-of-the-philosopher-1914

https://www.flickr.com/photos/maitri/5047730373/

Is Magritte pointing his cannon toward the female torso because he wants to get rid of whoever it
represents, or because he wants to find a way to conquer it? We often find ourselves trapped in
dilemmas. Dilemmas are two-fold. They form a problem-solution pair at the same time. I believe
that Magritte at the last moment changed his mind and lowered the canon in his painting. Its
obvious that the gun is not aiming high enough. According to the law of gravity, the canon ball
will follow a curved trajectory, falling most probably in the forest, below the female torso.
However, as we move closer to the painting, we realize little by little that the direction of the
canon is such that the most possible trajectory of the cannonball is towards the sky. So the
painter, according to his own laws of correspondence, really succeeded in hitting his ultimate
target, reaching the philosophers goal. His cannonball will fall into the blue after all.

The treachery of images

The treachery of images, 1928-29

The famous pipe...? Ive been reproached enough about it! And yet... can you fill it? No, its
only a depiction, isnt it. If I had written This is a pipe under my picture, I would have been
lying!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

The painting is sometimes compared with Korzybskis The word is not the thing and The
map is not the territory. Korzybski thought that people do not have access to direct knowledge
of reality; rather they have access to perceptions and to a set of beliefs which human society has
confused with direct knowledge of reality.

As Wikipedia narrates, one day, Korzybski was giving a lecture to a group of students, and he
interrupted the lesson suddenly in order to retrieve a packet of biscuits, wrapped in white paper,
from his briefcase. He muttered that he just had to eat something, and he asked the students on
the seats in the front row if they would also like a biscuit. A few students took a biscuit. Nice
biscuit, dont you think, said Korzybski, while he took a second one. The students were
chewing vigorously. Then he tore the white paper from the biscuits, in order to reveal the
original packaging. On it was a big picture of a dog's head and the words Dog Cookies. The
students looked at the package, and were shocked. Two of them wanted to vomit, put their hands
in front of their mouths, and ran out of the lecture hall to the toilet. You see, Korzybski
remarked, I have just demonstrated that people dont just eat food, but also words, and that the
taste of the former is often outdone by the taste of the latter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korzybski

Here we see how the power of suggestion affects people, so that the worlds dog cookies, in the
previous example, are more powerful than the taste of biscuits. This can be explained by
supposing that the notion of an object (or its image) can be more important than the object itself.
In fact, what we really see, feel, or understand about an object is its representation, according to
our senses and to the interpretation given instantly by our brain. We never see the real object,
only its image. This is what Magrittes phrase This is not a pipe suggests.

Even if we realize the world by representation, the world itself is no more real than what we
perceive. One could say that things have no meaning, not even real existence before we observe
them. This is a paradigm shift from (absolute) realism to relative realism, or simply relativism, or
even probabilism. In other words, there is no meaning saying what an object had been before
we observed it. However, this interpretation has another consequence: objects are entangled to
our consciousness, such as two objects, both imaginative, our consciousness on one hand, and its
representation of reality on the other hand, interact with each other, forming the picture of the
world as we know it.

This inescapable conclusion- that the real world is always referring to our own picture of the
world, is a self-referential process within a closed logical system. According to Wikipedia, self-
reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence, idea or formula refers to itself.
The reference may be expressed either directly- through some intermediate sentence or formula-
or by means of some encoding. In philosophy, it also refers to the ability of a subject to speak of
or refer to himself, herself, or itself: to have the kind of thought expressed by the first person
pronoun, the word I in English. Magrittes work is full of self-referential imagery. His painting
The treachery of images, includes the words This is not a pipe, the truth of which depends
entirely on whether the word ceci (this) refers to the pipe depicted- or to the painting or the
sentence itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-reference

It is clarifying here to note that in formal logic self-reference led Gdel to his famous
incompleteness theorem. Gdel considered the sentence: This sentence is false, implanted in
the program of a perfect computer. If then the machine was asked whether that sentence was
right or wrong, the machine could never find the correct answer. It is a sentence referring to
itself: if the original sentence is B= A is false, then A is a sentence within the sentence B.
Gdel concluded that logic is incomplete (thus the incompleteness theorem). In other words,
there are statements within our logical assumptions which cannot be proved either right or
wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems

It is a conclusion with tremendous implications. It doesnt necessarily state that our logic is
weak. It says that even if we consider the whole universe as a logical system (an information
containing system), there are eternal truths within the universe which cannot be answered or
manipulated because of their spontaneous, self-referring nature. Therefore, in Magrittes pipe,
there is an infinite loop between the object of a pipe, and the image of the object of a pipe,
which in fact are both representations.

The two mysteries, 1966

On this basis, in his second version of This is not a pipe, Magritte juxtaposes two pipes. A
real one at the top left, and a painted one at the center. Of course both pipes are painted. They
are both representations of a real object. Here Magritte doubles the pipe effect. It seems that the
painted pipe outside the (painted) canvas is more real than the pipe on the canvas. Still both of
them are representations. We cannot smoke them. But Magrittes point was not to destroy reality,
but to make its representations more conscious to us.

Michel Foucault made an analysis on Magrittes pipe, in his Unraveled Calligram:

Magrittes drawing (for the moment I speak only of the first version) is as simple as a page
borrowed from a botanical manual: a figure and the text that names it. Nothing is easier to
recognize than a pipe, drawn thus; nothing is easier to say- our language knows it well in our
place- than the name of a pipe What misleads us is the inevitability of connecting the text to
the drawing and the impossibility of defining a perspective that would let us say that the
assertion is true, false, or contradictory. I cannot dismiss the notion that the sorcery here lies in
an operation rendered invisible by the simplicity of its result, but which alone can explain the
vague uneasiness provoked. The operation is a calligram that Magritte has secretly constructed,
then carefully unraveled

The calligram has a triple role: to augment the alphabet, to repeat something without the aid of
rhetoric, to trap things in a double cipher. First it brings a text and a shape as close together as
possible. It is composed of lines delimiting the form of an object while also arranging the
sequence of letters. It lodges statements in the space of a shape, and makes the text say what the
drawing represents.

The calligram is thus tautological. But in opposition to rhetoric, which toys with the fullness of
language, it uses the possibility of repeating the same thing in different words, and profits from
the extra richness of language that allows us to say different things with a single word. The
essence of rhetoric is in allegory. The calligram uses that capacity of letters to signify both as
linear elements that can be arranged in space and as signs that must unroll according to a unique
chain of sound. As a sign, the letter permits us to fix words; as line, it lets us give shape to
things. Thus the calligram aspires playfully to efface the oldest oppositions of our alphabetical
civilization: to show and to name; to shape and to say; to reproduce and to articulate; to imitate
and to signify; to look and to read

From calligraphic doubling, Magritte seemingly returns to the simple correspondence of the
image with its legend. Without saying anything, a mute and adequately recognizable figure
displays the object in its essence; from the image, a name written below receives its meaning or
rule for usage. Now, compared to the traditional function of the legend, Magrittes text is doubly
paradoxical. It sets out to name something that evidently does not need to be named (the form is
too well known, the label too familiar). And at the moment when he should reveal the name,
Magritte does so by denying that the object is what it is

But I have neglected, I fear, what is perhaps essential to Magrittes Pipe. I have proceeded as if
the text said, I (the ensemble of words you are now reading) am not a pipe. I have gone on as if
there were two simultaneously and clearly differentiated positions within the same space: the
figures and the texts. But I have omitted that from one position to the other a subtle and
instable dependency, at once insistent and unsure, is indicated. And it is indicated by the word
this. We must therefore admit between the figure and the text a whole series of intersections- or
rather attacks launched by one against the other, arrows shot at the enemy target, enterprises of
subversion and destruction, lance blows and wounds. a battle. For example, this (the drawing,
whose form you doubtless recognize and whose calligraphic heritage I have just traced) is not
(is not substantially bound to , is not constituted by , does not cover the same material as )
a pipe (that is, this word from your language, made up of pronounceable sounds that translate
the letters you are reading). Therefore, This is not a pipe can be read thus:

But at the same time, the text states an entirely different proposition: This (the statement
arranging itself beneath your eyes in a line of discontinuous elements, of which this is both the
signifier and the first word) is not (could neither equal nor substitute for , could not
adequately represent ... ) a pipe (one of the objects whose possible rendering can be seen above
the text- interchangeable, anonymous, inaccessible to any name). Then we must read:

Now, on the whole it easily seems that Magrittes statement is negated by the immediate and
reciprocal dependency between the drawing of the pipe and the text by which the pipe can be
named. Designation and design do not overlap one another, save in the calligraphic play
hovering in the ensembles background and conjured away simultaneously by the text, the
drawing, and their current separation. Hence the third function of the statement: This (this
ensemble constituted by a written pipe and a drawn text) is not (is incompatible with) a pipe
(this mixed element springing at once from discourse and the image, whose ambiguous being the
verbal and visual play of the calligram wants to evoke).

Magritte reopened the trap the calligram had sprung on the thing it described. But in the act, the
object itself escaped The trap shattered on emptiness: image and text fall each to its own side,
of their own weight. No longer do they have a common ground nor a place where they can meet,
where words are capable of taking shape and images of entering into lexical order. The pipe
that was at one with both the statement naming it and the drawing representing it- this shadow
pipe knitting the lineaments of form with the fiber of words- has utterly vanished. A
disappearance that from the other side of this shallow stream the text confirms with amusement:
This is not a pipe!
http://monoskop.org/images/9/99/Foucault_Michel_This_Is_Not_a_Pipe.pdf

This is not an apple (Ceci nest pas une pomme), 1964

In fact, all Magrittes objects are impossible objects. They are not real, they representations of
things we consider real. The image of an object is not the object, but what we consider an
object, is again a representation in our brain (and perhaps not the best one). The existence of
perceivable things in physical space is a probabilistic assumption. We cannot really prove that
something is out there. It is always found in cameras, photographs, radars, books, retinas,
neurons, skin cells, but never outside of us. The space- time we recognize between things is a
non-existing emptiness. On the other hand, the whole universe is an object within which
everything exists. Again the universe is a representation of the universe, of something we
consider the real universe. It is really hard to imagine if the universe, or an apple, is smaller
or bigger than us, more or less real. Therefore, the impossibility of objects is not
confounded to their representation as optical illusions. Objects can be expanded into states of
virtual realities. This is why we are so reluctant to give up our everyday view of reality. The
deepest understanding of things and the world could make everything we know collapse in
madness!

The key to dreams

The pipe (La pipe), 1927

In 1927 Magritte made the first of the pipe paintings, a crude image with the words la pipe
scrawled underneath it. This is one of his earliest paintings with words. This painting might
derive from Mallarmes nostalgic prose poem, La pipe. In 1929 he would paint a refined image
and label it This is not a pipe, which became one of his best known images.

Sketch of a pipe, from a letter by Magritte to Paul Colinet
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Magritte-World-Art-Suzi-Gablik/dp/0500201994

What one must paint is the image of resemblance- if thought is to become visible in the world,
once Magritte said. I was wondering- in dreams we see things which function very differently
than in reality. I remember once I dreamed of bananas chasing me. How can bananas walk, or
what did bananas want from me? What do bananas want from anyone? I started thinking what
the symbolism behind the bananas want. Of course the sexual implication was really scary. Freud
wrote an essay, The interpretations of dreams. There he explores the relationship between
objects appearing in dreams and the symbolism hidden in the unconscious. Freud was based
mainly on sexual repressions, while Jung generalized the picture, conceiving a whole different
world hidden in what he termed collective unconscious. According to him, objects appearing in
dreams are manifestations of archetypes, lets say fundamental properties of the human psyche,
able to exert forces on objects in the real world.
http://courses.washington.edu/hypertxt/cgi-bin/book/wordsinimages/magritte.html

This secret connection between everyday objects and their archetypal forms manifested in
spontaneous representations was one of the surrealists favorite games, which they played using
a method called psychic automatism. For Magritte, however, this connection should be found
between two different levels of consciousness. He didnt just depict spontaneous representations,
but also regarded the relationship between these representations and the objects found in reality.
But this relationship tuned out not to be apparent.

In 1929, in the magazine La rvolution surraliste, Magritte published Les mots et les images,
(Words and images), accompanied by a number of funny little drawings. In this text Magritte
makes a comparison between objects and names of objects:

An object is not so attached to its
name that one cannot find for it
another one which is more suitable.

There are objects which can do
without a name.

A word sometimes serves only to
designate itself.

An object encounters its image, an
object encounters its name. It happens
that the image and the name of this
object encounter each other.

Sometimes the name of an object
occupies the place of an image.

A word can take the place of an
object in reality.

An image can take the place of a
word in a sentence.

An object can suggest that there are
other objects behind it.

Everything tends to make us think
that there is little relationship
between an object and that which
represents it.

The words which serve to indicate
two different objects do not show
what may divide these objects from
one another.

In a painting the words are of the
same substance as the images.

Words and images can be seen
differently in a painting.

A shape can replace the image of an
object for any reason.

An object never serves the same
purpose as either its name or its
image does.

Sometimes the visible shapes of
objects, in reality, form a mosaic.

Vague shapes have significance as
necessary and perfect as that of the
precise ones.

Sometimes, the names written in a
picture designate precise things, and
the images of vague things.

Or equally, the opposite.
Words and images (Les mots et les images), 1928

The fact that An object never serves the same purpose as either its name or its image does,
summarizes Magrittes exploration. Objects, names, and images can all be considered perceptual
representations. When we write down the name of an object, we may think whatever we want
(another object). Therefore the name of the object we write down is a substitute for the object we
think about (even if the two objects do coincide). The same happens when we draw the picture of
an object. There is the saying An image serves for a thousand words. However, Plato, among
others, believed that words (logos= cause/ratio/speech) is more powerful than the
corresponding images. Nevertheless, as Magritte showed, words about images and images dont
necessarily match (not to mention that words are representations of things themselves).
Therefore, the interplay between objects and notions is guided by, lets say, a higher common
factor, which may be represented with a name or an image, or identified with an object, but
which originally is neither. The way this factor or function, which combines different elements
of the real world and forms coherent groups of representations, works is rooted deep in the
nature of consciousness, and has been the main subject in the research of philosophy.

This ambiguity between words, images, and the notions they represent is illustrated in a series of
paintings Magritte made under the title Key to dreams:

The key to dreams, 1927

Magritte creates one traditional way that words and images can share a frame, namely with the
word as name or legend of what is also depicted in the fashion of vocabulary flash cards or early
reading workbook sheets. Pierre Sterckx says they are images from the Petit Larousse. Not just
an equivalence of word and thing, but an exact match is implied. It is, as Sylvester says, a school
reading primer gone wrong- but, as so often, not completely wrong, the lower right-hand cell is
correct.



In these paintings we see exactly the juxtaposition between words and the images which describe
the words. Any reasonable connections which have been established in our common vocabulary
dissolve and give way to non-logic. In other cases words match their images in an original way,
while in the last image we see the match between the word and the corresponding image (the
valise). In any case, the mind is forced to consider: what other form an image may have? What
other meaning a word may have? What would be the best way to understand everyday things and
situations?

Magritte manages to bring us into a new world of senses and meanings. He makes us think in a
new, extraordinary way, and learn how to contemplate at the level of some secret but common,
perhaps, language, at which level things find their actual forms and their true meaning.

The art of conversation

I do not see the [] hidden in the forest,
from La rvolution surraliste, 1929

This is the front cover of the magazine La rvolution surraliste, which Magritte drew (the
image of the woman, together with the phrase), and in which edition he also published his first
Words and images. His painting is surrounded by 16 photos of the surrealists (Magritte is
recognizable on the right side, second from the bottom). The word woman is replaced by the
image of a woman, the forest being implied too.

Forbidden literature, 1937

The origins of language (Les origines du
langage), 1955

Magritte moved away from the tyranny of the object, the object tends to disappear, and instead
pure speech appears, even if this speech is drawn in a painting. In the Forbidden literature,
speech is overpassed and dismantled for the sake of what is hidden behind its constituent word.
The word on the floor probably reads sirne (siren) which implies either the mythical creature
or the siren of an ambulance. In both cases the word represents an alarming sound, which may
either hypnotize us or wake us up. The pointing finger (making the letter i), suggests an
alarming notion, while the leading-nowhere stairs strengthen the impossible aspect of the
painting.
http://www.ympoetry.org/2012/11/14/magritte%E2%80%99s-forbidden-literature-the-use-of-
the-word/

Le Bec du Hoc, Grandcamp, Georges
Seurat, 1885
Masquerade ball (Le bal masqu), 1958

The origins of language is reminiscent of Georges Seurats 1885 painting, Le Bec du Hoc
Grandcamp. Magritte did several other versions with this theme, including Masquerade ball.
http://www.mattesonart.com/1949-1960-mature-period.aspx

Here, the rock stands for the return to order. Order is attained by the correct use of language. But
language does not always mean what it says. The same goes for body language. A gesture with a
finger pointed upwards may have many different interpretations (including an insulting one!)
The same ambivalence is found in the image of a rock too. Seurats rock in Le Bec du Hoc and
Magrittes rock in Masquerade ball are two different objects. Magritte wants to point out that
we give objects a meaning according to our own desires, no matter what the objects stand for on
their own. The tyranny of the object, leading to a forbidden literature, is the way we treat
things, possessively and utilistically, imposing this way an authoritarian interpretation of reality
on others. The object gains properties of a taboo, a symbol of political, religious and sexual
power. Magritte wants to remind us that there always exists another interpretation, more subtle
and ungrounded, even more poetical and scientific, which can be searched for through
improvisation and rationalization.

The use of speech (L usage de la parole),
1927

The use of speech, 1928

This process of departure (dpaysement is in French the word the surrealists used) continues
in The use of speech. The words are found inside blobs, as in comics, but they infer one object
or another, without the presence of any object.

The lost world, 1928

There is a new level of abstraction taking place, at which words are standing on their own,
compared perhaps with other words, in the search of their hidden, deeper meaning. The first blob
reads personnage pendant la mmoire (figure of memory), while the second blob reads corps
de femme (female body). The blobs are connected to each other, serving like communicating
vessels, leading to a third blob, yet unnamed. So this conversation says a figure in memory
looks like a female human body. The third blob which is empty could probably contain the
word foret (forest), a scenery (paysage) where a horse (cheval) is free to run.

The literal meaning, 1929

This process of moving away from the earthly attraction of everyday, heavy, and crude
objects leads the painter to a place where words are objects themselves, with their own literal
meaning. In the first painting, a sad woman takes the shape of a cavity of sorrow; in the
second painting, a forest is full of melodies; in the third painting, a forest and a living
room refer to the element of wood; in the fourth painting, the missing word fire has left its
trace in the form of a peculiar object; while in the fifth painting, a curtain and a horse seem to
fit better in a circle and a pentagon, respectively. The main point is that these objects are
words and notions, not concrete things.

Swift hope (L espoir rapide), 1928

Magrittes Swift hope makes a similar reduction. It offers a very inarticulate image, just about
the minimum that will qualify as a pictured scene. And to emphasize the point, Magritte labels
the image with some paradoxically specific words It shows five clear elements, five rounded
forms, with distinct shapes and different sizes. They have a hint of solid volume, a lighter patch
swelling out of the middle of each one The long thin one is standing upright. Three are lying
on the ground at various distances. The small one is off the ground. In other words, the scene
doesn't only consist of these five blobs. It situates them within a view and a three-dimensional
space. Swift hope divides into two parts. Below, there's a ground level; above, there's a
backdrop.

And Magrittes apparently elementary image holds another kind of information: shadows. Each
of the five blobs has an area of darkness behind it that registers as a shadow cast on the adjacent
surface. These bits of shadow arent put down very precisely or consistently. There are isolated
dark areas that arent near to any object. But the effect is enough to stick the blobs to the ground
they sit on, to make them seem more solid, to create a sense of dim light-fall.

Even without the labels, youd probably have an idea that this scene was a landscape. And when
you read them, what they declare isnt so paradoxical. Tree, lead road, horse, village on the
horizon, cloud: the words correspond pretty well to the shapes and sizes and positions of the five
blobs. The tree is a tall thing. The horse-form almost has a head. The village is indeed on the
horizon.

True, its weird to have a road represented by a long solid object, but it points away into the
distance as a road might well do. And the cloud is funny, being such an abrupt lump, and
apparently casting a shadow on the sky, but it's where a cloud should be. There isnt a sharp
disjunction between the things and what theyre meant to stand for rather less sharp, actually,
than in the breakfast battle scene.

Swift hope is like a world in embryo. It feels thwarted and straining, a nocturnal, pupal
landscape where things have not yet emerged into their destined identities. It's like Alexander
Popes lines about the Chaos dark and deep, where nameless somethings in their causes sleep.
But Magrittes some things are not quite the forms of things unknown. You can see how these
blobs could fulfil their waiting names. They just need licking into shape. By contrast, the title of
the picture is utterly baffling.
http://www.mattesonart.com/article-on-magrittes-swift-hope-1927.aspx

I would say that the gray landscape of this painting forms a representation of the space of our
thoughts. In our mind, objects we perceive are transformed into elementary blobs of
information, having no real shape, color, sound, taste, touch, nothing except an identification
code, which helps the object reemerge on consciousness at any given time. This is the work-
sheet of our own brain, always two-dimensional, but having the strange property to contain
things as seen in three dimensions. In fact the position of things in the painting matches this
interpretation: Snow (nuage) is naturally found on top and an iron causeway (chausse de
plomb) at the bottom. We dont expect to snow in our minds, neither a causeway to extend
beyond our thoughts. However, the blobs have a sense of direction: the causeway is heading
forward, while the tree is standing upright. And the title of the painting (instant hope) is
suggestive of the story: Ill take the less traveled road; riding a horse, my favorite one; from the
leaf-like tree where I stand; to the distant village at the abyss. If it werent snowing, that is

The art of conversation (L art de la conversation), 1950

Leaf-like trees, chess pieces or bilboquets, figures of people with tall hats, form the building
blocks of the painters world, which is a micrograph of a real forest, or of a human body. The
horse is a transcendental vehicle, while the canon is the painters rule- all these among many of
the painters favorite things.

The art of conversation, (variations), 1950

Isle of the dead, Arnold Bcklin, 1880

In the second variation with the dying bull, the cut-out in the back section of the water spells
Espaa (Spain). The third variation is Magrittes transposition of Bcklins Isle of the dead.
In Magrittes version, at the back of the water, the cut-off spells Amour (Love).

The art of conversation, 1950

In the two last paintings, the painter succeeds in building his own Stonehenge. I was wondering
why people built such megalithic structures, as Stonehenge, or the Pyramids. Some have
suggested that such monuments could only have been built by aliens, but these people will never
become great painters or anything else. Divine intervention is already found in human ingenuity,
otherwise we wouldnt be able to ask questions about God in the first place. Within us lie all the
whispers of wishes, which the universe has been carrying along since the time of the big bang.
Nature has entrusted us with the task of improvement, therefore with the ability of improvisation.

http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Phil%20281/Philosophy%20of%20Magic/My
%20Documents/Paleolithic%20Art.htm

Even before the first megalithic constructions, cave-paintings exhibit a magnificent level of
abstraction. The previous one, from France, shows that the first painters lived long before
modern ones. I recall that when Picasso saw some of these cave paintings, he stated we have
learned nothing, referring to the high level of abstraction these paintings show. It has recently
been suggested that the strange dots or lines which appear in these paintings depict animals
not in their natural environment but in a metaphysical world, which can be grasped in the state of
trance. Therefore, these depictions are representations of dreams, referring to another world, not
the everyday one.

So, megalithic structures, as well as cave-paintings, aim to uplift the human spirit and to bring it
closer to the heavens, where the divine spirits live. The spiritual, or religious, aspect of us is
inescapable. However, there are vastly different ways by which we perceive god and the
supernatural. In Magrittes previous paintings, the megaliths form the word rve, which
means dream. Dreams and their artistic interpretation or representation, either in cave or
modern painting, bring us closer to the decipherment of our unconscious powers. Many times,
we refer to an object but what we really have in mind is a completely different object. Other
times, we have a notion about something which is impossible to be described as an object. In
other words, there are more abstract notions than concrete objects, even if these notions can be
objectified. Magritte in his paintings reached a level of abstraction at which words can stand on
their own, as unique and independent entities, no matter what the relationships between them can
be, and regardless if they could be made correspond to real things. Therefore, the Art of
conversation emerges from an illiterate but powerful world of dreams, having a form which
reminds its origin, among the stones of an age when people started posing questions for the first
time. I guess that Magrittes Stonehenge can stand next to its physical counterpart on equal
level.

The legend of the centuries (La lgende des sicles), 1950

The legend of the centuries is a collection of poems by Victor Hugo, conceived as an immense
depiction of the history and evolution of humanity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_L%C3%A9gende_des_si%C3%A8cles

Probably Magritte was influenced by the title of this collection. Magrittes Legend of the
centuries, depicts two images of a chair, one within the other, perhaps with the same symbolism,
but made from different material. The first one (the smaller) is probably made of common wood,
and sits upon the bigger one, which is made out of stone. The stone chair, which is enormous, is
a megalithic monument, which is more obvious if we remove its back. Strangely enough, the
huge back makes the stone-chair monument look like a burial ground. Such function is
reinforced by the position of the small, common wooden chair. If someone wants to sit on the
stone chair, he will end up sitting on the wooden chair. Therefore the monument is not made for
one to sit on, but instead for watching it, from far away, standing still for hours, contemplating
what this monument of collective memory means.

The infinite recognition (La reconnaissance infinie), 1963

Monuments of art are everlasting expressions of the human quest for eternity and immortality,
either ancient pyramids, or modern sculptures and paintings. There is a saying from the ancient
Greeks that they would have preferred a discussion about eternity, rather than eternity itself. This
is suggestive of the feeble and unattainable nature of the infinite. It is like dreams. They can
never be fulfilled, so that they remain dreams. This imaginative discussion must be taking place
between the two gentlemen in the previous painting, talking about the problem of infinite
recognition. One guy seems to ask the other one what he would have to do to become famous.
The other guy then replies that because people tend to forget, the best way one can make others
think about one forever, is one to leave the others wondering about an important but infinitely
unanswered question. If one is the first for example who wondered about the true nature of god,
one will be always remembered as a prophet. Now the first guy, listening carefully, seems to
agree. He decides to make a painting, illustrating the discussion which took place. The two
persons appear in the painting, the student and the teacher, both incarnations of the persona of
the painter, above the sea, seemingly walking in the sky of their thoughts, while they pose the
famous question about the problem of infinite recognition

Attempting the impossible

Adulation of space, 1928

Intermission, 1928

The surrealist object, in contrast to everyday objects is not found in reality, or if it is then it is so
much distorted or artistically restored, that is seizes to be recognizable. Surrealist objects come
from the world of the unconscious, where form and shapes are found melted in a soup of
dreams. In the previous paintings we see this effect of mitigation of objects in space. The
bodies, in the first painting are distributed in such a way that they occupy all in between gaps,
while, in the second painting, the limbs of bodies seem to flow together with the colors.

Attempting the impossible, 1928

Georgette and Rene Magritte, recreating the
scenario for Attempting the impossible

Together with the dreamer effect, where things are distorted or mitigated according to some
rules of the unconscious, there is also a well- known effect, the observer effect. In physics, it
says that the observer is as much important in an experiment as the experiment itself. He literally
participates, so that the values taken depend on the choices of measurements he makes.
Therefore, each time we need another observer, outside the system of the setup of the
experiment, to test the validity of the results of the first observer, and so on, ad infinitum.

In the previous painting Magritte truly tries the impossible, as he wants to paint himself painting.
Furthermore he tries to paint the statue of a woman in real time, as if creating a living model
while he paints.

According to Levy: In this image he represents himself in the act of painting Georgette In
his self-portrait, Magrittes brushstroke attempts to give life to the female form. While this is the
male Surrealist fantasy par excellence, such efforts can only prove futile: textual and pictorial
significations are insufficient and the woman remains inaccessible.

Hermanns grid illusion; Dark blobs appear at the intersections
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_illusion

Impossible objects have been related with optical illusions, arising from the conflict between the
unconscious aspect of visual perception and conscious interpretation of the corresponding image.
Helmholtz, who was a physicist, realized that the optical system is so poor that there must be a
way for any image to be fully reconstructed in the brain in an unconscious way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_inference

A very good example of this process is the previous image. They gray blobs do not exist, but
they are inferred by the brain in the process of reconstructing the whole picture.

The paradoxes of human perception were also studied by psychology. The cognitive psychology
of visual perception is rooted in the work of a small group of European psychologists who
founded the Gestalt movement (Gestalt in German means shape or form). Their basic question
was tantalizingly simple, namely, why do we see things the way that we do? Since what
impinges on the retina from the external world is only a complex array of light waves, how is it
that we perceive form, shape and movement? Why isnt our perceptual experience chaotic and
incoherent? For the gestaltists, order comes about through universal principles of organization.

Mind has rules to make sense out of the visual world. These cognitive processes are active and
may result in a scene being seen in a new and different way. These alterations are called
construals. We experience sudden shifts in perceptual consciousness due to a change in
underlying organization.

One example is a rural Ethiopian version (previous image) of the well-known reversible figure in
which we see a young woman whose head is turned away from us, or, an instant later, a construal
in which an old woman with much larger nose, almost facing us. What had been a youthful neck
is suddenly construed as the jutting chin of an elderly face. Note the way in which the same
boundary or edge can be construed as a central part of one organization or another: the chin of
one woman, becomes the nose of the other. The ear of one becomes the eye of another.

The fundamental issue of why we perceive anything at all was established with the discovery by
the Danish gestaltist, Edward Rubin, of the principle of organization called figure- ground. Rubin
stated that the visual system always organizes the field in such a way so that a segregated whole,
a form, stands out against a more poorly defined background. The figure is organized so that it
seems to have the quality of protrusion, solidity, and segregation. It seems closer to us. The
ground is experienced as behind with the quality of looseness and absence of boundary. What is
behind is experienced as continuous.

The endearing truth, 1966

Magritte ingeniously plays with construals of the figure-ground relationship in regard to what the
perceptual system should organize as occluded. In The Endearing Truth the simplicity of the
figure-ground construals are clear. If we perceive the textured wall, then the table and alcoves
become background. At that point when we see the table, with wine, bread and fruit, everything
else has become organized as background. What had been figure is now ground, and
subsequently shifts yet again.
http://visionlab.harvard.edu/Members/Fred/reprints/pdf's/construal.pdf

Construals,i.e. different interpretations which our brain gives for the object depending on its
position relative to the background, is one thing. Magritte was more interested in the real form of
an object, influences of all other objects or the background environment having been removed.
However he did paint some optical illusions. For example, in The endearing truth, the
impossible object is a table incorporated in the wall behind. The table seems to levitate in the air,
but this is so because it forms one object with the wall.

This blivet (also devils or Schusters fork) portrays two irreconcilable perspectives at once:
descending from the top are two bars with rectangular cross-section, while ascending from the
bottom are three cylindrical rods
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blivet

The table in The endearing truth is not exactly an impossible object, but the optical illusion is
that we conceive the table and the wall as one object. There is no meaning saying There is a
table on the wall, because tables normally dont behave this way. However, in the microcosm of
quantum physics it is a common phenomenon: microscopic things, considered both particles and
waves, may expand, covering the area of other objects, causing thus interference. The
interference pattern produced by light after passing through slits is a well-known example.
Macroscopic objects also exhibit wave-like properties although they are very faint. But recent
experiments show that wave-like behavior may be expanded to quite large objects, as big as
concentrations of molecules, so that in the future interference phenomena could be produced
with large scale objects under extreme conditions (high- energy experiments, for example).

The titanic days, 1928

The titanic days, 1930

The titanic days show a nude woman struggling with a male attacker who exists only within the
contours of her own body. Ellen Handler Spitz suggests this is the primal conflict between
mother and father over sex that the man controls but the female tolerates and overcomes. Its
certainly one of Magrittes most violent paintings depicting male aggression visible only in the
female form. This is what Magritte wrote about the painting:

I've treated this subject, the terror that grips the woman, by means of a subterfuge, a reversal of
all the laws of space, which serves to produce a quite different effect from what this subject
usually creates. The man seizes the woman he is in the foreground, so he necessarily conceals a
part of the woman, the part where he is in front of her, between her and our vision. But the
novelty consists of the fact that the man doesnt overlap the contours of the woman.

I would suggest that these paintings represent the eternal struggle between the opposites, male
and female, good and evil, beauty and terror, and so on. The beauty of these paintings is the
terror they suggest. The intermingling figures of positive and negative in their human-like
form, struggle with each other to find a pose of balance, to form one and only body, through
rotation. The left hand of the woman stops this rotation, and the system stabilizes in an eternal
pose of antithesis. The woman is naked while the man is dressed, but looking closer we realize
that the female figure is also male; the face, also the muscles of the right arm, certainly have
male features. There are not two figures but one, splitting into two by rotation, giving the
impression of a couple, but in fact it is a unity.

Hunters of night (Les chasseurs de la nuit), 1928

The same imagery is produced by Magritte in Hunters of night. Both hunters are of the same
sex, even of the same material, because again there is one hunter, not two. We have the shadow
of the first hunter in the middle, and the anti-hunter with his own shadow on the left. This is a
twin self representation, in a world where two universes, one consisting of matter and the other
one consisting of anti-matter, have merged. It is neither day nor night; it is a world at the edge of
twilight. Someone should not feel either threatened or relaxed; He should be fully conscious: In
such a world things may change shape and context at any moment.

The magician (Self-portrait), 1952

The dance of Shiva, Cern, Switzerland

Nataraja in Indian mythology is a depiction of the god Shiva as the cosmic dancer who
performs his divine dance to destroy a weary universe and make preparations for the god Brahma
to start the process of creation. Therefore in a real pantheon one needs both a Destroyer and a
Creator. The Destroyer represents the power of degradation, and the Creator represents the
power of re-organization. This new creation is depicted in Indian mythology with a high degree
of elegance and artistic ability. What is interesting to note is the fact that god Shiva has more
than two arms. I dont know if this would be practical for humans, but at the symbolic level,
most likely each arm represents a different function.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nataraja

The magician is Magrittes god of creation. However, Magrittes version is more down to
earth, and more practical. The painter, after creating his own portrait, sits down to enjoy his
meal. Two arms are used to hold some bread and a bottle of wine, the body and the blood,
respectively, which incarnate the son of god, while two more arms hold the fork and knife to cut
the meal on the dish, meat and vegetables, the ingredients necessary to sustain the body of the
son of man.

Despite the many arms, the painting gives the impression of a static figure. As Magritte said,
Anyone crazy about movement or its opposite will not enjoy this picture.
http://sararedeghieri.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/the-magician-by-rene-magritte/

However, if we follow the hands from any direction, we realize that a cyclical pattern appears of
four successive elements, two of human nature (meat and vegetables) and two of divine origin
(bread and wine). But the painter, despite preparing to eat the earthly food, is about to chew the
divine one. Certainly Magritte uses four arms for this juxtaposition between the earthly (the
common form) and the divine (the deeper representation). Therefore the Magician intends to
teach us about the impossibility of motion, in the cosmic dance, where two worlds meet, the
ordinary one and the word of miracles, in their eternal cycle.

The acrobats rest, 1926
The acrobats ideas, 1928

Magrittes snake-like forms return with the previous paintings, in which parts of the human body
are elongeted as if melted, or incorporated into the background, the sky in the first painting, or
the wall in the second painting. The wall is an addition to the second painting, from which the
trumpet and the gun are missing. Thus, in the Acrobats rest, the acrobat is less dangerous
than in The acrobats ideas, but also less atractive. Whether Magrittes wife was a dancer in
reality or just in Magrittes paintings, the Acrobat represents a symbol of elasticity. The
acrobats ideas are so flexible that her body can merge with its own shadow on the floor, not to
mention her ability to be at the same time in many places, although in pieces. Her motion is so
flexible that the painter decides to immortalize her, by petrifying her into the stone wall,
burring at least The acrobats rest, while he keeps the snake-lady, the trumpet, and the gun for
reality. This snake-lady is a materialization of the Acrobats archetype, which any man would
love to possess.

The muscles of the sky (Les muscles clestes), 1927

In The muscles of the sky, the fluid forms descent from the sky, and try to stand on their feet,
on the wooden platform, or pavement, on the ground. What is extraordinary in the painting is
that the sky and the forest are fully interchangeable. The little protrusions that the forest
makes into the sky, could be equivalently seen as protrusions of the sky into the forest, and the
second option is reinforced by the two human-like forms that descent from the sky. This
painting is strongly reminiscent of fractals, as they multiply themselves covering space. The
shadows of the two forms reinforce the reality of the forms, as if they were solid objects.

This complementarity of forms, achieved by the interplay of form and background, is a more
general aspect of nature. For example, there is a law in physics, the so-called uncertainty (or
complementarity) principle, regarding the impossibility of measuring simultaneously the position
and momentum of a quantum object. It has tremendous consequences for the natural word.
Energy, for example, cannot become zero even in the tiniest area of space (there would be
needed an infinite amount of time). On the other hand, an enormous amount of energy could be
produced at a point in space but for such a miniscule time that an entire universe could appear
(just for an infinitely small amount of time). Thus this principle may explain the birth of our
universe (creation of something out of nothing). The principle also explains wave-particle
duality, because, as it states, the smallest the area a quantum object occupies, the larger its
momentum. Therefore objects (even sub-atomic particles) cannot be represented by dots in
space, but instead they are extended objects, spreading the probability of their distribution (the
measure of their wave-function) to infinity.

This principle is exactly what the painter manipulates with the muscles of the sky. Both the
sky and the forest are quantum-like objects, competing and complementing each other in their
struggle for balance. The sky seems to be winning at the moment, by penetrating into the forest
and stepping on the ground. But this is just an episode. At some other instant, or perhaps in
another painting, the forest may as well penetrate into the sky, raising its hands, building there
its own tree-like universe.

The elusive woman (La femme introuvable), 1928

In The elusive woman, the hands are scattered and reappear in many different places, integrated
with the rock. The hands seem to run clockwise, the last hand being turned over. It is as if
someone moved his hands so fast that they gave the impression of being in many places at the
same time. In the quantum world this could be a real phenomenon related to quantum
teleportation. Quantum objects are extended, not point-like, their wavefunction stretching in
space and time; but when it collapses, the object (or better the collection of things which we call
an object) may be found in more than one places. This is another consequence related to the
indeterminacy of the microcosm, a fact which Magritte seems to have been aware of.

Perpetual motion, 1935

This is a final example of impossibility. Perpetual motion is impossible because of the famous
second law of thermodynamics: To put it simply, a machine will sooner or later stop, because of
friction. It will lose power in the form of heat. Therefore it must continuously be provided with
some source of (external) power. The entropy (if all systems are taken into account) always
increases. In order that the total entropy of the universe is reduced, we have to find another
universe to account for the reduction. (But again the total entropy of both universes will increase,
and so on).

Robert Fludds water screw, 1660 wood engraving

This device is widely credited as the first recorded attempt to describe a perpetual motion
machine in order to produce useful work, that of driving millstones. Although the machine would
not work, the idea was that water from the top tank turns a water wheel (bottom-left), which
drives a complicated series of gears and shafts that ultimately rotate the Archimedes screw
(bottom-center to top-right) to pump water to refill the tank. The rotary motion of the water
wheel also drives two grinding wheels (bottom-right) and is shown as providing sufficient excess
water to lubricate them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion

Does Magritte achieve the unachievable, a Herculean 13
th
labor, to conquer the 2
nd
law of
thermodynamics, thus producing a perpetual motion device? The answer is found in the balance
of the weight. Hercules holds the bar from the middle, but the two ball-shaped weights are not
the same. One of them is a common weight, while the other one looks like the head of the
weight-lifter. Furthermore, the face imprinted on this weight, suggests that it truly the weight-
lifters head. Therefore, this heroic Hercules lifts a weigh which weighs as much as his head,
or, better, as much as the representation of his head.

This is a good approach. If we ever achieve perpetual motion, this has to be a machine
consuming itself, regenerating its own program, in an infinite loop. The idea of an infinite loop
is like a device of perpetual motion, although it consumes a lot of energy to be grasped as such.
Probably Magritte is indicating the problem of self-reference here, as the heavy-weight
champion has the task to lift the load of his own thoughts. However baffling or impossible this
may be, it sets some basis for imagining what a perpetual motion object could look like: It would
be as simple, or primitive as possible, neither male nor female, just wearing the basics. It will
contain all basic formulas in calculations, related to squares, triangles, circles and cylinders, it
will have a good idea of its own image and existence, and, finally it will contain a code, like a
back-bone, in order to recover itself in case everything fails. Leaving perpetual machines
aside, this is also a good advice for modern civilization, which tends to repeat the same mistakes
again and again.

The perfect image

Georgette Magritte, 1934

Portrait of Georgette, 1937

Beauty is the purpose of any painter even if the notion of beauty is subjective or difficult to
define. But beauty has always to do with some kind of balance, which is finally achieved through
the juxtaposition of elements apparently unrelated and irrelevant to each other. In the case of
portraits, the situation is simpler because the painter focus attention on a face, which becomes
the dominating figure in the foreground, forming a center of gravity, therefore the starting point
of interpretation, for all other objects in the background.

Pipe and passport of Ren Magritte and Georgette Magritte-Berger
http://weimarart.blogspot.gr/2011/05/magrittes-periode-vache.html

The perfect image, 1928

At the age of 15, Magritte met Georgette Berger, the girl who would be his future wife, model
and creative muse. Heres an account of the meeting from Marcel Paquet:

The monotony of everyday life in Charleroi was interrupted not only by the pleasures of the
cinema but also by the annual fair, which took place at the Place du Manege opposite the Muse
des Beaux-Arts, in direct proximity to the Palais des Beaux-Arts, home of one of Magrittes
frescoes, The ignorant fairy. The fair of 1913 was to confer a luster upon his life forever more.
A merry-go-round salon stood between the stalls and various amusements, a fairground
institution which is no longer to be found. After a turn on the wooden horses, the boys and girls
would walk around hand in hand, to the strains of a Limonaire organ. This merry-go-round was
among those places where boys and girls met to embark upon their first flirtations. Magritte, who
was fifteen that year, invited a little girl not yet even thirteen to a round: Georgette. Her father
was a butcher in Marcinelle. Love was clearly already in the air at their first rendezvous: while
life was to separate the two of them for some time, they would find each other again in the end,
thereafter never to be parted.
www.mattesonart.com/biography.aspx

Anne-Marie Crowet, 1956

The ignorant fairy, 1950
The model for this painting is Marie-Anne Crowet. The same portrait is used later in Magrittes
mural. Marie-Anne Crowets father was Pierre Crowet who met Magritte in 1926 when Pierre
was a student in Brussels. According to Pierre, I ran into Rene Magritte from time to time (both
of us being from Charleroi, we hit it off quite well). I admired his work and wanted to purchase
one of his paintings but did not have any money. To help me out, he sold The forest to me for
500 Belgian francs payable in installments of 50 francs per month. This was my first purchase
and the start of my collection. Pierre was a lifelong friend and commissioned of his wife and
daughter who was the inspiration for The ignorant fairy which later in 1956 became the central
theme for Magrittes large mural commissioned by the Musee de Charleroi with the same title.

The cloak of the night (or The evening gown), 1954

For Magritte, Marie-Anne Crowet possessed the ideal proportions for a painters model. Whether
The evening gown portrays Anne-Marie or some other woman, it is interesting to note the
proportions Magritte kept in this painting. The body is symmetrically aligned with the moon, the
sky, and the sea. The sea reaches the body up to the chest, dividing it into two parts. The hair
reaches the lower part of the body, following the bodys curvature. The half- moon, merging
with the pose of the naked body, gives an elevated spiritual meaning, and a very sensual context.

Portrait of Adrienne Crowet, 1940

Magritte also painted Anne-Maries mother. Anne-Maries face and body proportions would be
used by Magritte as a standard in his paintings. Her face is used for the 1953 casino mural and
the 1957 mural for the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Charleroi.

Heart revealed (Portrait of Tita Thirifays), 1936

Tita Thirifays was the wife of Andre Thirifays, a Belgian film critic. In 1938 by Henri Storck,
Andr Thirifays and Pierre Vermeylen founded The Royal Belgian film archive (Cinmathque
Royale de Belgique). Ever since it has been preserving a collection of films with a permanent
esthetical, technical and historical value.

Portrait of Irne Hamoir, 1936

Irne Hamoir, poetess and novelist, was one of the central female figures of the surrealist
movement in Belgium. Her father Lopold Hamoir was a hatter. Militant socialist, she took part
in many socialist meetings around 1924. When she approached Camille Huysmans in 1925 with
her first poem, she met the painter Marc Eemans, who became her first serious relationship.
After collaborating in the review, Distances, which brought together the surrealist group of
Brussels, in 1928 Irene Hamoir met Louis Scutenaire at Marcel Lecomtes house. She married
him in 1930. Irene and Louis attended the meetings of the surrealist group in Brussels, with Paul
Noug, the brothers Magritte, the musician Andre Souris, Marcel Lecomte, E.L.T. Mesens, Paul
Colinet, and Marcel Marin. They also were part of the Paris surrealist group.

Irene Hamoir attended the 1935 International exhibition of surrealism in Louvire. The next year
Magritte painted her portrait. The beauty broke its odd sheath, gave pinks to the fountains,
wrote Hamoir. She wrote a number of poems, novels, as well as a collection of sound poems in
1949. She also published several plates of poems in 1971- 1975. In 1982 Irene and Scutenaire
wrote Her and Him, a foreword for the retrospective Rene Magritte and surrealism in Belgium.

Portrait of Rena Schitz, 1937

Portrait of Suzanne Spaak, 1936

The portrait of Suzanne Spaak was painted for his sponsor, Claude Spaak. Spaak was a
playwright, but had also been an active collector of Magrittes paintings for some time. In 1935,
he made a semi-formal arrangement to allow Magritte to abandon commercial work and focus
fully on his own artistic output. To this end, he provided the artist a monthly stipend, while also
guaranteeing the paintings he produced. In addition to this, Spaak actively sought other sponsors
for Magritte.

Portrait of Germaine Nellens, 1962

This is an interesting portrait, as the woman emerges from (the painting which depicts) the sea
and the sky. In 1951 Gustave Nellens commissioned Magritte to paint the large eight murals at
Casino gaming room at Knokke-Le Zoute in Belgium. Surely this is a portrait of Gustave Nellens
wife or daughter.
http://www.mattesonart.com/1961-1967-later-years.aspx

Portrait of ELT Mesens, 1930

Magritte met poet and musician ELT Mesens in 1920 at Magrittes art exhibition with Flouquet.
Mesens would be his friend, business collaborator and promoter for nearly thirty years. Magritte
soon arranged for Mesens to give Magrittes brother Paul piano lessons. Mesens, who was just
sixteen, had already been composing music for two years. He started his artistic career as a
musician influenced by Erik Satie and an author of Dadaist poems. He published the reviews
sophage and Marie, both with Magritte. His activity as one of the leaders of the surrealist
movement in Belgium was eased by the fact that he was an owner of a gallery, where he
organized the first surrealist exhibition in Belgium in 1934. As its organizer, he also went to co-
organize the London International Surrealist Exhibition which made him settle down in London.
There he became the director of the London Gallery (which he ran during the late 30s and after
the war with Roland Penrose) and the chief editor of the London Bulletin (1938-1940), which
was one of the most important bulletins among the English-language Surrealist periodicals.

Mesens began to buy Magrittes paintings in 1927 and when Magrittes gallery closed in the
early 1930s Mesens stepped forward and bought 150 of Magrittes paintings which helped ease
the Magrittes through hard times during the depression years.

The white magic (Portrait of Paul Eluard), 1936

Pencil in hand, seated demurely next to a naked female torso, the poet is represented in the act of
writing. His physique is portrayed with clarity and detail: the majestic forehead, distinctive
hairline and lightly pursed lips can belong to none other than Paul luard. While the precision in
the representation of the poet is notable, such accuracy or correctness is coupled with a
lingering sense of impossibility with regard to the scenario envisaged. luard is writing directly
onto the skin of the abdomen of the woman, as if the stroke of his pencil were capable of
breathing life into her. The boundaries between the two bodies are difficult to distinguish; the
poet and the woman appear to fuse seamlessly into each other. luards physical positioning in
relation to the naked torso is loaded with erotic signification: the poets hand and forearm hide
her vaginal area and along with the outstretched pencil they form a phallic trio which projects
onto her body. Establishing a visual link between poetry and sex, Magritte depicts poetic writing
as an erotic exploit; it is presented as the sexual act itself, capable of creating and giving life to
new forms.

One of the intriguing features of White magic is that it can be read simultaneously as a portrait
of luard and as a self-portrait of Magritte. Boundaries between the Self and the Other are
blurred and the (con)fusion of Magritte and luard ensues. The synthesis between the painter
and the poet is further intensified by the fact that White magic bears a strong resemblance to
Attempting the impossible. In this image he represents himself in the act of painting
Georgette: a (failed) fantasy of bringing the woman to life through art which, aside from its
reference to the Pygmalion myth, is echoed in his portrait of luard almost a decade later.

Is Magrittes portrait of luard the displaced double of his own self-portrait? This delayed
parallel between the two portraits is not inconceivable, especially since in White magic
Magritte privileges the representation of the common ground he shares with luard rather than
focusing on the specificity or the distance that separates them. Placing the accent on the
similarities between their two practices, Magritte makes the portrait a space of dialogue between
the poetry of luard and his own aesthetics.
http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/surrealism/brown.htm

Portrait of Paul Noug, 1927

Paul Noug was a Belgian poet and philosopher. He was one of the most influential members of
the Surrealist school in Belgium. He was a friend and associate of fellow artists Louis
Scutenaire, Marcel Marin and Ren Magritte. His poetry influenced Magritte.
http://www.mattesonart.com/paul-nouge.aspx

Portrait of Paul-Gustave Van Hecke, 1927

Van Hecke with his friend Andr De Ridder possessed the most successful avant-garde business
in Belgium. It is not without reason that Flemish expressionism was already institutionalized in
the 1920s. Van Heckes propaganda machine consisted of a gallery, a magazine and a publishing
house. Magrittes friend ELT Mesens was the director of Van Heckes Galerie LEpoque.
Mesens did not feel committed to Flemish expressionism however, and the purposes and the
functioning of Van Heckes gallery alone would be the sole source of inspiration for him.

Homage to Eric von Stroheim, 1957

This witty portrait was done by Magritte as an invitation to LEcran du Sminaire des Arts. Erich
von Stroheim was an Austrian-born star of the silent film age, lauded for his directorial work in
which he was a proto-auteur. As an actor, he is noted for his arrogant Teutonic character parts
which led him to be described as not a character actor, but what a character! Playing villainous
German roles during the Great War, he became known as The man you love to hate.

Justice has been done (Portrait of Harry Torczyner), 1958

Harry Torczyner met Magritte around 1956 was Magrittes New York-based attorney, friend,
and stateside promoter. Up until Magrittes death in 1967, Torczyner kept every letter that they
exchanged during their ten year correspondence. This book of letters with photographs,
handwritten excerpts, and Magrittes working sketches are also interspersed throughout the
anthology Letters between friends. Accompanying each letter is a French translation and exact
dates of composition are meticulously recorded. The highlights, of course, are Magrittes letters
themselves, with his candid descriptions of inspiration, roadblocks, the creative process, and
revelations about his own art and that of his contemporaries.
http://www.mattesonart.com/friends-of-magritte-harry-torczyner.aspx

Dangerous liaisons, 1934

Georgette Magritte

The picture Dangerous liaisons depicts a naked woman. The mirror which she is holding in her
hands is turned towards the observer. It covers her body from shoulders to thighs;
simultaneously, however, it reflects precisely that part of her body which it is covering, seen
reduced and from a different perspective. Magritte has thus painted two different views of the
female body, one its direct appearance, the other the imaginary one of the reflection. He
confronts the observer with two incompatible aspects, compelling him to reflect upon the
discrepancy, upon this enigma which is characteristic of this painters entire work. We see the
female body, not as a cohesive whole but fragmented and fractured. Through the painting
experience, the body loses its integrity, relinquishing its inner cohesion and taking on a
fragmentary appearance. In this particular case, Magritte is further demonstrating that liaisons
are always dangerous in painting, since the perspective of the artist, the covetous gaze with
which he looks at the body of his model, also plays a role for the work.

The womans body thus develops into the area of conflict between two incompatible
manifestations. Where does this conflict come from? This is precisely the point, that it can only
stem from the viewpoint and the work of the artist, who has introduced the pulsations of his own
body into the work in such a way that it would seem possible to feel them with ones hands.
Magrittes art is never passive. On the contrary, it acts, and always with the intention of creating
disquiet, of being subversive. There is room between the two views of the female body - their
proportions and the positioning of the hands such that they cannot be reconciled with each other
(it is impossible for the right hand, holding the frame, to be the same as the one which the
woman is holding to her breast) - for the tilted edge of the glass pane and the frame of the mirror.
The displacement between the two views of the body would thus seem to have been caused by a
further displacement, namely that of painting itself. Magritte is demonstrating that painting fills a
space between visible reality and imaginary picture. How should this space come about, if not
from the body of the painter?

Vanitas, Pieter Claesz, 1625
The bungler (La gcheuse), 1935

In the arts, vanitas is a type of symbolic work of art especially associated with still life painting
in Flanders and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, though also common in other
places and periods. The Latin word means vanity and loosely translated corresponds to the
meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanitas

The bungler is a surrealist version of a vanitas painting, presenting youth and death in a wittily
macabre combination. It is typical of Magrittes work in that it is a finely painted scene which
combines dramatically different elements in a deadpan style, making an illogical scene appear
credible. Painted as a grisaille on tinted paper, it was made to be reproduced in black and white
on the cover of the Belgian edition of the Bulletin International du Surralisme. The painting
formerly belonged to the jazz musician George Melly, who was involved with the British
Surrealist Group while in his teens and was a great admirer of Magrittes work.
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-
z/M/3111/artist_name/Ren%C3%A9%20Magritte/record_id/3966

The spirit of geometry (Mathematical mind),
1937

Piet (Revolution by night), Max Ernst,
1923

In The spirit of geometry Magritte exchanges the heads of a mother and a baby- compressing
one and enlarging the other. The effect is at once uncanny, threatening, comic and perceptive.
The shrunken mature woman and imposing child may unsettle the viewer but are intimately
bonded with each other. Their inverted relationship seems to stand for the cycle of generations.
The original title, Maternity, may have referred too literally to such themes before Magritte
provided the current, more enigmatic, replacement.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/magritte-the-spirit-of-geometry-t00892

Magrittes painting reminds of Ernsts Piet. It is an example of the early period of the
surrealist movement. Its title reflects the revolutionary sentiments of the movement. This image
is notable for its combination of heavily textured surfaces and sharp, hand-drawn outlines. In the
background drawn on a wall is a man with a bandaged head ascending a flight of stairs. A profile
on the work in the British newspaper The guardian indicates the figure could represent either
Sigmund Freud or the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who suffered a head wound during
World War I.

The painting is interpreted as symbolic of the turbulent relationship between the artist and his
father, as an amateur painter and staunch Catholic. In the painting, Ernst replaces the classic
image of the Virgin Mary holding the crucified body of Jesus (piet) with his father as Mary and
the artist himself as Jesus. The expressions on both faces are blank as though in a state of
sleepwalking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet%C3%A0_or_Revolution_by_Night

In The spirit of geometry Magritte also performs a transposition, between the mother and the
baby. However, in Magrittes case the transposition is complete: The mother becomes the
miniature of the baby, while the baby is depicted as a fully grown up man. In Ernst painting, the
costumes and facial characteristics of the two images explicitly represent the merge of two
worlds- the classical and the modern. In Magrittes painting the merge is between two modern
worlds- it is a transformation in mathematics, not history. The baby is enlarged, while the mother
is shrinked.

Scaling in geometry is a transformation that enlarges or shrinks objects by a scale factor that is
the same in all directions. The result of uniform scaling is similar (in the geometric sense) to the
original. Scale invariance is a feature of objects or laws that does not change if scales of length,
energy, or other variables, are multiplied by a common factor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaling_(geometry)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_invariance#Universality

What is important about uniform scaling in physics is that it permits conservation laws not to be
violated. The notion of conservation (of energy or mass, for example) is fundamental both
because it allows calculations (by writing down equations of the two quantities conserved) and
because it establishes symmetry in the way we think about the world. In the latter case, if the
energy in the universe were not conserved, then we could not be able to define (therefore
understand) the universe as a (closed) totality. This process of conservation, or symmetry
transformation, is transferred from the world of geometry to painting by the ingenious
mathematical mind of Magritte. No matter how strange the two figures might look, it is relatively
easy to perform the transformation in order to regain the initial (correct) figures. Therefore, the
physical symmetry of space and the representation of objects in the painting are conserved, and
the painting can be considered as classical and diachronical, as any statue of the classical era.

The flood

The flood (L inondation), 1928

In The flood, Magritte establishes correspondences between the half-naked torso of a woman
and a tuba, by virtue of their juxtaposition. However, unlike this picture, the tuba in other
paintings is burning, and fire for Magritte has overtones of pleasure. He said, the astonishing
discovery of fire, due to the rubbing together of two bodies, reminds us of the physical
mechanism of pleasure. Suzi Gablik says that fire has always been an image of primary
sexuality and, as in The invention of fire, its the hidden sexuality of the beautiful captive that
will begin to burn.
http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/surrealism/stoltzfus.htm

The painting could have been equally named something like Disappearing body of. Magritte
with paintings such as The flood inaugurated a style of female statue- like bodies half-
disappearing into the sky. Paintings such as The flood are interesting hybrids both in
appearance and in style: The body is half visible and half-invisible, while the paintings of this
style are half surrealist and half impressionist: The abstract object (the flooded woman) is
clearly surrealistic, while the vivid colors marking the difference between the two halves of the
body (pink and blue) belong to the impressionist style.

The tuba represents a couple of things. Firstly, it is a musical instrument and as such it offers a
music tone in the painting. Furthermore it gives the painting a sense of harmony through the
implication of music. Secondly, it is of the same shape as the female body. See how the curve of
the tuba matches the curvature of the womans palm. Thirdly, it is an object which one can lean
on. In other paintings of the same style the tuba is substituted by a rock. Therefore it is an object
put there to give an earthly impression to the painting (in contrast to the bluish, sky-like
atmosphere.) This way the painter accomplishes harmony both for the (color-oriented) senses
and the (logic-oriented) spirit.

The pose of the woman, with the right limp coming forward is a classical pose found in all
statues. It gives motion to the representation and at the same time a high degree of balance.
Sooner or later ones attention will be focused on the protruding knee for a while; then to the
tuba; one will certainly feel aroused; then one will feel satisfaction centered at the genitals of the
woman; then one must free ones imagination in order to fly- beyond the womans face to his
own spirit, away from the wall of the room to the sea, to the far-away house with the tall tree, to
the house accommodating the cast of some distant memory.

This flood can be found in all of us, depending on the degree one is able to flood himself with
the corresponding emotions. When I was a child, together with my parents we used to rent a
small apartment near the sea. The sea was so close that sometimes I could feel my bed bumping
at the rhythm of the waves. Once I dreamt that my bed started to float, going here and there in
the sea. At the age of, lets say, 15 I lost such abilities. The bed became a rigid object, steady and
unmovable, while the sound of the waves became a constant annoyance. When the apartment
was sold I felt relieved. However, from time to time I still dream of the place, the little room with
my bed, the tall tress just between the balcony and the sea, my mother vanishing into the sky,
and the music of my guitar playing lonely by itself.

All these recurring emotions are like a flood which I wanted to avoid in order not to have
drowned myself. However, by accepting and expressing these feelings, one can make the
difference as a trained artist in painting, or at least as a good swimmer in dreams.

Black magic

Standing nude, 1942

As in The flood so in the Black magic series, the model stands between heaven and earth,
while the painting is adorned with some of the painters favorite objects- curtains, the blue, the
nude, a rock, etc.

Black magic, 1934

Black magic, 1945

As we see in these paintings, the classical theme of a naked model appears- the pose as well as
the implied motion of the body is classical, while the colors, the apparently strange and irrelevant
accompanying objects, as well as the explicit sexual annotations are modern. Even in
photographs, we lean against trees, walls, etc, in order to maintain our balance, so that the photo
is not blured. This inherent ancient instinct with respect to posing seems to have been
tranferred in painting. It seems that the model of the painter has to lean against something,
sometimes in a provocative way as if saying come and take me. As far as the object of balance
(the rock) is concerned, it serves in the previous case probably as a sexual implement. One has to
be harder than stone to overpass the womans pretentious resistance. The dove in Black Magic
(1934) matches very well the balance of the painting- the spirit is leaning on the body, which in
turn supports itself by a rock, while in Black Magic (1945), the rock is balanced by the clouds-
in a world of dreams, where sometimes we need something to lean on.

Lifeline (La femme au fusil), 1930

The invasion (L invasion), 1938

The Black Magic series was a favorite of collectors according to Magritte. He painted many
versions and similar paintings by a variety of different names were done later in that decade. Its
certainly one of Magrittes most striking nudes, a painting of his wife and muse Georgette. The
original pose for the Black magic series is Lifeline. The pose is very similar as the wall is cut
out except there is a rifle propped up against wall.

Black magic, 1941

The proud ship (Le beau navire), 1942

In a letter to Paul Noug of January 1948, Magritte wrote on the subject, I am searching for a
title for the picture of the nude woman (naked torso) in the room with the rock. One idea is that
the stone is linked by some affinity to the earth, it cant raise itself; we can rely on its generic
fidelity to terrestrial attraction. The woman, too, if you like- from another point of view, the hard
existence of the stone, well-defined, a hard feeling, and the mental and physical system of a
human being are not unconnected.
http://www.renemagritte.org/black-magic.jsp

In Black magic (1941), the model emerges from within the flowers of evil, or bell-flowers.
Her arm is submerged into the abyss, while she seems to be in a dream state, while in The proud
ship the woman holds a rose.

Flowers of evil, 1946

In the Black magic series the nude is always depicted either with her eyes closed, or with her
head turned away from the viewer or, as in the present work, with blank eyes resembling those of
a sculpture, thus becoming the object of the spectators gaze and erotic desire. Magritte said, in
fact, that an undercurrent of eroticism was one of the reasons a painting might have for existing.

In addition to the title of Baudelaires book (Flowers of evil), the picture is an inter-textual
allusion to his poem entitled Beauty: I am beautiful, oh mortals! Like a dream of stone. The
womans body has a sensual reality but she is made of stone. She seems alive but her eyes are
vacant. This movement back and forth between the true and the false, between living flesh and
inanimate matter gives rise to un-decidability that is both mysterious and postmodern because
the foregrounding of one possibility brackets the other one by putting it under erasure. From a
Surrealist point of view, the body is marvelous and astonishing. From a postmodern point of
view it is contradictory and its status is undecidable unless, of course, we suspend the voice of
reason. But suspending reason is precisely what the Surrealists wanted us to do so that we could
slip into a sensual dream world where everything is possible and in which even metal burns with
a hot and living flame.
http://www.mattesonart.com/1943-1947-sunlit-renoir-period.aspx

The magnet, 1945

The dream, 1945

Again in the previous paintings we see the main juxtaposition between colorful and black and
white (or better cloud-like) paintings. The difference with the Flowers of evil is the
mysterious shadow image blended into the curtain.

The uncertainty principle (Le principe d incertitude), 1944

Before he painted this enigmatic painting in April 1944, Magritte described in a letter to his
friend Marcel Marin the image of a woman casting a shadow of a bird in flight. This, he said,
would be the subject of his next painting: An object (a human figure or something else) is
presented against a background on which its shadow falls, with the amendment that the shadow
is that of some quite different object. Example: a naked woman projecting another in the form of
a bird onto a curtain.

This is an excellent painting- at least for a physicist (the title I mean, not the equation):

Here, lets say, x= woman transforms into p= a bird, while h= a constant. The constant means
that if you increase the size of the woman (the accuracy of measuring x), then the size of the bird
will be decreased (the accuracy of measuring p). In physics, x stands for position, while p
stands for momentum, but woman and bird may do equally fine- as far as they are
complementary quantities. In physics, the uncertainty principle (formulated by Heisenberg) says
that when we measure entangled properties (as position and momentum can be), by increasing
the accuracy in measuring one quantity (for example position) we reduce the accuracy in
measuring the other quantity (in this case momentum). In words of art, if the position of an
abstract object occupies a space in the shape of a woman, then its shadow in motion (the
momentum) could look like a bird.

This is not at all far-fetched. Quantum objects in physics occupy extended areas described by
wave-functions. They are also restless. If we try to measure the position of a quantum particle,
the more clearly we try to see it the more wildly it behaves. In fact the shadow of a bird is an
excellent example of a wave-function (the measure of the probability for the object to be found at
a certain place): As we try to identify it by casting light, the object is excited and casts its
momentum like the shadow of the wings of a bird all over the place. Magritte proves Heisenberg
was right!

The future of statues

The copper handcuffs (Les menottes de
cuivre), 1931

Venus de Milo (Aphrodite of Milos), 130-
100 BCE

Fashioned after Venus de Milo by Magritte this small statue depicted in The copper handcuffs
became this subject of several other paintings. The image of Venus de Milo fascinated Magritte
and other surrealists.

Aphrodite of Milos, better known as the Venus de Milo, is an ancient Greek statue. Created
sometime between 130 and 100 BC, it is believed to depict Aphrodite, the goddess of love and
beauty. It is a marble sculpture, slightly larger than life size. From an inscription that was on its
plinth, it is thought to be the work of Alexander of Antioch. It is currently on permanent display
at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo

Bathers drying themselves, Pablo Picasso,
1909

Bathers of Llane, Salvador Dali, 1923

Bathers, 1921

Three nudes in an interior, 1923
The classical pose of statues became the archetypal form of representation of the human body
throughout the history of painting. In recent times, themes like women bathing were popular
from the Renaissance to Impressionism and Cubism. Magritte followed the subject in some of
his early cubist paintings like the previous ones.

Spiritual exercises (Exercices spirituels), 1936

In Spiritual exercises we are back to Magrittes favorite subject material- nude women. Here
the orb replaces the girls face but its not just an image, Magritte gives it substance by having
her wrap her arms around it. Behind her is some form of mental game where numbers are
matched.

Study of Bathers, Paul Cezanne, 1898

Study of Bathers, Paul Cezanne, 1902

Given the titles identification of the figure as a bather, the painting appears to be a punning
Surrealist interpretation of the genre made famous by Manet, Renoir, Czanne and their
contemporaries at the end of the 19th century, although Magrittes depiction of the seascape in
the background suggests that her link to the outside world emanates from her dreaming
unconscious rather than any actual proximity. The present scene, however, lends considerably
more complexity to the image. Magritte has replaced the head of a now standing female nude
with a light, shining sphere and placed her in an outdoor scene. This effect is heightened by a
wall of anonymously rational architecture, which the artist has articulated with a radically slanted
perspective, an ambiguous geometrical toy or set of weights, and a spectral, virtually
camouflaged galleon sliding along the horizon. Although the nude woman seen here assumes a
role similar to that in her initial incarnation (for which the artists wife Georgette claimed to have
posed), this once passive dreamer has now become a more confrontational and object-like
presence. The viewer is no longer a detached and uninvolved witness to a mysterious and
evocative dream, but is now faced with an challenging and perhaps even threatening
hallucination.

Bather, 1925

The soothsayers recompense, Giorgio de Chirico, 1913

The mannequin-like figure and hard-edged dreamscape seen here reflect the lasting impact of the
Italian painter Giorgio de Chiricos pittura metafisica (metaphysical painting) on Magrittes
oeuvre. Indeed, David Sylvester refers to Magrittes discovery of de Chiricos Love song as
one of the famous epiphanies in the hagiography of modern painting. Furthermore, the
anonymity of present female figure and her relation to an industrial yet decidedly natural if not
classicizing landscape reveals Magrittes knowledge of de Chiricos larger body of work,
specifically his androgynous mannequin figures of the 1920s.

The title Spiritual exercises derives from the texts of Saint Ignatius Loyola (1522- 1524), which
are prayer exercises designed to stimulate the mind, memory, will and imagination in order to
better achieve communion with the divine. Although Magritte does not necessarily share the
Christian message and spiritual intention of Loyolas text, he has set a similar task for himself, to
instigate an alternate mode of thought in the viewer's mind through the suggestiveness of his
imagery. He directs his viewers to exercise the powers inherent in their visual imagination and
undertake a similar examination of consciousness, in order to arrive at a fuller understanding of
human reality.

The marches of summer, 1939

When the hour strikes, 1965

Delusions of grandeur, 1948

Objective stimulation, 1939

This is a series of torso paintings. Torso for a painter could mean what remains of an ancient
statue in modern times. What remains is not only the mutilated limbs, but also the implied
symmetrical beauty. Magrittes statues are leaning a bit forward, as if tired by the elapsed time,
and they are lost somewhere between reality and imagination. In some paintings (as in
Delusions of grandeur) the torso appears as if through distorting lenses, gradually magnifying
different parts, while in other paintings (as in Objective stimulation) a torso appears within a
torso.

Dialogue revealed by the wind, 1928

What is interesting in the previous painting is that the two statuesses are reflections of the one in
the foreground, with its back against the viewer. The second statuess behind, is easily recognized
as a mirror reflection, but the third one to the left represents an image created by a 90
rotation of
the original reflection.

The vision (La clairvoyance), 1965

A torso, without arms or head, poses before an idyllic landscape reminiscent of a Mediterranean
island. The torso is no sculptural fragment, though, but appears to be made of living, breathing
impossible flesh. In The vision, executed in 1965, Magritte has portrayed the historical world
of ancient Greece that produced the fragmentary statuary that fills so many museums as a place
inhabited by a fragmentary woman. This is a retrospective justification, perversely implying that
the armless and headless statues that we see today were taken from life- that they are the result of
design and not hazard. In this assault on our customary understanding of our universe and its
laws and rules, Magritte demands that his viewer take a fresh view at the reality to which we are
all too accustomed, peeling the scales from our eyes to reveal the everyday world as a place of
infinite hidden wonders.

In 1965, Volker Kahmen had suggested that Magritte create an image of the Venus de Milo as
though it were made of the granite that features in many of the Belgian artist's images. Instead,
Magritte wrote back with a better idea, explaining that he would portray the statue as though it
were made of flesh: The sudden absence of stone, where stone really exists, and the presence,
however, of the form that the stone embodied, must necessarily evoke a sense of mystery. The
nature of such a statue would not thereby be made arbitrary or subject to a whim: it is necessary
that it should be flesh.

Magritte has thereby created an absorbing surreal vision that blurs the boundaries of art and
reality, hinting at the subtle magic of the relationship that links them. The use of one of the most
iconic sculptures in the world is a spur to our confused recognition. However, it is interesting to
note that in La clairvoyance, Magritte has tailored the sculpture to his own uses, reinventing it
not only through the use of flesh instead of stone, but also by removing the head and the drapery
of the original, making the impossible appearance of a living flesh fragment all the more
incongruous and affecting.

The birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli, 1486

Rhinocerotic gooseflesh, Salvador Dali,
1956

The importance of marvels (L importance
des merveilles), 1927

Botticellis The birth of Venus became a popular theme for modern art. In Rhinocerotic
gooseflesh, Salvador Dali makes the statue appear from within a shell which seems to be
stretching all over the beach, forming a curtain enveloping the landscape of this dream scene.
Dali used a pattern of symmetry which he called rhinocerotic because of the geometrical
proportions he found in a rhinoceros horn (related to the number phi).

In Magrittes version (The importance of marvels), the woman appears again and again out of
her own body (like a matryoshka doll). Her color is that of statues, the arms are open, and the
hair follows the direction of the left arm. The presence of the wind is important in this painting
for one reason or another. For me, the wind is always an echo of the past, a means to clean our
thoughts, therefore to help our mind listen to the sound of eternity.

The future of statues, 1937
Napoleons death mask

This work is made from a commercial plaster reproduction of the death mask of the French
Emperor Napoleon. Magritte painted at least five of these casts, each with sky and clouds.
Discussing the works, the artists friend the surrealist poet Paul Noug suggested an association
between death, dreams and the depth of the sky. He commented: a patch of sky traversed by
clouds and dreams transfigure the very face of death in a totally unexpected way.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/magritte-the-future-of-statues-t03258

The face of genius (Le visage du genie),
1926-27

The forest (La foret), 1927

Napoleons original death mask was created on May 7, 1821, a day and a half after he died on
the island of St. Helena at age 51. It is commonly believed that Dr. Antommarchi (one of the
many doctors that encircled Napoleons deathbed) cast the original parent mold, which would
spawn many bronze copies. Some historians dispute this, claiming that the surgeon Francis
Burton, of Britains Sixty-Sixth Regiment at St. Helena, cast the original mold and it was Dr.
Burton, too, who presided at the emperors autopsy. Antommarchi obtained from his British
colleagues a secondary plaster mold from Burtons original cast. With his own mold,
Antommarchi later made, in France, copies of the death mask in both bronze and plaster.

It is believed that Madame Bertrand, Napoleons attendant, managed to steal part of the cast,
leaving Burton with just the ears and back of the head. He took Bertrand to court in an attempt to
get the cast back, but failed. A year later Madame Bertrand gave Antommarchi a copy of the
mask, from which he had several copies made. One of these he sent to Lord Burghersh, the
British envoy in Florence, asking him to pass it to the famous sculptor, Antonio Canova.
Unfortunately Canova died before he had time to use the mask and instead the piece remained
with Burghersh. The National Museums Liverpool version, cast by E. Quesnel, is thought to be a
descendant of that mask.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon's_death_mask

The important fact about Magrittes portraits of Napoleon is that they are very realistic. The face
is not distorted, or implied, or anything else. However it is decorated with tree-like
representations. In The forest the head has become one with the trees which seem to grow on
the face. In The face of genius, two parts of the head are removed, in an asymmetrical way,
revealing the chess-pieces forest. It is clear from this comparison that Magritte used chess-like
trees, or bilboquets, to represent a natural habitat for the spirit; Thus the title of the painting.

Death mask of Agamemnon, 1550- 1500 BCE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mask_of_Agamemnon

Sugar is the most wanted element of the human brain. Sugar is understood by the brain as
pleasure. Syrup as well as honey have the color of gold. At least this is what makes us lusting so
much about these substances. Sometimes its low blood sugar, but it is always the accompanying
melancholy that makes us long for candies. The previous mask doesnt really belong to
Agamemnon (it is even earlier). But it belongs to one or another of the Mycenaean aristocrats.

The mask was supposed to make the dead happy for eternity, as it rested upon the deads face.
For an anthropologist this mask is equally important because it may reveal the true facial
characteristics of the people that lived in Greece at that time. Since aluminum was not yet
invented, gold was a good metal for preservation (in Latin America they even made crystal
sculls). However, more important than how these people looked like, is the eternal smile on the
masks expression. The lips are tightly sealed with a hint of satisfaction, the eyes are firmly
closed dreaming the eternal dream, and the pronounced brow ridge beneath the eyes makes the
whole face glow in everlasting bliss.

I was wondering what was most important both for the artist who made the mask and for its
bearer. Was it its weight in gold? The accuracy of the facial characteristics? Who was more
important? The artist? The dead who wore the mask? Or the archaeologist (Schliemann) who
discovered it? Neither. If we someday find a name here or there suggesting the name of the dead
who wore the mask or a name for the artist who made it, still it is the mask itself what stays for
eternity. In fact it is a representation of the eternal sleep, an expression for the infinite world of
the afterlife. The same goes for the painter. A name for a painting or for the painter himself is not
what matters the most. It is the representation, the evolution of notions, the progress of the
human spirit, and the emergence of the next generation who will come in contact not with the
painter but with the painting and what it stands for. Every artist knows that- This is not
Agamemnon.

Deep waters (Les eaux profondes) 1941

Death is not nothingness because it is always something perceived in life. Death doesnt really
exist when we are dead, but it is the most motivating force while we are still alive. It makes us
last for life more and more. Throughout the ages death took certain symbolic representations.
Crows or their like for example have always been connected to death, perhaps because they are
scavengers. On the other hand, statues have always stood for people from the past that are gone
but whose statues can last forever. A lady with a pale and white face is the ghost of fate who
comes from the dead to haunt us. In the painting the scenery is really solemn, quiet and still. Her
gray coat stands in contrast to her marble-like face. The crow, the trunk, the color of the sea and
the sky, even the glove-hands of the lady are dipped into gray. Her lips are sealed and her eyes
are turned away from us. She is not just our unknown fate; she is the past we forgot.

Memory (La mmoire), 1948

Memory, 1948

Memory, 1942

If we take a look at a dictionary, we will realize how little it says about memory. The process
of storing information definition doesnt say much about the psychological mechanism.
Important is what we select to be stored instead of anything else. Secondly, it is the fact that
most information passes into the mind unwillingly, therefore it belongs to the unconscious. Our
conscious definition about reality has therefore to do mostly with the deliberate actions we take
to avoid the unconscious memories which are more or less repressed. The Memory series
Magritte painted are considered unconscious memories about his dead mother. However, I
believe that such memories would be so painful for the artist that even if they were expressed in
his paintings they would have been more implicit or completely transformed. Perhaps his
preference for cloud-like adornments in bodies and faces was indeed such an unconscious act of
redemption related to his mothers death. But since such themes are repeatedly found in many
different occasions, such as in his depiction of Napoleon, we find a more general pattern about
death and life, fame and fate, remembrance and forgetfulness.

The formal definition of memory is something like information storage. However, this
definition is not only short, but also vague. Where is this information stored? In the brain,
someone could say. But since memory cannot really be understood without all the accompanying
emotions, a better place for the location of memory is the soul. Now is the soul found in the
brain? Hardly, I would say. In fact the opposite process takes place. All information is filtered by
the senses before it enters the brain. And what we term as senses is even broader that what we
commonly refer to. It includes not only vision, hearing, etc., but also conditions such as
premonitions, foresight, and so on. It seems as if the human body is surrounded by some sort of
ethereal field, identified with (or with some functions of) the soul, where what we call sense of
the world takes place, and where the synthesis of memory takes place.

Teapot

The rose path (Giverny), Claude Monet,
1922

Previous picture (Teapot): Is this picture worth a thousand words? According to the
Holographic Principle, the most information you can get from this image is about 3 x 10
65
bits
for a normal sized computer monitor. The Holographic Principle, yet unproven, states that there
is a maximum amount of information content held by regions adjacent to any surface. Therefore,
counter-intuitively, the information content inside a room depends not on the volume of the room
but on the area of the bounding walls. The principle derives from the idea that the Planck length,
the length scale where quantum mechanics begins to dominate classical gravity, is one side of an
area that can hold only about one bit of information. The limit was first postulated by physicist
Gerard t Hooft in 1993. It can arise from generalizations from seemingly distant speculation that
the information held by a black hole is determined not by its enclosed volume but by the surface
area of its event horizon. The term holographic arises from a hologram analogy where three-
dimension images are created by projecting light though a flat screen. Beware, other people
looking at the above image may not claim to see 3 x 10
65
bits- they might claim to see a teapot.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap020430.html

This is not far- fetched at all. According to the holonomic brain theory, developed by
neuroscientist Karl Pribram in collaboration with physicist David Bohm, human cognition is
accomplished through processes which involve electric oscillations in the neural network of the
brain. These oscillations are in fact waves and create wave interference patterns in which
memory is encoded. These brain processes are similar to the way information is stored in a
hologram, with any part of the hologram contains the whole of the stored information. This
model allows for important aspects of human consciousness, including the fast associative
memory that allows for connections between different pieces of stored information and the non-
locality of memory storage (a specific memory is not stored in a specific location, i.e. a certain
neuron).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonomic_brain_theory

Girl with a pearl earring, Johannes Vermeer, 1665

Memory therefore seems to live inside the mind but outside the brain. In fact our memories are
just part of a larger clustering, including the memories of others, the history of evolution, the
memories of our own species, and even more. Our own personal history is nothing more than a
part of a gigantic hologram. Our collective unconscious is distributed throughout this hologram.
And deep inside something tell us that this is what really is going on, even if it is hard to express
it or to demonstrate it experimentally. The artist is much closer to this reality. He deals with
dreams and fantasies all the time. When Vermeer, for example, painted the Girl with a pearl
earring, no matter how humble the subject may be, it is a portrait intended to stand out for
eternity. The focal point in the previous painting is the pearl. In Magrittes memory paintings, the
focal point is the wound on the statues head. Light is transformed into blood. As in Vermeers
painting the girl seems ready to cry tears like pearls, so in Magrittes painting the statue is about
to recover a bleeding memory. But the memory belongs to the statue, not the painter. Classical
statues belong to the past. When does the past bleed? Only when it is compared to the present,
and the present is unpleasant too.

In fact memories always belong to the past, and, just like dreams, when they are faced with
reality and the present, they clash. We always refer to the past as glorious, against a dull and
non- worthy present. What belongs to the past becomes idealized, either a person or a painting
representing a person. But the present is always compared to this glorious past. The past forms
the grater sky under which we all live and refer to in the present. This grater sky at the time of
the surrealists was full of the glory of the renaissance mixed with the smoke of two world wars.
This was the threatening weather Magritte saw in the sky, and he was strongly opposed to the
misdeeds, both political and social (he was particularly scornful of the emerging Pop Art) of his
time.

Therefore I believe that the bleeding statue in the Memory series is the protest of the artist both
against the war and the brutality of modernism. But it is also a more general allusion to the lost
world of innocence. As the torso of memory is brought forward to the world of the present, the
idealization of the past ends and one has to face reality. Our past is always imbued by the
present. We project our present ideas to the past. In a sense, the past is not found in another place
and time, but instead lies in the world of the present, even looking somewhat distant and faint.
The same goes for the future. It is a projection we make from the present to a place and time that
lie ahead. It seems that there is a symmetrical pattern which emerges, both behind and in
front of us with a point of reference in the present. The figure of statues, with their eternal
beauty and harmony, emerge in the present, staring into the past their idealized world of
innocence, as the future catches up with them.

Eternity (Lternit), 1935

Eternity expresses the full force of Magrittes alien yet authoritative visual power. Unlike many
of his other works, however, Eternity was not the result of an immediate inspiration, a vision or
conception, but instead evolved from an idea given to Magritte by his friend Claude Spaak, the
first owner of the painting. Spaak claimed that his original notion was the sight of a gallery wall
hung with paintings, and between them stood a large ham. However, by 1935, this idea had
already evolved significantly in Magrittes mind:

I am busy at the moment on a rather amusing picture: in a museum, there are three stands
against a wall, with statues of Dante and Hercules to the left and right while the one in the center
supports a magnificent pig's head with parsley in its ears and a lemon in its mouth.

In the final state of his conception, Magritte employed busts of Christ and Dante with a slab of
butter placed in the middle. These epic busts give the impression of being relics that have
survived- if only as fragments- through centuries of turmoil representing the idea of eternity in
the title. However, between them, monumental in its own way, is the fresh but perishable butter,
a jarring contrast that assaults the viewers rational sensibilities. Time, and the authority of the
museum, have been turned on their heads, as Magritte forces his museum-goer to look beyond
his preconceptions and to contemplate the internal and external reality of this painted world in all
its paradoxical wonder.

The persistence of memory, Salvador Dali, 1931

Again here the sliced piece of butter may seem to have vanished but it is certainly a
representation of the softness of time. Time is like butter. It cannot be stubbed, but it melts
and reorganizes itself invulnerable. This element of softness with respect to time was vividly
expressed by Dali in the Persistence of memory, with his melting clocks. When he was asked
by physicist Prigogine if the clocks had anything to do with temperature and entropy, Dali
replied that he was just thinking of melting Swiss cheese at the time. Again, in Magrittes case,
the surrealistic representation of eternity and infinite time comes about with the natural
properties of a piece of butter.

Scheherazade

High- level meetings (Les grands rendez-vous), 1947

This facial image of the Persian queen, Scheherazade, is repeated in several other paintings from
this period. The Scheherazade image is based on Poes short story, The Thousand-and-Second
Tale of Scheherazade.

Scheherazade, 1948

Scheherazade, 1950

Poes tale is based on the legendary Persian queen, Scheherazade, the storyteller of One
Thousand and One Nights. The original tale goes: Every day Shahryar (or king) would marry
a new virgin, and every day he would send yesterdays wife to be beheaded. This was done in
anger, having found out that his first wife was betraying him. He had killed three thousand such
women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the viziers daughter.

Scheherazade, Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1823- 1903)

In Sir Richard F. Burtons translation of The Nights, Scheherazade was described in this way:

Scheherazade had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding kings, and the stories,
examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a
thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the
works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and
accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred.

Against her fathers protestations, Scheherazade volunteered to spend one night with the king.
Once in the kings chambers, Scheherazade asked if she might bid one last farewell to her
beloved sister, Dinazade, who had secretly been prepared to ask Scheherazade to tell a story
during the long night. The king lay awake and listened with awe to Scheherazades first story
and asked for another, but Scheherazade said there was not time as dawn was breaking, and
regretfully so, as the next story was even more exciting.

And so the king kept Scheherazade alive as he eagerly anticipated each new story, until, one
thousand and one adventurous nights, and three sons later, the king had not only been entertained
but wisely educated in morality and kindness by Scheherazade who became his queen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade

Voice of silence, 1928

This is a story of betrayal, affection, and boredom. The kings sexual appetite was so great that
he devoured one woman each night, before he met Scheherazade. She managed to allure the
king, however not with her body charm but with her spirit. Strange though it may seem, this king
was not interested in wealth but in eternal fame. The tale doesnt tell us what Scheherazades tale
captivated the kings imagination, but it must have been a story with infinite episodes; or perhaps
the voice of silence itself.

The Liberator (Le Librateur), 1947

Magrittes Liberator has the same pose as in his Therapist paintings. One difference is that the
cavity (or birds cage) on the chest of the Therapist is replaced by a screen on the chest of the
Liberator. The latter holds the facial image of the Persian queen, Scheherazade, and his body is
made up by the four icons found in the cave in High- level meetings, the bird, the cup, the pipe,
and the key.

These four objects may be related to various obvious functions. The bird of freedom, the key to
dreams, the cup of pleasure, the pipe of peaceful meditation, and so on. But what if we remove
the facial characteristics from the candlestick the Liberator holds? Then we may find the
original story which lies behind the true face of Scheherazade. The mystery of a thing is what is
implied by its missing parts- the face of beauty itself.

Hommage to Alphonse Allais, 1962

The strange pearl necklace, which makes up queen Scheherazades face, mysteriously reappears
on the fish which is somehow related to Alphonse Allais.

Highly regarded by the surrealists, Alphonse Allais was a French writer and humorist. He is the
author of many collections of whimsical writings. A poet as much as a humorist, he in particular
cultivated the verse form known as holo-rhyme, i.e. made up entirely of homophonous verses,
where entire lines rhyme. For example:

par les bois du djinn o sentasse de leffroi,
parle et bois du gin ou cent tasses de lait
froid.
by the woods of the djinn, where fear
abounds,
talk and drink gin, or a hundred cups of cold
milk.

Allais is also credited with the earliest known example of a completely silent musical
composition. Composed in 1897, his Funeral march for the obsequies of a deaf man, consisting
of nine blank measures, predates comparable works by John Cage and Erwin Schulhoff by a
considerable margin.

Allais participated in humorous exhibitions, particularly in those of the Salon des Arts
Incohrents of 1883 and 1884, held at the Gallery Vivienne. At these Allais exhibited arguably
the earliest examples of conceptual art. Of his art, perhaps the most influential were his plain
white sheet of Bristol paper Premire communion de jeunes filles chlorotiques par un temps de
neige (First communion of anemic young girls in the snow) (1883), and a similar red work,
Apoplectic cardinals harvesting tomatoes on the shore of the Red Sea (Study of the Aurora
Borealis) (1884).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Allais

Monochrome painting was initiated at the first Incoherent arts exhibition in 1882 in Paris, with
a black painting by poet Paul Bilhaud entitled Combat de ngres dans un tunnel (Negroes fight
in a tunnel). Monochromatic painting has been an important component of avant-garde visual art
throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. Painters have created the exploration of
one color, the examination of values changing across a surface, the expressivity of texture and
nuance, expressing a wide variety of emotions, intentions and meanings in a wide variety of
ways and means. From geometric precision to expressionism, the monochrome has proved to be
a durable idiom in Contemporary art. In the subsequent exhibitions of the Incoherent arts
Alphonse Allais proposed seven other monochrome paintings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monochrome_painting

This explains Magrittes Homage to Alphonse Allais. The title could equally be something like,
Monochromatic painting of a fish wearing a necklace and resembling Alphonse Allais silent
stories.

The spirit of the family (Lesprit de famille),
1963

The heart of the world, (Le coeur du
monde), 1956

I dont know if Magritte (or a friend of his) used to go fishing; but a fish has certainly a symbolic
meaning. Pointing upwards it looks at the sky- usually we look down on fish but seldom we
realize that we are little more than fish: as fish occasionally jump out of the water to see what
lies above, so we try from time to time to lift ourselves above the clouds to take a look at what
lies beyond. Such a discussion, about the beyond, must be taking place between the two figures
by the side of the great sphere in The spirit of the family. If the sphere represents the spirit
then the fish represents the family, our family consisting of all our collective inventions.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/34894634

Such an invention is also the unicorn. The unicorn is a legendary animal that has been described
since antiquity as a beast with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. The
unicorn was depicted in ancient seals of the Indus Valley Civilization and was mentioned by the
ancient Greeks in accounts of natural history by various writers. The Bible also describes an
animal which some translations have rendered with the unicorn.

In European folklore, the unicorn is often depicted as a white horse-like or goat-like animal with
a long horn and cloven hooves (sometimes a goats beard). In the Middle Ages and Renaissance,
it was commonly described as an extremely wild woodland creature, a symbol of purity and
grace, which could only be captured by a virgin. In the encyclopedias its horn was said to have
the power to render poisoned water potable and to heal sickness. In medieval and Renaissance
times, the horn of the narwhal was sometimes sold as unicorn horn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn

Perhaps the most wondrous of all mystical creatures, the unicorn is a symbol of magic, miracles,
purity, innocence and enchantment. This magical and enchanting animal appears to only a rare
few and has the ability to bestow magic, miracles and wisdom to those who are pure of heart and
virtuous in their deeds.

The presence of a unicorn is announced by the soft and faint tinkling sound of tiny bells being
shaken; or of tiny chimes being rustled by a breeze. And as bells and chimes symbolize the
presence of divinity, the tinkling sound which accompanies the nearness of a unicorn reminds us
that we are in the presence of a highly spiritual essence whose boundless domain encompasses
all realms matter and spirit.

The unicorn, unlike all other horned animals save perhaps the rhinoceros, is a single-horned
creature. While the two-horned animals are linked, symbolically, to the realm of duality and
matter, the unicorns single horn reminds us that its domain is the realm of unity; a realm that
transcends and exists beyond the bounds of matter and duality.
http://www.aseekersthoughts.com/2010/05/unicorn-as-symbol.html

Whether unicorns used to be a prehistoric species now extinct or they have always been creatures
of our imagination, their horn has a certain symbolism, possibly expressing some notion of purity
linked with the sexual drive (it is well-known that the rhinoceros horn was used as an
aphrodisiac). This combination of purity and lust is what makes the unicorn such a powerful
image in the world of dreams (Freud I guess would relate the unicorn with some symbolism of
castration). It is such symbolism what would have made the unicorn so much a wanted object of
pure desire.

Magrittes unicorn in The heart of the world has a tower on its head instead of a horn.
Therefore, not only we find a symbol of purity, but also a place for purity to inhabit. Thus, the
heart of the world is found in the tower of a castle, which is, at the same time, the horn of a
female (judging from its long blond hair) unicorn. But if all we know is confined in the horn of
the unicorn, then the rest of the world is completely unknown to us. Therefore, the unicorn is
what we see when we are faced with our wildest dreams and with all our secret desires.

The indiscreet jewels (Les bijoux indiscrets), 1963

The indiscreet jewels is the first novel by Denis Diderot, published anonymously in 1748. It is
an allegory that portrays king Louis XV as the sultan Mangogul of the Congo who owns a magic
ring that makes womens genitals talk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_bijoux_indiscrets

In an old English translation, the jewels were the toys, or genitals, of the women, making the
play on the notion of transformative and elusive jewels evoked by Magrittes picture all the more
complex. For here, in place of a bracelet, is a human face: this is, indeed, an indiscreet jewel;
however, in the eighteenth-century novel the indiscretion was shared by the ring which was able
to gain such voluble responses from the women of the fictitious Congo of which the main
protagonist was sultan and by those womens no-longer-private parts themselves. This title
therefore adds an extra layer of Surrealism to the work, paying homage to one of the movements
predecessors.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/drawings-watercolors/rene-magritte-les-bijoux-indiscrets-
5404187-details.aspx#top

An image from Salvador Dalis dream, part of the inspiration for the film Un chien Andalou
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_Chien_Andalou

An eye appearing in the palm of a hand was a favorite theme for the surrealists (such a depiction
is found in the film Un chien Andalou, (An Andalusian dog) where, instead, theres a hole in
the hand from which ants emerge). Hands that can see or talk probably represent an extension of
the human senses, an arm of the mind which stretches beyond the known world, trying to grasp
whats found there. Either in dreams or through meditation this hand represents the branch of
us into the supernatural. Therefore Magrittes hand in the painting shouldnt be considered for
any sexual allusions, at least not mainly, but for its use as the extension of the painters brush
into the unknown.

The mask of the lightning

The married priest (Le prtre mari), 1960

The married priest, 1961

Looming dominant upon the canvas as though monumental within their own small world, two
masked apples appear to consort together in a barren landscape. Despite the fact that all of the
elements in The married priest exist in the real world, and indeed despite the fact that one could
place a mask on an apple, there is nonetheless a distinct atmosphere of strangeness about this
picture. Where is the tree from which these fruit could fall? These apples appear to be on a
beach, a crescent moon above them in a surprisingly day-like sky, sand stretching behind them.
There is both tranquility and menace in the scene, which is clearly dominated by the masked
fruit. They appear to be interacting in some manner. Despite the fact that there are no eyes
behind the masks, this anthropomorphizing element succeeds in implying an intelligence to the
apples that is accentuated by Magrittes deft depiction of the slightly jaunty angle at which they
perch, as though eager and aware. These fruit appear engaged in some form of furtive
conversation, or are perhaps waiting... Are they lovers, criminals in disguise, highwaymen,
Scarlet Pimpernel-like characters, or are they going to a masquerade ball? The dashing cavalier
aspect of the masks is humorously off-set by the sad nibbling by caterpillars to which their
plumage has been subjected, adding a slightly tatty air to these dandyish fruits.

Masks, disguises, hidden faces- all these are repeated motifs in Magrittes pictures. These
elements introduce a notion of the malleability and illegibility of character, of identity, of
selfhood, of life. They are elements used to hide, but also to entertain. They are the accoutrement
of the criminal and the actor alike, and in both cases conjure a vivid theatricality. But be it upon
the stage or on a moonlit night in the middle of nowhere, these masks are unsettling, as they hide
information. They introduce subterfuge, be it in the leisurely suspension-of-disbelief context of
the stage or in the more disturbing context of someone concealing their own identity.

In The married priest, the masks actually appear to perform almost the opposite function of
some of those other works- where on human figures, masks and other elements remove any
possibility of identification, and thereby remove some of the humanity of the subject, here the
masked apples are lent a suspicion of impossible humanity by their masks. They in fact gain
character, becoming entertaining, even rakish figures on the beach, rather than mere abandoned
fruit. It is through the inclusion of the masks that all our questions emerge, all the implications of
possible back-stories that make these apples so intriguing. This simple adornment, added to an
inanimate object, dispels the literalness of the scene and introduces a wild card, a joker, an
element of unpredictability that engages the viewer actively, presenting the apples as intriguing
mysteries that are of course impossible to solve.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/rene-magritte-le-pretre-marie-4856973-
details.aspx?intObjectID=4856973

Magrittes cover for a 1946 issue of View

The hesitation waltz, 1950
http://50watts.com/Magritte-s-View

The image of the masked apple first appeared in 1946 for a cover design Magritte did of The
view. The apple with a mask is also featured in The hesitation waltz. Eroticism, understood
both in light of the Marquis de Sade and Sigmund Freud, was fundamentally important to the
Surrealists. In my opinion the apple wearing a mask is displaying a Marquis de Sade type
costume.

Frontispiece of Les infortunes de la vertu, Marquis de Sade, 1791

Justine (or The misfortunes of virtue) was written in 1791 by Donatien Alphonse Franois de
Sade, or Marquis de Sade. It is set just before the French Revolution in France and tells the story
of a young woman who goes under the name of Therese. Her story is recounted to Madame de
Lorsagne while defending herself for her crimes, en route to punishment and death. She explains
the series of misfortunes which have led her to be in her present situation.

Justine is a 12-year-old maiden. It follows her until age 26, in her quest for virtue. She is
presented with sexual lessons, hidden under a virtuous mask. The unfortunate situations include:
the time when she seeks refuge and confession in a monastery, but is forced to become a sex-
slave to the monks, who subject her to countless orgies, rapes, and similar rigors. When helping a
gentleman who is robbed in a field, he takes her back to his chateau with promises of a post
caring for his wife, but she is then confined in a cave and subject to much the same punishment.

In her search for work and shelter Justine constantly fell into the hands of rogues who would
ravish and torture her and the people she makes friends with. These punishments are mostly the
same throughout, even when she goes to a judge to beg for mercy in her case as an arsonist, and
then finds herself openly humiliated in court, unable to defend herself.

The story is told by Therese in an inn, to Madame de Lorsagne. It is finally revealed that
Madame de Lorsagne is her long lost sister. The irony is that her sister submitted to a brief
period of vice and found herself a comfortable existence where she could exercise good, while
Justine refused to make concessions for the greater good and was plunged further into vice than
those who would go willingly.

The story ends with Madame de Lorsagne relieving her from a life of vice and clearing her name.
Soon afterward, Justine becomes introverted and morose, and is finally struck by a bolt of
lightning and killed instantly. Madame de Lorsagne joins a religious order after Justines death.

Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the arrest of the anonymous author of Justine, and as a result de
Sade was incarcerated for the last 13 years of his life. Napoleon called Justine the most
abominable book ever engendered by the most depraved imagination. The books destruction
was ordered by the Royal Court of Paris in 1815.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_(Sade)

The masque of the lightning (Le masque de la foudre), 1965-66

This is the bolt of lightning which struck Justine in de Sades story. Coup de foudre, in
French literally means strike of lightning, but metaphorically it means love at first sight. The
word mask here wants to hide the real emotions (not sadistic- la de Sade- I guess) of the
painter towards the lady depicted with the perfect breasts and long blond hair. However the
painting is surrealistic. Her eyes are blank as those of a statue and her pose is reminiscent of
statues, although the colors of the painting are pink. The cloud and the pipe underscore the
surrealistic environment of the painting.

Stone mask, 7000 BCE, probably the oldest mask in the world

The use of masks in rituals or ceremonies is a very ancient human practice across the world.
Some ceremonial or decorative masks were not designed to be worn. Although the religious use
of masks has waned, masks are used sometimes in drama therapy or psychotherapy.

The ritual and theatrical definitions of mask usage frequently overlap and merge but still provide
a useful basis for categorization. In ancient Rome the word persona meant mask. A citizen
could demonstrate his or her lineage through imagines, death masks of the ancestors.

Ritual masks occur throughout the world, and although they tend to share many characteristics,
highly distinctive forms have developed. The function of the masks may be magical or religious;
they may appear in rites of passage or as a make-up for a form of theatre. Equally masks may
disguise a penitent or preside over important ceremonies; they may help mediate with spirits, or
offer a protective role to the society who utilize their powers. Biologist Jeremy Griffith has
suggested that ritual masks, as representations of the human face, are extremely revealing of the
two fundamental aspects of the human psychological condition: firstly, the repression of a
cooperative, instinctive self or soul; and secondly, the extremely angry state of the unjustly
condemned conscious thinking egocentric intellect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mask

Surrealist exhibition of 1938, Rue des
Mannequins
https://www.flickr.com/photos/32491186@
N05/4069890032/

Salvador Dali and his mannequin, from the
surrealist exhibition, Paris 1938
http://trouvaillesdujour.blogspot.gr/2010/08/
regards-dartistes-by-denise-bellon.html

Aside from masks, mannequins (= figurines) were common objects for the surrealists. They
were used not only as sex dolls but also, and more generally, as representations of humanity
itself. Through their neutral characteristics, ones imagination would be set free to give the dolls
whatever character one liked. The woman in The mask of the lightning has such neutral
features, with respect to her expressions, therefore she represents a mannequin destined to
fulfill ones wildest dreams.

Two sisters (The Jewish angel), Giorgio De
Chirico, 1915

The two sisters, 1925

De Chirico extensively used masks or mannequins in an effort to join antiquity with modern
representations. Magrittes Two sisters certainly draws its inspiration from De Chiricos
painting. However, in Magrittes painting the faces are not covered but they are explicitly shown,
the difference between them being that one face is awake while the other one is dreaming.
Therefore, the merge between the ancient and the modern in De Chiricos work, took the form of
the merge between reality and dreams, at present time, in Magrittes painting.

Masks: However you think of it, it ends up as the fundamental fact of the mask. In this way
the primitive, with all its implements and pictures, opens up for our benefit an infinite arsenal of
masks: the masks of our fate- the masks with which we emerge from unconsciously experienced
moments and situations that have now, at long last, been recuperated.

Impoverished, uncreative man knows of no other way to transform himself than by means of
disguise. Disguise seeks the arsenal of masks within us. . . . In reality, the world is full of masks;
we do not suspect the extent to which even the most unpretentious pieces of furniture (such as
Romanesque armchairs) used to be masks, too. To hand over these masks to us, and to form the
space and the figure of our fate within it- this is where folk art comes to meet us halfway. Only
from this vantage point can we say clearly and fundamentally what distinguishes it from more
authentic art, in the narrower sense.

It is a fact that all mankind wears or has worn a mask. This enigmatic accessory, with no obvious
utility, is commoner than the lever, the bow, the harpoon or the plough. . . . Complete
civilizations, some of them most remarkable, have prospered without having conceived the idea
of the wheel, or, what is worse, without using it even though it was known to them. But they
were familiar with the mask.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mod/summary/v016/16.1.cheng.html

The forbidden world

The forbidden world, 1949

It is the world of the painter, forbidden while expressed. The artist never reveals his true nature.
What he depicts is the implied. Magritte had always stressed that the object and its representation
is not the same thing. But this process follows more than two stages. It is the object as perceived
by the artist who then expresses it. Then it is the representation of the object as perceived by the
viewer. Finally it is the description by the viewer of the object he perceived, according the
depiction of the painter, as the latter perceived it. It is hard to say that two different people have
the same impression of an object, or of reality, as everyone perceives the world in his own way,
according to his secret thoughts and his deepest desires. Our personal, most precious objects are
kept deep in our souls for our own sake, no matter what the common view about the same
objects is- Thus the forbidden world.

What makes the difference in the previous painting is the colors. During the 40s Magritte
abandoned his surrealistic style and returned to the world of his youth, the girl he used to know,
while the played in a cemetery, the artist he met there, who was, as Magritte said, endowed with
powers from above

Angelus (Langlus), Jean-Franois Millet,
1857-59

Archeological reminiscence of Millets
Angelus, Salvador Dali, 1935

Magritte goes on, Unfortunately, I learnt later that painting bears very little direct relation to
life, and that every effort to free oneself has always been derided by the public. Millets Angelus
was a scandal in his day, the painter being accused of insulting the peasants by portraying them
in such a manner

Olympia, Edouard Manet, 1863

The harvest, 1943

People wanted to destroy Manets Olympia, and the critics charged the painter with showing
women cut into pieces, because he had depicted only the upper part of the body of a woman
standing behind the bar, the lower part being hidden by the bar itself. In Courbets day, it was
generally agreed that he had very poor taste in so conspicuously displaying his false talent. I also
saw that there were endless examples of this nature and that they extended over every area of
thought. As regards the artists themselves, most of them gave up their freedom quite lightly,
placing their art at the service of someone or something. As a rule, their concerns and their
ambitions are those of any old careerist. I thus acquired a total distrust of art and artists, whether
they were officially recognized or were endeavoring to become so, and I felt that I had nothing in
common with this guild. I had a point of reference which held me elsewhere, namely that magic
within art which I had encountered as a child

Landscape, 1920

Landscape, 1926

In 1915 I attempted to regain that position which would enable me to see the world in a different
way to the one which people were seeking to impose upon me. I possessed some technical skill
in the art of painting, and in my isolation I undertook experiments that were consciously different
from everything that I knew in painting. I experienced the pleasure of freedom in painting the
most unconventional pictures. By a strange coincidence, perhaps out of pity and probably as a
joke, I was given a catalogue with illustrations from an exhibition of Futurist painting. I now had
before my eyes a mighty challenge directed towards that same good sense which so bored me. It
was for me the same light that I had encountered as a child whenever I emerged from the
underground vaults of the old cemetery where I spent my holidays.

The first day, 1943

Nude, 1919

In retrospect, the image of the girl and boy climbing out of an underground vault in which death
is present, and then discovering a painter who is attempting to record his view of the cemetery on
canvas, seems almost an advance announcement of Magrittes later career.

The record of his childhood experience specifically mentions the sharp contrast between the
view of the two children, who are in principle as far away as can be from the end of life, and the
place where they are playing. A cemetery is the place par excellence in which one's memories of
those no longer with us are preserved and cherished. It soon becomes clear that elements almost
always appear in Magritte's pictures such as present a sharp contrast to each other, thereby
triggering a shock which shakes the intellect out of its apathy and sets one to thinking.

In fact, the girl and the boy in relation to the previous paintings are separated by a period of
more than 20 years. This is proof that the themes which Magritte used throughout his career were
recurring again and again, as fixed ideas, in relation of course to some eternal question about art.

Lola de Valence, Edouard Manet, 1862

Lola de Valence, 1948

The title of this work refers to Lola de Valence painted by Manet, and then immortalized in a
quatrain by Charles Baudelaire which first appeared in the 1868 edition of The flowers of evil.
Lola de Valence was the scene name of Lola Melea, the first dancer of the dance company of
Camprubi. It performed at the Porte Dauphine during the summer of 1862. Manet persuaded
Camprubi to bring his dancers to the studio of his friend the Belgian painter Alfred Stevens
during their leisure hours, and they posed for him there.
http://www.mattesonart.com/1947-1948-vache-period.aspx

In May 1940, Magritte beset by martial problems and the Nazi invasion of Belgium left with a
few close friends for France leaving Georgette behind. When he return to a Nazi occupied
Brussels in October 1940 and reconciled with his beloved Georgette, his life was in shambles.
Naturally melancholy, he became depressed. In 1943 to overcome the ambient despair of the war
period, Magritte launches out in a type of painting inspired by impressionism in order to
combine, through his personal research, the expression of the feelings of lightness, unconcern,
happiness.

The bathers, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1918-
19

Felicity of images (Friendship), (Le bonheur
des images (Lamiti), 1943

His inspiration was by a reproduction of Renoirs Bathers. This painting and other similar
Renoirs triggered his sunlit period. Enticed by the sensuality of the colors, he opted for a more
luminous palette. While continuing to draw objects and figures with the meticulous detail for
which he was known, he added to them a touch clearly inspired by Impressionism, unleashing
color in new, warmer and more cheerful tonalities. From March or April 1943, to the end of 1944
he produced about fifty pictures in this new style.

The spring (La source), Jean Auguste
Dominique Ingres, 1856

The sages carnival (Le carnaval du sage),
1947

The break in the clouds (The calm), 1941

The sea of flames, 1946

Marcel Marin elaborated on this work of Magritte:

Fired with enthusiasm, Magritte immediately went on to make other versions, including The
dance (a standing nude), and The harvest (a reclining nude), and then concluded the
experiment by taking the solution to its peak of refinement, since he performed the same
transformation on Ingress The spring, an academic representation if ever there was one, by
not only adorning the young girls body with different colors, but by recreating the whole picture
according to the technique of the Impressionists! And Noug, who had already supplied the titles
for the previous versions, was to name this last experiment, the subversive profundity of which
remains as usual unnoticed by everyone else: Monsieur Ingress good days

The Intelligence (LIntelligence), 1946

Perhaps of more significance to the history of Belgian Surrealism, though, is that Marcel Marin
was responsible for the first monograph on Magritte, published in 1943, and for the subsequent
study on the artist, Les corrections naturelles, which appeared in 1947. Marin also claimed
that during this time because of the bleak economic times, painted forgeries of the works of other
masters and that Marcel sold some of these paintings (the claim has not been documented).

The green stripe (Portrait of madame
Matisse), Henri Matisse, 1906

The pebble (Le galet), 1948

Whether forgery or not, what is distinct in this period of Magritte paintings is the vivid tone of
the colors, combined with an erotic atmosphere. The surrealist object, abstract though defined,
gave its place to the undetermined and colorful stripes and lines of impressionism, expressing a
turn in the painters attitude from the painting of the spirit to the painting of the heart. It could be
said that it was the war what made the difference: the naive attitude of the surrealists who wanted
to create an atmosphere of shock and danger, turn into an effort to offer some colors and warm
sentiments in a world devastated by the Second World War. Magritte did this by imitating
paintings of famous painters before him.

The Surrealists blamed Magritte for his paintings:

The riff began when Magritte accompanied by Marcel Marin went to Paris in 1946 to meet with
Breton to show his new work. Breton was not impressed and his close friend ELT Mesens didnt
approve of his new sunlit period which Magritte argued was the need in this post-war world to
emerge from darkness. Magritte added, against the general pessimism I uphold the quest for
joy and pleasure.

Breton replied in a letter, I can assure you that not one of your latest pictures gives me the
impression of sunlight (Renoir, yes)... To justify his change in direction Magritte wrote Le
Surralisme en plein soleil (Surrealism in full sunlight), and circulated the draft to various
surrealists for support. Later in 1946 Breton published a list of the various surrealist painters and
left Magritte off the list- he later listed Magritte as one of the surrealists despite themselves.

Favorable omens, 1944
The goad (L aiguillon), 1943

In 1946 Magritte issued his manifesto Surrealism in full sunlight, saying, We have neither the
time nor the taste to play at Surrealist art, we have a huge task ahead of us, we must imagine
charming objects which will awaken what is left within us of the instinct to pleasure

Starry night, Vincent van Gogh, 1889

Thousand and one nights (Les mille et une
nuits), 1946

Although his sunlit Renoir styled paintings began in 1943, all his work was not impressionist.
At the start of 1947 Magritte was painting in both his realist style and his impressionist style.
Some of his works were already headed toward more extreme colors. This extreme style, closer
to some of Van Gogh works, would accelerate in late 1947 when he was invited to hold his first
solo exhibition in Paris at the Galerie du Faubourg in May 1948. He had waited twenty years to
do a solo show in Paris and was resentful at the lack of appreciation that he felt the Parisian
surrealists gave him.

The spilt (La fissure), 1949

Because the money is US currency and Magritte had an art dealer in New York, Alexander Iolas,
we could assume the break means a break from the past, as if we were arriving at the New
World on a ship. With some international recognition and success through Alexander Iolas,
Magritte was not impressed by his invitation to hold his one man show at the Galerie du
Faubourg, Paris. As a joke concocted by Magritte and his friends, Rene painted a series of
hilarious pictures to exert a bit of revenge upon the Paris art world.

The triumphant march, 1947

The popes crime, 1948

The ways and means (Les voies et moyens),
1948

The ellipsis (L ellipse), 1948

According to Bernard Marcade, In French, the term vache is used for an excessively fat
woman, or a soft, lazy person. An unpleasant person is described as a peau de vache (cow-
skin); amour vache (cow-love) refers to a relationship more physical than emotional. It thus
treads a line between vulgarity and coarseness, and that is what characterizes this set of paintings
and gouaches, representing a radical departure from the painters neutral, detached style which
had finally been accepted by Parisian Surrealist orthodoxy. Overall, the striking thing about these
works is their garish tones, their exuberant, grotesque and caricatured subjects, all executed
rapidly and casually in the name of a freedom from aesthetic and moral injunctions and
prescriptions.
www.mattesonart.com/1947-1948-vache-period.aspx

The exhibition was accompanied by a small catalogue with a preface by the poet Louis
Scutenaire, bearing an evocative title (Les pieds dans le plat - Putting ones foot in it) and
written in a slangy style. Moreover, Scutenaire would admit as much some years later: The
important thing was not to enchant the Parisians, but outrage them. The triviality of the works
actually wrong-foots Surrealist good taste. Both text and images are placed on a deliberately
rustic and provincial register. Wed been fed-up for a good long time deep in our forests, in our
green pastures. Traditionally, the Belgians were seen as coarse peasants by the French,
including the intellectuals (in 1865 Charles Baudelaire had written his pamphlet Poor
Belgium). This chauvinism, still prevalent even among Parisian Surrealists, was here returned to
the sender: Wed like to say shit politely to you, in your false language, Scutenaire goes on to
write. Because we bumpkins, we yokels, have absolutely no manners, you realize.

Famine (La famine), 1948

Skeletons fighting over a pickled herring,
James Ensor, 1891

Magrittes vache period was a kind of sabotage of the idea of painting which to a certain extent
anticipates what would be, some 30 years later, at the heart of the so-called Bad painting which
erupted across the world of Western art in the late 1970s and 1980s. In it, in fact, we find a
similar way of integrating the devalued registers of popular culture (advertising, comic strips,
graffiti). Scutenaire suggests that this series of paintings was to a large extent inspired by
caricatures shown by Colinet, published before 1914 in magazines for children. It is true that
one can recognize, here and there, explicit references to caricatures by the Belgian cartoonist
Deladoes, or even direct borrowings of scenes from the Aventures des pieds nickels, the
famous strip drawn by Louis Forton:

Cover sketch from L emptant (1914 -1915), Louis Forton

The exhibition at the Galerie du Faubourg enjoyed no commercial success. But the target had
been hit. The Parisian Surrealists felt they were being aimed at, and were duly offended. The
vache period could not subsequently be transformed into a style. Barely a few weeks after the
opening of the show, Magritte used the excuse of his wifes supposedly negative reaction to
bring the adventure to an end: I would quite like to continue with the approach I experimented
with in Paris, and take it further. Thats my tendency: one of slow suicide. But theres Georgette
and my familiar disgust with being sincere. Georgette prefers the well-made painting of
yesteryear, so particularly to please Georgette in future Im going to show the painting of
yesteryear. Ill find a way to slip in a great big incongruity from time to time.
http://weimarart.blogspot.gr/2011/05/magrittes-periode-vache.html

The ocean (L ocean) 1943

As weve already said, the difference between the surrealist and the sunlit Magritte was in
colors. The surrealist object is something well defined (although highly abstract), while the
impressionist object is dissolved into an ocean of flowing colors. In fact, Magritte kept his
surrealist objects, although he made them appear more colorful. In the following paintings we
see some of Magrittes favorite leaf-like representations:

The fire, 1943

Elsinore (Elseneur) 1944

The clearing, 1944

The flavor of tears (La saveur des larmes),
1946

Elsinore Castle is the setting for much of William Shakespeares famous tragedy Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark. In the painting the forest forms the outline of the castle.

In Flavor of Tears we encounter Magrittes favorite sky-like landscape, with a curtain at the
right side and some leaf-like trees, though in this version of the flavor of tears one of the trees
is broken.

About this time, Magrittes bilboquets, were transforming into cicerines:

Fragment of a painting (Fragment dune
toile), 1945

Natural encounters, 1945

In Natural encounters we find artist Robert Gobers high windows. The painting shows a pair
of cicerones (which represent guides) standing in front of a wall pierced by two high casement
windows revealing patches of blue sky. It looks like the window on the right has fallen magically
and now is in a different position on the wall.

The archivist (Larchiviste), 1948

The cripple (Le stropiat), 1948

The age of pleasure (Lge du plaisir), 1946

The depths of pleasure (La profondeur du
plaisir), 1948

Magritte never abandoned his art of conversation, or his pipe, as shown in The archivist, or in
The cripple respectively, while his impressionistic women with long hair and bright colors are
holding his favorite bilboquets. Therefore, the forbidden world of the painter still remains a
kingdom hidden at the depths of pleasure, much closer to the world of dreams than ever before.

Applied dialectics

Magrittes earliest paintings, which date from about 1915, were Impressionistic in style. He
studied at the Acadmie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, but found the instruction
uninspiring. The paintings he then produced were influenced by Futurism and by Cubism.

Magrittes advertisements for the couture firm Norine, 1926

By 1924 Rene Magritte was working as a design artist for Norine, run by a charismatic couple:
the cultural and intellectual Paul-Gustave Van Hecke and the grande couturire Honorine
Norine Deschrijver. They established their couture business during World War I (1918). For
the first time, a Belgian couture house created its own designs instead of buying them from Paris,
and offered an attractive and highly original local alternative. After the war, they became the
most important couture house in the country.

Project for a mural, Norine House, Brussels, 1931

Norine was a prominent representative of the Modernist movement in fashion. In fact, Van
Hecke and Norines environment was entirely modern and was a hub of Surrealism and
Expressionism: their private home, Van Heckes art galleries and journals and the couture
houses salons featured work by national and international contemporary artists. They firmly
embedded art in fashion; this symbiosis with modern art gave their creations high art status. The
couture houses beautiful graphics were conceived by Belgian artists such as Frits Van den
Berghe, Leon de Smet and- most importantly, by Ren Magritte.

Magritte held his first exhibition in Brussels in 1927. Critics heaped abuse on the exhibition.
Depressed by the failure, he moved to Paris where he became involved in the surrealist group.
Having made little impact in Paris, Magritte returned to Brussels in 1930 and resumed working
in advertising. He and his brother, Paul, formed an agency which earned him a living wage.
http://www.renemagritte.org/biography.jsp

Studio Dongo advertisement, 1931

Between the years 1931-1935, Magritte and his musician brother Paul built at the back of his
arden an advertising company, Studio Dongo, named after Fabrice Del Dongo. Magrittes main
goal was to paint and he did ad work only because of his financial difficulty. The Studio Dongo
followed the rules of advertising: their messages were neutral and simple. They produced
illustrations, advertising artwork and covers for musical scores as a means of making money
while Magritte continued to try and sell his paintings.

Although Magritte exhibited twice at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in the 1930s, he was
temporarily left without a commercial outlet for his paintings after the closure of Le Centaure
in 1930. The gallerys stock of 150 recent paintings by Magritte was purchased by his old friend
E. L. T. Mesens. Later that decade Mesens moved to London, where he became director of the
London Gallery. Through Mesens, Magritte gained greater recognition in Great Britain.

In 1933, Magritte defined his artist intentions by stating that the primary aim of his work from
that point on would be to reveal the hidden and often personal affinities between objects, rather
than juxtaposing unrelated objects. He continued to remain in contact with Breton and Eluard in
Paris, contributing to the final two issues of Le Surralisme and remained associated with
surrealism in general throughout his career.

Soon Magrittes output increased due to the sponsorship of Claude Spaak, who he met in 1931.
Spaak was a playwright, but had also been an active collector of Magrittes paintings for some
time. In 1935, he made a semi-formal arrangement to allow Magritte to abandon commercial
work and focus fully on his own artistic output. To this end, he provided the artist a monthly
stipend, while also guaranteeing the paintings he produced. In addition to this, Spaak actively
sought other sponsors for Magritte.

When Edward James took over Magrittes Dongo Studio company around 1936, Magritte quit
his ad work at Dongo and devoted himself entirely to painting. Thanks to James, Spaak and
Mesens, Magrittes art began to be recognized internationally. Consequently companies began to
contact Magritte to create artwork for advertisements he often was inspired directly by his
canvases.

The witness, 1938

The present (Le prsent), 1938-39

In the 1940s Magritte had again joined the communist party, which he had joined for the third
time. Magritte's political involvement was based essentially upon his spirit of opposition. All of
his poster designs were rejected on principle by the party leadership, and he could not bear
having to subordinate his art to an ideological party line, even one so broadly conceived. There
is no more reason for art to be Walloon than for it to be vegetarian, was his reply to those
seeking to enlist him for exhibitions aimed at demonstrating regionalist interests. Ultimately, his
sole, his real banner was the mystery inherent in objects, in the world, that mystery which
belongs to everyone and to no one.

It is true that Magritte demonstrated something of an antisocial tendency; with his rebellious
temperament, he found it difficult to conform to existing conventions. One day, the King wished
to give a banquet in his honor, perhaps intending to commission a picture from him; Magritte
rang up the master of ceremonies a few hours before the dinner was due to begin, informing him
that he had unfortunately burnt a hole in his dinner jacket with his cigarette, and would therefore
be unable to participate in the festivities. He soon fell out with Raymond, whom he criticized for
being bourgeois and conformist; on the other hand, he always felt very close to his other brother,
Paul.

Black flag (Le drapeau noir), 1937

In order to show the Nazi aggression in Europe and the coming World War, Magritte inaugurated
a series of paintings, such as The witness and The present. The first one explicitly shows a
slug and guts lying on the ground full of blood. The second one shows a morbid vulture wearing
a funeral costume, and showing its nails, next to the flowers of evil.

Magrittes Black flag may refer to the German bombing of the small Spanish town of Guernica
in April 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. (Picasso also painted Guernica on the same
subject). Magritte later wrote that the picture gives a foretaste of the terror which would come
from flying machines, and I am not proud of it. In contrast to artists who praised technology,
Magritte was showing that machines have their darker side. Looking closely at the planes, one
can see that they are made of a variety of strange shapes. The plane on the bottom right has a
long, curtained window where its wings should be.
http://onesurrealistaday.com/post/134961054/le-drapeau-noir-the-black-flag-by-rene-magritte

Homesickness, 1940

In Homesickness, the painter with his wings of desire muses over the bridge, standing against
the sitting lion in opposite directions. Magritte originally thought of calling this painting
Menopause, probably referring to a period without his wife.
http://www.renemagritte.org/homesickness.jsp

The painting Homesickness features a forlorn Magritte as an angel leaning over a bridge
contemplating the river, perhaps thinking of suicide. What about the lion? The lion is hard to
overlook. Curiously the king of the jungle is not threatening or menacing and looks away
disinterested. Clearly the lion represents Georgette, and perhaps Magritte never understood this
himself. The two are separated, not interested in each other, while Magritte contemplates his
sorrow, his sadness, his rejection. Much of the change of the 1940s can be seen in his painting
Homesickness, a painting that showed with great courage his depression over the very real threat
of losing his family and home.
http://www.mattesonart.com/homesickness-by-rene-magritte-a-review.aspx

Sheila Legge

The surrealist phantom, Trafalgar square,
London, 1936
http://www.lettresvolees.fr/eluard/amis.html

The first Surrealist Exhibition took place in London in July 1936. On his trips to London to visit
James and Mesens to prepare for his exhibitions, Rene had an affair with the young surrealist
model known as the Surrealist Phantom of 1936, the artist Sheila Legg (in her mid-20s), who
posed for surrealist events with Dali and others and was one of the most photographed surrealist
woman at the time. Apparently this started in March 1937. As a result, Magritte made several
visits to London in order to work in connection with Legg.

Magritte did not want to hurt Georgette or arouse her suspicions, so he arranged for his friend,
Paul Colinet (1898-1957) a Belgian surrealist poet, to spend time with Georgette so she would be
safe... a little too safe as it turned out. While Magritte was away Georgette and Paul Colinet
became romantically involved. Georgette at one point asked Rene for a divorce. So when
Magritte fled Brussels during the war, Georgette did not go with him.

Applied dialectics, 1945

The Belgium capital of Brussels was liberated by Allied forces on September 3, 1944. The Allies
liberated the Belgium port of Antwerp, an important port. Magrittes Applied Dialectics 1944-
1945 is one of the few paintings that directly deals with the war. Most of his paintings (like his
Treasure Island series) use the symbolic war birds to imply German aggression.

War is a really awful thing. It is such not only because of the impoverishment it brings about, but
also, and most importantly for the artist, because of the humiliation of human personality.
Therefore, the most dangerous wars in human history are those fought not explicitly but in the
background. The Second World War for example was horrible not only because of the heavy
casualties, but, most importantly, because of the racist paranoia it brought about, re-emerging
from the darkest depths of the human soul. Magritte himself was not a militant but he had to
become a war- artist in order to overcome the depressing atmosphere of the time. Although he
usually painted pictures with hidden meanings, since he had claimed that the picture had
always have explicit interpretations, this time he decided to paint pictures clearly depicting the
war.

Im no militant, he said later on to Patrick Waldberg in 1965. I feel unarmed for a political
struggle, both as regards my competence and with respect to my energy. However, I hold to what
you say I am, I continue to be for socialism that is, a system which does away with the
inequality of property distribution, with differences, with war. In what form I dont know, but
thats my attitude, despite every defeat and set-back.

Magritte was primarily a painter of ideas, a painter of visible thoughts, rather than of subjects.
He valued neither lyrical nor Expressionist abstraction. In his view, those artists producing such
work, in presenting subject-matter, were presenting nothing worthy of a single thought, nor even
deserving of one's interest. Magritte did not possess a studio in the strict sense of the word,
responding maliciously to those who commented in surprise upon this that painting was done in
order that it might land on the canvas, and not on the carpet, which indeed revealed not the
slightest stain. The truth is that we cannot even say with any certainty whether Magritte actually
enjoyed painting. He clearly liked to think in pictures; as soon as he had elaborated these
thoughts with the aid of sketches and little drawings, however, he baulked at the idea of
transferring them onto canvas, preferring to go and play chess in the Greenwich, a well-known
Brussels cafe. He was not as passionate a player as Man Ray or even Marcel Duchamp.
nevertheless, Magritte loved this form of visible mathematics more than the act of painting.
Numerous anecdotes attest to his great contempt for that which Bram Bogart called peinture-
peinture (which may be roughly translated as painting for the painting) and Marcel Duchamp
the class of the rtiniens (retina-cretins) - in contrast to the class of the grey subject-
matter.

In other worlds, colors decorate the painting but do not form the objects it consists of. Its like a
game of chess: The color or the forms of the pieces dont decide the moves or the result. The
pieces move in certain directions, but what matters is the mathematics of the movements, not
their apparent motion. Furthermore, a good chess player, like an excellent artist, enjoys his game
for hours. But it is not like sitting in front of a television killing time; its a merciless effort not
to lose concentration, not to make wrong calculations about the parts of the game, to be fully
alert of all possible combinations. Therefore, good art, like a game of chess, is neither a game for
the sake of the game, nor a play for those who just hung around, hopelessly watching others how
they make the pieces move.

Not to be reproduced

Not to be reproduced (Portrait of Edward James),
1937

There had been some allegations about Magritte having been involved in forgery. According to
Patricia Allmer, in her essay La reproduction interdite: Ren Magritte and forgery:

The first monograph on Ren Magrittes art, entitled Magritte, was published in 1943. Marcel
Marin wrote the introductory essay for the book and Magritte himself chose twenty images
which were reproduced in color. As David Sylvester writes: There was one highly significant
difference in the book as published from the book as originally planned- that all the
reproductions were in color. This was a surprising development given the cost involved and
Magrittes precarious financial position.

Marcel Marins autobiography Le Radeau de la mmoire states that the funds for this book,
and for other projects, stemmed from Magrittes production and sale, between 1942 and 1946, of
artistic forgeries. Marin cites Magritte to illustrate his relaxed attitude towards forgeries stating
that buying a fake diamond without knowing will cause the same degree of satisfaction [as
buying a real one], due to the fact that one has paid a high price for it.

Sylvester has reproduced some of the forged images in question in the Magritte catalogue
raisonn; however, there is as yet no real, substantial evidence that Magritte ever forged
paintings: therefore these images will be referred to in this essay as Magrittes alleged
forgeries.

According to Marin, Magrittes forgeries were produced to fund color plates for the 1943
monograph and included, it is alleged, imitations of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Giorgio de
Chirico, Max Ernst, Titian and Meindert Hobbema.

Marins allegations of forgery were contested by Magrittes widow, Georgette, in the Brussels
and Paris courts. The allegations were based on citations from postcards and letters by Magritte
in La Destination, which is Marins collection of letters between himself and Magritte, making
the reader reliant on the formers claims about the authenticity of the letters he provides. This
reliance on narrators stretches still further, since, as Sylvester explains: It may well be that
Marin has not neglected to follow his mentors [Magrittes] lead. The reproductions in La
Destination include, on the one hand the drawings within Magrittes letters, on the other, a
number of drawings unconnected with the letters, which are not actually ascribed to Magritte but
are not ascribed to anyone else either and which are in a style closer to that of the set of drawings
made by Marin for Louis Scutenaire than the style of any Magritte drawings known to us.

Marcel Marin and Leo Dohmen, Forced labor (Les travaux forcs), detail of Grande baisse
(Great depression), 1962

The images in La destination were not the only instance where Marin could have produced
work that was subsequently attributed to Magritte and where Marin could have forged
Magrittes. Another instance is the spoof advertisement Grande baisse from 1962. It was
produced by Marin, but ascribed to Magritte. The leaflet was sent out the morning before the
private viewing of Magrittes retrospective at the Casino in Knokke. It was headed by a caption
showing a 100 Francs banknote with Lopold Is head replaced by that of Magritte. The title that
appeared below this, Hard labor, was taken from the warning printed on Belgian banknotes:
La loi punit le contrefacteur des travaux forcs (The law punishes the counterfeiter with
forced labor)

Under Belgian law the reproduction of a current banknote in any form constitutes forgery unless
it is printed over with the word specimen. The photomontage led the Director of the National
Bank of Belgium to call in the police who immediately phoned Magritte. Andr Blavier, in a
letter to Raymond Queneau, explained the incident: Very important gentlemen of the police are
said to be dealing with the case. And Magritte, when interviewed on the telephone, thought the
call was part of the joke and, not appreciating it, started bawling out the director of the STD, or
whatever its equivalent is in our dear mother-country.

Leo Dohmen, a photographer and art dealer, was Marins accomplice. He was, following
Marins suggestion, the actual producer of the photomontage. According to Dohmen the image
and its title Forced labor were deliberate allusions on Marins part to another, much more
serious forgery, namely five hundred copies of counterfeit 100 francs banknotes allegedly made
by Magritte and his brother Paul in 1953 and which Marin helped to distribute.

The specter (Le spectre), 1948- 1949

Although Grande baisse is a critique of Magritte, connecting him closely with forgery, it also
seems to be based on, and imitates (or perhaps even plagiarizes), another artwork depicting a
banknote incorporating the manipulation of the Kings head, namely Magrittes painting The
specter. This detailed image of the obverse of a Belgian 500 Francs banknote stretches across
the pictures dark background, and the image is signed, underneath on the left, by Magritte.

According to Sylvester the banknote is a virtual copy of a Belgian 500 franc banknote. Only one
small detail in relation to the currency is added- in Magrittes portrait Leopold II, second King of
Belgium, smokes a pipe. Money here reveals its spectrality- like the specter it stands in for and
marks the return of something which is absent, namely value. The signature in the painting also
reveals its ghostly character, as marker of the absent presence of the artist. Money, the image and
its signature- all are open to forgery, revealing the unreliability of the very elements of bourgeois
reality which relies so heavily on conventional assumptions about the authority of presence
guaranteed by representation, money and signatures.

One dollar bill, John Haberle, 1890

Magrittes The specter draws together two forms of representational currency, art and money.
It seems to imitate or copy not only money, a 500 Francs banknote, but also art, as indicated in
the work from 1890 by nineteenth-century American trompe lil artist John Haberle, entitled
One dollar bill (with which Magritte may have been familiar). Trompe lil and forgeries share
an intention to deceive the viewer, and, simultaneously, to question the aura of originality. The
counterfeit is, like the forgery, a constitutive part of the trompe lil, since, as Clestine Dars
states, the trompe lil is designed or placed in such a way as to draw the real world into a
counterfeit one.
http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/papersofsurrealism/journal5/acrobat%20files/articles/allmerp
df.pdf

With respect to Marin, he and his fellow Surrealists loved making jokes. In 1953, Marin went
to the Belgian coast, where he distributed false bank notes printed by Ren and Paul Magritte. In
1962, the joke was on Magritte when Marin and Leo Dohmen produced a tract, La grande
baisse, to coincide with a major retrospective of Magrittes work in Knokke. Presented as
written by Magritte himself, it announced drastic discounts on the artists major paintings and
offered the chance to order them in different sizes.

Even leading Surrealists, amongst them Andr Breton, failed to grasp the joke and praised
Magritte for this undertaking. Magritte was furious when he found out and the 25-year friendship
between Magritte and Marin was over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Mari%C3%ABn

Three flags, Jasper Johns, Jr., 1958

Concerning Magritte, I believe he was spooked by nave people who took everything for granted;
people, for example, who believe that painting the American flag is a crime. Certainly Magritte
was very scared by people who destroyed or executed his art by one kind of interpretation or
another.

Escaping criticism, Pere Borrell del Caso, 1874

However, the answer (concerning forgery) is much simpler (though it seems more complicated
in the beginning). Jasper Johns painting Three flags uses the technique called trompe-l'il.
Wikipedia explains that trompe-l'il (French for deceiving the eye), is an art technique that
uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that depicted objects exist in three dimensions.

Still life, Pompeii, c. 70 AD

Though the phrase originates in the Baroque period, when it refers to perspectival illusionism,
trompe-l'il dates much further back. It was (and is) often employed in murals. Instances from
Greek and Roman times are known, for instance in Pompeii. A typical trompe-l'il mural might
depict a window, door, or hallway, intended to suggest a larger room.

A version of an oft-told ancient Greek story concerns a contest between two renowned painters.
Zeuxis (born around 464 BC) produced a still life painting so convincing that birds flew down to
peck at the painted grapes. A rival, Parrhasius, asked Zeuxis to judge one of his paintings that
was behind a pair of tattered curtains in his study. Parrhasius asked Zeuxis to pull back the
curtains, but when Zeuxis tried, he could not, as the curtains were Parrhasiuss painting- making
Parrhasius the winner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe-l'%C5%93il

The Annunciation diptych, Jan van Eyck, (1433- 1435)

As we see 3-D perspective in art was well known since the ancient times, and the knowledge has
passed all the way through from the Renaissance to modern painting. Therefore, it is a process of
passing down artistic and scientific knowledge, through imitation and experiment.

A bachelors drawer, John Haberle (1890- 94)

It is also interesting to note that, according to Wikipedia, there is a fanciful form of architectural
trompe-lil, quodlibet (quod libet in Latin means what pleases), which features realistically
rendered paintings of such items as paper-knives, playing-cards, ribbons, and scissors, apparently
accidentally left lying around. Therefore, we see that even Magrittes bilboquets have their own
ancestors in the past (such as the quodlibets).

The bloodletting (La saigne), 1939

This is another example of the trompe loeil technique. According to the aforementioned analysis
La reproduction interdite: Ren Magritte and forgery:

The bloodletting also draws on the tradition of trompe lil through the representation of a
painted frame and a brick wall, exploring the trompe lils subversion of the sublime since the
trompe lil artist will not leave anything to the imagination. He will not allow any interpretation
beyond what he represents.

Sarah Whitfield recalls Magrittes reply, when asked by a journalist what was the reason for
painting a brick wall: I think I was wondering at the time what would be absolutely forbidden to
show in a picture. What is absolutely forbidden to show is the nothingness and the bareness
behind the painting. Magritte comments: Behind the colors in the pictures is the canvas. Behind
the canvas there is a wall, behind the wall there is etc. Visible things always hide other visible
things. But a visible image hides nothing.

The nothingness of the absolutely forbidden is revealed in Magritte, through allowing the
viewer to risk the gaze into nothingness. As effective as a forgery, Magrittes artwork
counteracts and subverts the Western privileged position of the gaze

As Baudrillard states:

When the hierarchical organization of real space is undone, something else emerges What
is more, this shock that is the miracle of trompe lil reveal[s] to us that reality is never
more than a world hierarchically staged, an objectivity achieved according to the rules of depth;
that reality is a principle the observance of which regulates all the painting, sculpture, and
architecture of the time. But it is a principle and a simulacrum and nothing more, put to an end
by the experimental hyper-simulation of trompe lil.

Magrittes forgeries and use of trompe lil methods reveal realitys simulated nature. His art
does not try to create or use a new language- this would reinforce the capitalist myths of
originality and individual creativity. Rather, through plagiarism and forgery, he reinvents,
changes and interferes with the language of those who exert aesthetic and representational
power, ranging from the previous canon to the art market. Magrittes attraction to forgery is
motivated by the same factors as his attraction to trompe lil- both negate Western notions of
the authenticity, originality and genuine meaning of the work of art

As Marcel Marin states in that first monograph of 1943: The particular point of [Magrittes]
painting is a permanent revolt against the commonplaces of existence. Magrittes forgeries
are part of a wider method intended to disrupt Western bourgeois capitalist habits of thought.
As he wrote in 1935: My art is only valid insofar as it resists bourgeois ideology, in the name of
which life is extinguished.

I believe that the previous analysis has confused forgery and artistic technique (at least it doesnt
try to specify the boundaries). Trompe loeil is not a paranoid illusion but a fact of how the eye
and the brain work. In fact it is a truth which has its deepest roots in the holographic principle.
Simply put, three dimensional information can be adequately represented in two dimensions (this
is why the brain is able to reversely unwind information from 2-D to 3-D). Therefore the trompe
loeil technique is not a satanic device of the communists who want to destroy the western
civilization. Its a method which exploits the way nature works.

Not to be reproduced was commissioned by poet and Magritte patron Edward James and is
considered a portrait of James although James face is not depicted. (In other words, either
Edward James was too nave to believe he was depicted in the painting, or too kind so that he
passed over Magrittes trick.) Magritte painted another portrait of Edward James (The pleasure
principle), however, his face (again) is obscured by a bright flash like that produced by a camera
flash. Not to be reproduced depicts a man standing in front of a mirror, but whereas the book
on the mantelpiece is reflected correctly, the man can see only the back of his head. The book on
the mantel is a well-worn copy of Edgar Allan Poes The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of
Nantucket (written here in French as Les aventures dArthur Gordon Pym).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_to_be_Reproduced

Is this title also a forgery? Well, it isnt, since the painting says that it is not to be reproduced. I
am sure very few people are aware (or have really grasped) the meaning of Gdels
incompleteness theorem. The problem is found not in the human nature but in nature in general.
A central bank which has the authority (and only this bank) to print money is as much a forger as
anyone else who does the same (although the bank is considered a legitimate one). There is
also virtual money nowadays, so the problem of forgery has been transformed from a genuine-
fake to a real-virtual dilemma. To copy- paste information certainly cannot be considered a
crime of any form. So, lets suppose there is also real and virtual painting (instead of the
authentic-fake) dilemma. In Not to be reproduced, the reality is faked because the figure is
looking at his back in the mirror. But the realistic element is not lost, because the viewer inspects
the whole picture in the right way, otherwise he would see his own image inverted in a real
mirror. The ingenuity of the painter once more is proved: This is not Edward James. In fact
Magritte was too ingenious to be a forger: He could always transform forgery to produce his
own authentic style. Isnt this all about the progress of culture after all?

In praise of dialectics (loge de dialectique), 1937

This is a trompe loeil trick: what should be outside the window is really inside the window.
Nice! This is one of the paintings Magritte did referencing the German philosopher Georg Hegel.
Magritte owned a French translation of Hegels works and his philosophy of painting was
organized in a similar way: By juxtaposing opposite images the mind seeks to resolve the
conflict. This concept became integral in Magrittes paintings and aptly illustrated above: the
outside is really the inside.

Heres a definition of dialectics: The Hegelian process of change in which a concept or its
realization passes over into and is preserved and fulfilled by its opposite. The development
through the stages of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in accordance with the laws of dialectical
materialism. Any systematic reasoning, exposition, or argument that juxtaposes opposed or
contradictory ideas and usually seeks to resolve their conflict. The dialectical tension or
opposition between two interacting forces or elements.

This was Magrittes applied dialectics, the conversation he had with himself, expressed in his
paintings. Few people understand that the world and what we think about the world are two
different things, although they may look alike. In praise of dialectics depicts a house within a
house, the real object and its representation in our soul. But both houses are in fact
representations in the painting. Again the mirror in Not to be reproduced is a not a real mirror.
But perhaps through this process of double reversal, by looking in a magic mirror, watching
instead of our face the back of our head, we may come closer to reality- not as we find it in our
minds, but as we conceive it by understanding what we dont understand.

The return of the flame

Cover illustration for the first volume of Fantmas, anonymous artist, 1911

One of the most popular characters in the history of French crime fiction, Fantmas was created
in 1911 by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre. The character was also the basis of various film,
television, and comic book adaptations, with a series of silent serials in 1913-14.

The Fantmas novels and the subsequent films were highly regarded by the French avant-garde
of the day, particularly by the surrealists. Blaise Cendrars called the series the modern Aeneid;
Guillaume Apollinaire said that from the imaginative standpoint Fantmas is one of the richest
works that exist. Magritte and the surrealist poet and novelist Robert Desnos both produced
works alluding to Fantmas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fant%C3%B4mas

The return of the flame (Le retour de flamme), 1943

Fantmas is the master criminal who subverts the everyday, by slipping into the role of its actors.
Fantmas films are obsessed with forgery, depicting its prevalence in scenes, motifs and actions
ranging from fake jewelry to the forgery of letters, signatures and other documents, as for
example in the first Fantmas film in 1913. In this film Fantmas steals a baronesss jewels and
leaves her with a blank name card on which, after he has gone, his name magically appears. In
the same episode different letters and signatures are shown, and people are not who they seem to
be; so the bourgeois gentlemen Gurn turns out to be Fantmas himself, thereby allowing
Fantmas to enact the meaning of the word Phantom embedded in his name, by repeatedly
becoming something that has only an apparent existence; an apparition, a spectre; a spirit, a
ghost. Fantmas is like a linguistic shifter where the moment of capture becomes the very
moment of his escape, recalling Derridas deictic play: Where? Here. There.
df.pdf

Magritte has been accused of imitating (or even forging) ideas. As Patricia Allmer says:

One of the color images included in the monograph, to fund which Magritte forged artworks,
was The return of the flame, from 1943- another instance of painterly plagiarism. The
painting shows Fantmas, the master criminal, reigning over Paris. Sylvester calls this painting a
translation of the famous Fantmas poster, whilst Georges Marlier dismisses it as the
Fantmas poster, painfully transposed onto canvas. The painting is indeed a repainting, a
plagiarism of a poster where the only changes are the style of the painting and the flower in
Fantmas hands. Counterfeit and forgery are also present in Magrittes identity. The remnant of
Magritte the person is a fictional, almost cartoonlike, bourgeois figure, coupled to an oeuvre
which has been shaped by art history into a coherent whole. As is stated in the catalogue to the
exhibition Seeing is deceiving: It is characteristic of 20
th
century needs that art historians have
attempted, purely on stylistic grounds, to isolate a group of works produced by the same artist.
This artist is essentially the creation of art historians

Photograph of Magritte with The barbarian (Le barbare) (1927), 1938

A photograph taken in 1938 shows Magritte standing beside his painting The barbarian. The
photograph itself is a phantom, an apparition of the painting, which no longer exists. The
barbarian shows Fantmas wearing a cylinder and an evening gown in front of a fragile wall-
fragile, because it metamorphoses into transparency. According to Sylvester there is a
remarkable similarity between this image and a music-hall poster of the period, showing the
popular illusion of transparency known as Peppers ghost effect- another trompe loeil, another
forgery. In the photograph, Magritte mimes the posture of Fantmas in the painting as well as his
clothing through wearing a bowler hat and evening dress. Magritte mimes and parodies
Fantmas, thereby reversing the conventional preeminence of reality- here reality follows fiction.
However, he mimes a character whose main feature is that he can slip in and out of roles and
appear in different, but mainly bourgeois, identities.
df.pdf

Pictured above is a promotional photograph released by Disneyland just before the Haunted
Mansion opened to the public in 1969, demonstrating the amazing special effects to be found in
the Grand Hall segment of the attraction.
http://www.doombuggies.com/secrets_ballroom.php

The illusion known as Peppers ghost stems back to the mid 1800s when Henry Dircks and
John Pepper first demonstrated the principle. It has been used over the years as the basis of many
magic tricks and ghostly effects, most noticeably perhaps the haunted house in Disneyland. The
basic principle is that with a half silvered mirror one can see the superposition of two scenes, the
dominant objects being the brightest, or most highly illuminated. The mirror surface used goes
by a few different names, half silvered mirror, one way mirror, and two way mirror. The basic
principle is simply that the surface transmits and reflects light, normally 50% of each.
http://paulbourke.net/miscellaneous/peppersghost/

Certainly Magritte identified himself with Fantmas (among other heroes). But Fantmas was
not a real thief, he was a fictional character. Magritte was a painter who depicted this fictional
character in his paintings. As Fantmas was always able to escape, so Magritte always wanted to
be illusive in his paintings using his favorite technique of trompe lil. When Magritte painted
the poster The return of the flame he made a painting in the same way that an artist who paints
a landscape does not forge it. And when a painter paints himself as a robber, he shouldnt be
afraid of going to jail.

According to Matesson Art, there can be no doubt that this mysterious challenge to the
established order and the laws of the ruling class represented a rich source of inspiration for
Magritte, one which also played a role in the subject matter of some of his pictures: one thinks,
for example, of such pictures as The return of the flame. The influence of the Fantmas figure
also played a significant role in Magrittes selection of titles for his pictures. Patrick Waldberg
has been able to provide evidence of the considerable importance of the titles of Magritte's
pictures within his work as a whole, where their purpose may be seen as providing a
counterpoint to realistic perception.

The Great War (La Grande Guerre), 1964

For instance, the woman in the feathered hat, her face hidden by a bunch of violets, should be
seen as The Great War, as an incessant conflict with that which is visible, where each object
always hides another. In revealing itself, an object simultaneously conceals itself, thereby
functioning as the curtain for another. Magritte was always deeply conscious of this tightrope
walk between revelation and masking. Things have a flip side, a reverse, which is even more
curious and fascinating than their manifested form, the facade presented to everyone, their face;
and it was this reverse, this dark side, which Magritte so subtly captured and rendered visible, in
defiance of all logic.

Accordingly, the titles of his pictures never serve to describe or identify. On the contrary, they
bring some additional infringement, some further false trail, into play, the function of which is to
create a confrontation within language and the logic of words, one analogous to the confrontation
arising out of the painted picture. Magrittes work is certainly representational, and yet, at the
same time, it constitutes an incessant attack upon the principle of reproduction in art. What his
figures thereby lose in identity, they gain in mystery and otherness. Mystery finds its way into
the everyday in Magrittes art, while subversive thought becomes gentle custom. Joy is constant;
every moment is a festival.

One main inspirational source for the Surrealists was the literature of Isidore Ducasse, alias the
Comte de Lautramont, who around 1870 had written that nothing is as beautiful as the chance
encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table. Later, in 1948, Magritte
illustrated Lautramont complete works with 77 drawings which rivaled the text in strangeness.

The threatened assassin (L assassin menac), 1927

The threatened assassin is another of Magrittes paintings that captures the mystery of
Fantmas. The painting is derived from a scene in Louis Feuillade Fantmas film. It depicts two
figures concealed by the doorway, armed with strange weapons, watching the murderer, who is
dressed in a business suit.

Magritte provides this narrative- Fantmas has just killed a woman, and having placed a pure
white cloth over her upper chest, pauses to listen to a record on the phonograph. Outside the
room, three witnesses stare into the inner room. Juve and Fandor (two detectives closest) threaten
to capture Fantmas, one with a cudgel, the other with a net. Clearly Fantmas is surrounded
(threatened) but is he worried? No... because he always escapes and even passes through walls.

Heres an analysis from Levy: Magrittes room, portraying the stabbed mannequin, by its very
complexity, sets up resonances that echo throughout Robbe-Grillets text. It matters little that the
latter's narrative contradicts details in the painting or adds to them, since the picture is subverted
in the same manner that reality is contradicted. The three men looking in the window of The
threatened assassin are not mentioned in Robbe-Grillets text and the bowler-hatted man on the
left, outside the door, is holding a baluster, not a club. Robbe-Grillet invents the sound of the
phonograph that the young man inside the room is listening to and the narrator says it is
replaying the womans cry. This cry animates the painting and the naked mannequin which
becomes a real woman. Although there is no sewing machine in the picture, the narrator tells us
that the phonograph is the same age as the sewing machine, an allusion to Lautramonts
dissecting table where the fortuitous encounter of an umbrella and a sewing machine generates
the ultimate spark of Surrealist beauty and activity.

David Sylvester suggests that The threatened assassin were scripted from a set of violent and
erotic poems by Paul Noug finally published in 1956. The poems were written in 1926-27 when
both Magritte and Noug were working together designing catalogues for Samuels, a fur
company. Here are some of the poetry lines:

In the background, at the level of the window sill,
Four heads (Magritte only had room for three) stare at the murderer.
In the corridor on either side of the wide pen- door,
Two men are approaching unable as yet to discern the spectacle.
They are ugly customers.
Crouching, they hug the wall.
One of them unfurls a huge net, the other brandishing a club.
All this will be called, The Threatened Murderer.
Paul Noug

I was wondering why every film has to have someone playing the bad guy, and why so often the
bad guy is the favorite hero. There is something romantic about those breaking the law, going
against the establishment. Is there some deeper truth behind this? First of all, we need a measure
of evil to compare it with what we define as good. Otherwise both good and evil would have
no (difference in) meaning. Secondly, good and evil are very much interchangeable. For
example, if a thief gives part of the stolen stuff to the poor (as often is the case with romantic
heroes such as Robin Hood) then he performs an act of high social importance, and the
policemen chasing him become the bad guys. As far as Magrittes Fantmas is concerned, he
uses any means available to succeed in his cause, treachery, illusion, misinformation, disguise,
ghostly character. But no matter what the character of Fantmas was, Magritte used these
techniques in an artistic and defensive manner. If Fantmas did so just to protect himself,
Magritte did it also to protect his art.

Surrealism was born out of a protest against the establishment of the time. Communism was
some sort of fashion at the time (a necessity for some poor countries, but a reason to talk about in
bourgeois caf.) I am not going to get political here; I just want to say that even if some
surrealists were stuck with the communist ideal (like Breton did) others (like Dali and Magritte)
progressed and produced real revolutionary art. This is the point: no matter what the political
background is, art always represents transformation, it is free to do so, and it must always remain
(also politically) free.

The false mirror

The false mirror, 1928

The false mirror, 1935

The pupil of our eye is black; the diaphragm of a camera is also black, to regulate the amount of
light passing through. The optics of the eye create an image of the visual world on the retina
(through the cornea and lens), which has much the same function as the photographic film. In
Magrittes False mirror we see this effect. We see an eyes pupil, while the iris has the color of
sky with clouds. However, theres much more to it, as the title suggests, false mirror.

The black spot that helps us see also creates a blind spot in vision. According to Wikipedia, a
blind spot is the place in the visual field that corresponds to the lack of light-detecting
photoreceptor cells on the optic disc of the retina where the optic nerve passes through the optic
disc. Since there are no cells to detect light on the optic disc, a part of the field of vision is not
perceived. The brain interpolates the blind spot based on surrounding detail and information
from the other eye, so the blind spot is not normally perceived.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_spot_(vision)

This is a way to perform the blind spot eye test:

Left eye blind spot test
Sit about arms- length from your computer monitor. Use your hand to cover your right eye (do
not close the eye). Using your left eye, focus on the right dot in the picture below. Slowly move
your head toward the computer monitor. The dot to the left should completely disappear as you
move closer. If you continue to move closer after the dot has disappeared, it will then reappear.

Right eye blind spot test
Again, position yourself arms- length from your monitor, This time, cover your left eye (do not
close the eye). Focus on the dot to the left pictured above while slowly moving toward the
computer monitor. This time, the dot to the right should completely disappear as you move
closer. Again, if you continue to move closer, it will reappear.
http://www.lancelhoff.com/how-to-find-your-eyes-blind-spot/

What is interesting to note is that the dot disappears when we cover the opposite eye, which
means that one eye cannot cover the visual field of the other eye. This is why, as Wikipedia says,
the brain interpolates the blind spot based on surrounding detail and information from the other
eye, so the blind spot is not normally perceived. In other words, this has to do with unconscious
inference.

In Magrittes False mirror it is as if one looks at his own eye, while looking at the sky. The
black spot, which at the same time is ones own pupil, takes the place of the sun, in the same
sense that the sun illuminates whatever one sees. In this case, the function of the sun is inverted,
to absorb light like our pupil does.

This observer effect, according which the observer interacts with what he observes, finds its
ultimate expression- the observer observes himself observing. The foreground and the
background of the painting merge, while the traditional representation of god as an eye in the
sky becomes anthropic, as the whole sky is found within a human eye.

Therefore, an equivalent title for the painting (in physics terms) could be perhaps The anthropic
principle. According to Wikipedia, the anthropic principle is the philosophical consideration
that observations of the physical universe must be compatible with the conscious life that
observes it. Some proponents of the anthropic principle reason that it explains why the universe
has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As
a result, they believe it is unremarkable that the universes fundamental constants happen to fall
within the narrow range thought to be compatible with life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

In other words, this principle states that the reason we understand the world is because the world
was made this way (otherwise we wouldnt know it). The principle, although it looks like a
tautology, has serious implications concerning our understanding of the world. One implication
is that the world we observe is anthropic, meaning that what we see is inherently dependent on
the way we perceive things.

http://www.kaylaparker.co.uk/other_projects/art_of_conversation/art_of_conversation/aoc_blog_
files/random_pictures.html

There is an interesting comparison that we could make between the blind spot of the eye and
black holes in the cosmos. First of all, we may note that the blind spot, as black holes, is not
visible. We regard what is missing by inferring what should be there with relation to the objects
of the surrounding environment. However, these objects are distorted by the effects of attention
(or gravity respectively).

Artists conception of the event horizon of a black hole; Victor de Schwanberg/Science Photo
Library
http://www.universetoday.com/33454/how-do-black-holes-form/#ixzz33Xm3hkuT

Furthermore, black holes are defined by the event horizon, which is like an imaginary ring
surrounding the singularity of the black hole. It is imaginary because it becomes measurable
relatively (at least two observers are needed in the universe to define an event horizon- a poor
fellow falling into the black hole, and a lucky one measuring the fall. The universe has its own
event horizon. It is naturally formed by comparing the growth rate of the universe to the speed of
light. Places whose light will never catch up with us will remain eternally invisible; in the future
that is, because we may observe them right now as they were in the distant past.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_horizon

Therefore, an event horizon represents a condition of certain limits imposed to the observer with
respect to his space-time frame of reference. However, our own thoughts seem to possess an
event horizon. Events, for example, which took place in the past but will not happen again in the
future are considered memories. Furthermore, the blind spot of vision suggests that there is a
black hole created by observation, as if light itself hides parts of the objects at the same time
while it makes them visible. In a similar way, our thoughts seem to destroy the image of the
perceived object at the point where attention is focusing, so that we need to shift our attention a
little further in order to conceive, though indirectly, the missing part. Therefore, we see how
important psychological effects (the act of observation, for example) are in the interpretation of
natural phenomena.

There is an interesting book Elizabeth Styles wrote, The psychology of attention. According to
her:

Usually, we move our eyes to an object or location in space in order to fixate what we are
attending to. However, as early as 1866, Helmholtz noted that attention and fixation were not
necessarily coincident If you fixate in one place (for example, on the asterisk here*) you are
able to read nearby words without shifting fixation to the location occupied by those words

One of the most popular metaphors for visual attention is that it is like a spotlight that allows us
to selectively attend to particular parts of the visual environment. William James (1890)
described visual attention as having a focus, a margin and a fringe Posner (1980) showed that
directing attention to a valid stimulus location facilitates visual processing, and this led him to
suggest that attention can be likened to a spotlight that enhances the efficiency of the detection
of events within its beam.

As Styles remarks, it is important to note here that attention is not synonymous with looking.
Even when there is no time to make a voluntary eye movement to the cued location, facilitation
is found. Thus, it seems, visual attention can be covertly directed to a spatial location other than
the one we are fixating.
http://www.bibotu.com/books/Philosophy/Psychology%20by%20Styles.pdf

The environment seems to be participating in what we see, all the time. Our perception of the
world cannot be achieved if we just focus our attention on a form without simultaneously having
an idea of the background. It is at a later, second, stage that focused concentration begins to
explore the details of the observed object, while an idea about its general form has already been
conceived.

This distinction between form and background is also related to impossible objects because the
impossibility arises from the unconscious demand for wholeness. In the second painting (False
mirror, 1935) Magritte blurs the conclusion drawn in the first one (False mirror, 1935), since
there is a cloud passing in front of the eyes pupil, making the eye an impossible object, but also
suggesting that there seems to be an (objective) reality beyond the effect of observation.

This ultimate reality in the particular case is represented by the painter himself who seems to
possess the special position to be able to observe the observer observing himself. However, who
watches the painter? It is this question produced by infinite regress (the observer needs another
observer to test the results of observation, ad infinitum) which brings about the anthropic reality
of the world. The human conclusions about the world are as legitimate and objective as the
nature of the world itself.

The looking glass (La lunette dapproche), 1963

The looking glass shows the opening between the mirror that Alice traveled through. Through
the looking glass and what Alice found there (1871) is a work of childrens literature by Lewis
Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), generally categorized as literary nonsense but the books
received cult status by the surrealists who treasured nonsense.
http://www.mattesonart.com/magrittes-the-looking-glass-la-lunette-dapproche-1963-.aspx

Alice in Wonderland (Alice au pays des merveilles) 1952

Literary nonsense (or nonsense literature) is a broad categorization of literature that uses sensical
and nonsensical elements to defy language conventions or logical reasoning. Even though the
most well-known form of literary nonsense is nonsense verse, the genre is present in many forms
of literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_nonsense

The Jabberwock as illustrated by John Tenniel

The surrealist technique of automatic writing was based on nonsense poetry. Some of the
previous Dadaist texts (or all of them) may be considered as nonsense writings. Lewis Carroll
was one of the first to use nonsense writing. Jabberwocky is one of his nonsense poems, and
the word literally means nonsense. Its first verse goes like this:

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky

Fresh widow, Marcel Duchamp (1920)

There exist not only nonsense word poems, but also nonsense sound poems, and, one may say,
also nonsense paintings. Cubism, for example, or abstract painting in general, containing
incomprehensible, absurd or impossible objects and forms, could be regarded as nonsense.
Magrittes Looking glass draws on Marcel Duchamps Fresh widow (not fresh window!).

Fresh widow consists of a small model of a French window, constructed by a carpenter, but
containing flat pieces of black leather in place of the eight panes of glass. An ordinary window is
an object that establishes a permeable boundary through which people can experience the world,
separating inside from outside in a way that permits both perception and psychological
projection to pass through. By replacing the glass with opaque leather, Duchamp eliminated the
transparency that allows this interchange to proceed, turning what had been a medium of
interaction into a barrier that reminds us by its very obstruction of the communication it allowed
before.

Fresh widow was a visual pun on his own preoccupations- in this case, his interest in making
media of communication opaque where they had once seemed transparent- and the visual pun fit
together with the verbal one in the works title: a recently widowed woman is a person who has
been deprived of an important relationship that ties her to the external world, throwing her back
into the darkened space of her own thoughts and feelings; a window whose panes no longer
allow light or affect to pass through is an apt metaphor for her condition. Duchamp, however, did
not consider that condition to be one of loss only; Fresh Widow was a glass altered so that the
disillusionment that, in the note on shop windows, followed breaking the pane had no chance to
occur.

The work was therefore fittingly signed with the name Rrose Slavy, the partner who, as the eros
that is life, never grants her lovers actual possession, keeping their desire fresh too. In this light,
the proclaimed "freshness" of the widow derives from her inaccessibility to the new partner for
which she is constantly ready; as long as she remains separated from the world by the opaque
panes that symbolize her state, she exists as an instance of the condition where, to use again
Walter Benjamin's phrase about Baudelaire, lovers are spared rather than denied fulfillment.
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft9h4nb688&chunk.id=d0e2798&toc.id=
&brand=ucpress

Unfulfilled desires may be stronger that fulfilled ones, in the same sense that dreams are to
remain dreams, and the speed of light is supposed to be always constant. The improbability or
impossibility in The looking glass, however, is that the left windows frame (the one opened)
leaves the sky on the wall. Therefore the wall is not necessarily black. Nor the windows frame is
covered with black leather (or any leather at all). I guess that with this triple trick the painter
deliberately left the viewer to decide about the interpretation of this impossible object- this is
not a window.

The unexpected answer

The unexpected answer, 1933

This is the first painting where Magritte explores the cutting of the door, and the door as a
symbol. The outline is almost human in form resembling perhaps the outline of different people
that pass through the doorway. Heres what Magritte said about this his best known door
painting:

Let us now turn to the panel of a door; this can be open to a landscape seen upside-down or else
the landscape can be painted on the door. But let us try something less gratuitous: let us make a
hole in the wall beside the door panel, a hole that is also a door panel, a hole that is also an exit-
a door. Let us further improve this juxtaposition by reducing the two objects to one: the hole
goes quite naturally into the door panel. And through this hole we see darkness; this last image
seems to be enhanced yet again if we light up the invisible thing hidden by the darkness, for our
gaze always wants to go further and to see at last the object, the reason for our existence.

The unexpected answer gives us a glimpse of whats behind the door- but theres no object just
darkness. So we look into the darkness trying in vain to see the object.

There could be a whole philosophy to cover the subject of holes. One thing is for certain: Holes
are not empty! At least they are full of air. In empty space they are full of energy. Invisible
things are not black- they are invisible. Poetically we could say that the black represents our
ignorance about what we dont understand (but in this case we do recognize our ignorance).
Scientifically, there comes again the famous black spot. In fact the black spot is not an
anatomical anomaly of the human eye. It is a consequence of how light behaves. Light seems to
create a black spot at exactly the point where it falls while illuminating the object. What we
perceive is not an infinite number of black spots that constitute the object, but the whole picture
of the object with the exception of the black spot. In reality, we dont even see the object- we just
perceive its reflection as imprinted on our eyes.

The amorous perspective, 1935

The victory (La victoire) 1939,

The door and the window are often used as metaphors for a picture in Magrittes work, they
mark the intersection between one reality and another, in much the same way that a painting
does. By 1939 when Victory was painted, Magritte had refined the aims of his art into the
search for the hidden poetry of objects and for what he called their elective affinities. For
Magritte this was a hidden association between two objects that when revealed pictorially
achieved strange and surprising results; results that also made an uncanny and recognizable sense
in much the same way as the poetic association of seemingly unconnected words can make
sense.

In Victory Magritte unites three elements into one powerful and, for him, surprisingly romantic
image. The problem of the door called for an opening one could pass through, Magritte
declared in a lecture given in November 1938. In The unexpected answer, I showed a closed
door in a room; in the door an irregular-shaped opening revealed the night. Painted in the
following year, Victory develops this more bizarre and visually awkward opening in a more
logical and straightforward way by depicting an open door transposed to the coast and depicted
in such a way that it becomes a part of the landscape it shows. As Magritte knew, the poetic
mystery of a work intensifies when the distortions from what one judges as normal are set at a
minimum.

The point where the land meets the sky and where the sky meets the earth is one of mystic
significance and one that has particular resonance in the human mind. The vast horizon line
made by the meeting of land and sea and sea and sky lends itself to and indeed provokes a
contemplation of the sublime. In Victory Magritte marks this meeting point between the three
elements with an open door- a device that seems to invite the viewer into a new world of
possibility. It is not a material entity, as is reflected by the fact that it seems to be actually
materializing out of the sky, sea and sand of the landscape and only its brass handle seems to be
tangible and real. The same is true for the rather whimsical cloud that enters, quietly like a
child or a ghost, through the door's opening, seeming to promise much and inviting the viewer to
enter a new enchanted domain.

Marcel Duchamp, Door: 11, rue Larrey, 1927
http://www.toutfait.com/issues/volume2/issue_5/articles/gerrard/popup_12.html

Such is the magic of Magrittes art that this exquisite cloud becomes the dominant personality of
the painting, a clear character who speaks gently and wryly of an alternate reality. Its positioning
between the two realms is what makes it the key element in the painting. Magrittes door, like
Marcel Duchamps Door from his apartment, manifests a clear ambiguity in the way that it
stands ajar, and it is this ambiguity that the cloud both announces and transcends(it) becomes
an active element in the painting, invading or exiting through the passive door that has appeared
mirage-like on the sandy shore. A favorite motif of Magrittes because it is, by its own nature, an
enigma, the cloud here seems, paradoxically, to be the least enigmatic element in the painting.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/rene-magritte-la-victoire-4050440-

tant donns, Marcel Duchamp, 19461966

tant donns, (La chute deau/ le gaz dclairage), in English Given (the waterfall/ the
illuminating gas), is Marcel Duchamps last major art work which surprised most of the art world
who believed he had given up art for chess almost 25 years earlier. It is a tableau, visible only
through a pair of peep holes (one for each eye) in a wooden door, of a nude woman lying on her
back with her face hidden and legs spread holding a gas lamp in the air in one hand against a
landscape backdrop.

Duchamp worked secretly on the piece from 1946 to 1966 in his Greenwich Village studio. It is
composed of an old wooden door, bricks, velvet, twigs, a female form made of parchment, glass,
linoleum, an assortment of lights, a landscape composed of hand-painted and photographed
elements and an electric motor housed in a cookie tin which rotates a perforated disc. Sculptor
Maria Martins, Duchamps girlfriend from 1946 to 1951, served as the model for the female
figure in the piece, and his second wife, Alexina (Teeny), served as the model for the figure's
arm. Duchamp prepared a Manual of Instructions in a 4-ring binder explaining and illustrating
how to assemble and disassemble the piece.

The piece was created with the intention of having it displayed at the Philadelphia Museum of
Art. Anne d Harnoncourt, a young curator at the time and future director of the museum,
orchestrated the acquisition and transfer of the piece to Philadelphia. According to the artist's
wishes, it wasnt until 1969, after Duchamp's death in 1968, that the Philadelphia Museum of Art
revealed the tableau to the public.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tant_donn%C3%A9s

The improvement (L embellie) 1962

The door in The improvement is not an impossible object as the door in The unexpected
answer, where a cloud appears between reality and fantasy. Here, the door opens just to
reveal the landscape hidden behind, although magnified, more illuminated. This door therefore
opens our heart, revealing the true beauty of life and the heaven; this heaven, not the one
above. Light is pouring in as the door opens, the sky behind being so remarkably bright, as we
might never have expected. The painter here paints the weather better than ever before, so he
considers this an improvement.

All Magritte paintings with doors or windows want to note the distinction (or lack of distinction)
between the outside and the inside. The outside we see is an internal representation we have
inside. There, inside our minds, where the whole universe exists (as a representation of the
supposed physical universe), everything lies on the two-dimensional surface of our brain- a
structure of 2-d layers. The 3-d which our brain sees (and how it sees it) is one of the greatest
mysteries of consciousness and perception.

According to holography, at a fundamental level the universe has one less dimension than we
perceive in everyday life and is governed by laws similar to electromagnetism.
http://www.trebuchet-magazine.com/the-holographic-principle/

What made me an impression with respect to the previous picture is the bilboquet- like
structure, emerging vertically in 2-d from within the 3-d grid of space-time (consider 1-d more
for time). The holographic principle is related to string theory and quantum gravity; it states that
the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a boundary to the region-
one dimension less. First proposed by Gerard t Hooft, it was given a precise string-theory
interpretation by Leonard Susskind. The holographic principle was inspired by black hole
thermodynamics. In the case of a black hole, the insight was that the informational content of all
the objects that have fallen into the hole might be entirely contained in surface fluctuations of the
event horizon. In a larger sense, the theory suggests that the entire universe can be seen as a two-
dimensional information structure painted on the cosmological horizon, such that the three
dimensions we observe are an effective description only at macroscopic scales and at low
energies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle

This is what makes the holographic principle so interesting: All information contained on a room
can be found on the walls, on the ceiling, and on the floor. The same goes for humans: we
consider the world in 3-d, as the world is registered in our minds in 2-d. The holographic
principle may describe the transformation between 2-d and 3-d representation, but it doesnt
really explain why this transformation occurs naturally. Why, for example, the brain unfolds 2-
d information into 3-d visualization, and not 4-d or 5-d? Nevertheless, it seems as if the whole
reality (both external and internal) lies on the surface of a holographic mirror. This mirror
projects both the inside and the outside, while the distinction is made by subjective
consciousness. The mirror, in Magrittes paintings, is sometimes perceived as a window, other
times as a door. The anomalies portrayed by Magritte imply that there is something more than
an ordinary window or door at play. The inside and the outside merge and split, again and
again, suggesting that we are all supposed to live somewhere in between fantasy and reality,
somewhere inside the mirror, experiencing his reflective images as our own. Therefore the
mirror is false, but, in any case, it may contain the only real representations or reflections
there may be.

The beautiful world

The cultivation of ideas (La culture des ides), 1927

About curtains wrote Andr Breton. Here follow some lines from his poem Rideau- rideau
(Curtain- curtain), as an example of what a curtain could mean in a surrealist context:

The vagabond theatres of the seasons which will have played out my life
Under my catcalls
The forestage had been set up as a cell from which I could hiss
My hands on the bars I could see against a backdrop of dark greenery
The heroine bare to the waist
Committing suicide at the beginning of the first act

But the heroine was really killed in a dream, as the poem goes on,

The play went on inexplicably in the chandelier
The stage gradually clouding over
And sometimes I shouted
I broke the jug they had given me and from which butterflies escaped
Rising crazily toward the chandelier
Under pretense of an interlude they insisted on presenting me
a ballet of my thoughts

and, finally it ends in a liberating way like this:

I hardly dared to open my door a crack
Too much freedom was granted me at once
Freedom to escape in a sleigh from my bed
Freedom to bring back to life the persons I miss
The aluminum chairs drew closer together around a kiosk of mirrors
In which a curtain of dew arose fringed with blood turned green
Freedom to chase real appearances before me
The basement was marvelous- there appeared on a white wall
my silhouette fire-specked and pierced with a bullet in my heart.
http://books.google.gr/books/about/Poems_of_Andr%C3%A9_Breton.html?id=NYJcAAAAMA
AJ&redir_esc=y

The village of the mind, 1926

The message to the earth, 1926

The village of the mind is simply Magrittes early attempt to make normal objects become
huge. The giant arm occupies the stage behind a curtain on a rod. The fingers dissolve through
the wall as if it was invisible.

In The message to the earth, Magritte uses his favorite trick, the painting within a painting. A
bright red meteorite has fallen to earth and is trying to send a message via a few wires behind the
picture frame and a tacked up curtain. The curtain is used for two trompe l'oeil tricks: 1) at the
top of the frame its in front of the meteor but at the bottom the meteor is behind- impossible of
course; 2) the curtain is tacked up to thin air- with bright red tacks.

The misanthropes, 1942

Memories of a saint (Les mmoires dun
saint), 1960

The misanthropes, refers to Molires The misanthrope (Le misanthrope). It was first
performed in 1666 in Paris. The play satirizes the hypocrisies of French aristocratic society, but
it also engages a more serious tone when pointing out the flaws which all humans possess.

Much to the horror of his friends and companions, Alceste (the protagonist and the misanthrope
of the title) rejects la politesse, the social conventions of the seventeenth century French salon.
His refusal to make nice makes him tremendously unpopular and he laments his isolation in a
world he sees as superficial and base, saying early in Act I, ... Mankind has grown so base/ I
mean to break with the whole human race.

Despite his convictions, however, Alceste cannot help but love the flighty and vivacious
Climne, a consummate flirt whose wit and frivolity epitomize the courtly manners that Alceste
despises. His deep feelings for her primarily serve to counter his negative expressions about
mankind, since the fact that he has such feelings includes him amongst those he so fiercely
criticizes. Though he constantly reprimands her, Climne refuses to change, charging Alceste
with being unfit for society.

When Alceste insults a sonnet written by the powerful noble, Oronte (who was also in love with
Climne), he is called to stand trial. Refusing to dole out false compliments, he is charged and
humiliated, and resolves on self-imposed exile.

His friends forsake him, and upon meeting them, he discovers that Climne has been leading
him on. She has written identical love letters to numerous suitors and broken her vow to favor
him above all others. He gives her an ultimatum: he will forgive her and marry her if she runs
away with him to exile. Climne refuses, believing herself too young and beautiful to leave
society and all her suitors behind.

Because both Tartuffe and Dom Juan, two of Molires previous plays, had already been banned
by the French government, Molire may have subdued his actual ideas to make his play more
socially acceptable. As a result, there is much uncertainty about whether the main character
Alceste is supposed to be perceived as a hero for his strong standards of honesty or whether he is
supposed to be perceived as a fool for having such idealistic and unrealistic views about society.

Molire has received much criticism for The Misanthrope. The French philosopher Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, claimed that it was Molire's best work, but hated the fact that Alceste was depicted as
a fool on stage. He believed that the audience should be supporting Alceste and his views about
society rather than disregarding his idealistic notions and belittling him as a character.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Misanthrope

The beautiful world (Le beau monde), 1962

The wasted effort (La peine perdue), 1962

Torczyner proposed the title of this painting to Magritte, enjoying an anecdote that a street name
in Brussels (called originally La peine perdue because of annual rebuilding of a bridge after
flooding) had been corrupted anecdotally to pain perdu (French toast).

At Easter of that year, Torczyner had hoped to buy The beautiful world, but it was completed
and sold the day before he saw it. He therefore commissioned Magritte to make a similar work
for him in the hope it would be ready for the exhibition of his collection planned for Minneapolis
later in the year. It was finished at the end of July (too late, it turned out, for the exhibition) and
delivered by Magritte, already framed, in August. The date of 1948 in the inscription on the work
was intended to confuse Magrittes dealer Iolas and was used by Magritte when he sold works
behind the dealers back.

Discussing the delicate, evocative blues in this composition, Hammacher wrote in 1973: The
wasted effort is a fairly late and complicated imaginative composition in blues. Much of the
earlier work is present- even the ball with the slit in it, the transformed offspring of the horses
harness bells. The mighty sky with its fleets of clouds- which would form a background, if they
did not appear again where we find the cutout curtains or theater wings- has undergone a change
of tone. One no longer thinks of reality when seeing this triple version of clouds. Here Magritte
has achieved a symphonic orchestration of something remembered, calling it clouds and sky.
On either side of the grey-blue plane of the stage- for that is what it is- stand two blue curtains,
as partitions in the same space, in which they are not hanging and hardly even standing, but
simply existing, with a function all their own. In this orchestration they are rather like the
opening bars, a modest overture, leading to the main theme in the center.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/rene-magritte-la-peine-perdue-1404204-

Mona Lisa, 1962

Mona Lisa, 1967

The curtain and ball image are repeated in many works starting very early in Magritte's career
lasting until his death.
http://museumchick.com/2010?w=10

La Gioconda, Leonardo da Vinci, 1503-
1506

The laugh (Le rire), Eugne Bataille, 1883

Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa is one of the most recognizable and famous works of art in the
world, and also one of the most replicated and reinterpreted. Mona Lisa replicas were already
being painted during Leonardos lifetime by his own students and contemporaries. Some are
claimed to be the work of Leonardo himself, and remain disputed by scholars. Prominent 20th-
century artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Salvador Dali have also produced derivative works,
manipulating Mona Lisas image to suit their own aesthetic. Replicating Renaissance
masterpieces continues to be a way for aspiring artists to perfect their painting techniques and
prove their skills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa_replicas_and_reinterpretations

L.H.O.O.Q., Marcel Duchamp, 1919

Salvador Dali, self-portrait as Mona Lisa,
1952

The name L.H.O.O.Q., is a pun: the letters pronounced in French sound like Elle a chaud au
cul (She is hot in the arse), a vulgar expression implying that a woman has sexual
restlessness. In a late interview, Duchamp gives a loose translation of L.H.O.O.Q. as there is
fire down below.

As was the case with a number of his ready-mades, Duchamp made multiple versions of
L.H.O.O.Q. of differing sizes and in different media throughout his career, one of which, an
unmodified black and white reproduction of the Mona Lisa mounted on card, is called
L.H.O.O.Q. shaved. The masculinized female introduces the theme of gender reversal, which
was popular with Duchamp, who adopted his own female pseudonym, Rrose Slavy, pronounced
Eros, cest la vie (Eros, thats life).

According to Rhonda R. Shearer the apparent reproduction is in fact a copy partly modelled on
Duchamps own face.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.H.O.O.Q.

But if we take seriously what Salvador Dali said about his Mona Lisa,

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his
portrait.
http://alittlearthistory.tumblr.com/post/407991964/salvador-dali-self-portrait-as-mona-lisa-1952

Mona Lisa of Magritte, by colinx
http://www.megamonalisa.com/mona-lisa-
reinterpreted-by-magritte/

Mona Lisa of Magritte, Rudolfs Kristapsons
http://www.megamonalisa.com/mona-lisa-
magritte-1/

Mona Lola, Lola Dupr

Portugal-based artist and illustrator Lola Dupr has created this painting called: Mona Lola. Its
a re-interpretation of Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa for Phone Booth Gallerys reimagined
exhibition. The exhibition represents new works by several artists that re-interpret old
masterpieces.
http://weandthecolor.com/mona-lisa-re-interpretation-mona-lola-by-lola-dupre/12987

I was wondering; why Mona Lisa has caused such a sensation worldwide and through the ages?
Is the painting something special? No. So, what is the reason? Mainly it is not the painting but
the painters personality. It is not because of Mona Lisa but because of Da Vinci. What I
mean by this is that when we look at Mona Lisa we think of Da Vincis personality, which we
project to the painting. The same goes, for example, with Salvador Dali. His paintings wouldnt
look the same if we didnt take into account Dalis excessive personality. However, is this
personality reflected in the painting? Well, not exactly; Mona Lisa is a simple lady, a simple
model, in a rather simple painting. Compare Vermeers Girl with a pearl earring, for example,
which is at least equal to Mona Lisa- but when we look at a painting we dont really look at the
painting, we just look at what we have been told about it.

The columns of the night (Les orgues de la
soire), 1965
Early morning (Le grand matin), 1942

In Early morning. the door opens to the sea- landscape. The leaf-like birds refer to the
Natural graces, natures harmony I guess to merge the wings of imagination with the roots of
the past.

In The columns of the night, the jockey reaches the curtain-columns in the sundown. These
columns remind me of the Clashing Rocks, which were defeated by Jason and the Argonauts, in
their quest for the golden fleece. Here, however, the golden fleece is replaced by purple curtains;
but the analogy still holds: The curtains could be made of wool (like a fleece) and the color of
the sun is like gold. It seems that the curtains shall remain forever still after the jockey passes
through them, as the Clashing Rocks stopped moving permanently after the Argonauts passed
through them.

The palace of curtains, 1928

I found the previous two photos on the net:

What you can see in this photo is Brussels Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. The person
who took this photo is a flickr artist who goes under the name gbastiani. When I first obtained
the photo, my feelings were mixed: it was obviously an amazing photograph, but immediately I
realized there was nothing out of ordinary going on. Or was there? What I expected to see was
quite opposite! Could the original still exist if there was no digital editing?
http://www.moillusions.com/magrittes-surreal-architecture/

Jan and Jol Martel / Robert Mallet-Stevens
Exposition internationale des arts dcoratifs et industriels modernes
Mallet-Stevens Garden of Modern Housing with the famous cubist trees by Jan and Jol Martel,
1925

In 2011 took place the exhibition La carte d aprs nature at the Matthew Marks Gallery in
New York. Curated by Thomas Demand, the exhibition featured three rarely seen paintings by
Magritte. The exhibition took its name from a journal published by Magritte between 1951 and
1965, in which he collected ideas from different times and places, relating them to one another
by way of shared threads of thought.
http://artnectar.com/2011/08/art-news-la-carte-dapres-nature-exhibition-matthew-marks/

Since the Surrealists of the 1920s and 1930s undertook to make an art of the unconscious that
freed the artist and viewer from the authoritarian constraints of overzealous rationalism and
morality, every successive generation of artists has learned some new lesson derived from the
Surrealist project of articulating the free exchange of form in Nature and its representations in
the Mind.

German artist Thomas Demand continues the artistic fixation with the Surrealist equation of
Mind and Nature, but unlike preceding generations, he doesnt center his exploration on the
nihilistic convulsions and injuries inflicted on civilization through its divorce from nature.
Instead, Demand has chosen to highlight the synergism and synchronicity discernible between
the forms produced in the Mind and the forms produced by Nature in his exhibition La carte
daprs nature. This synergism and synchronicity is underscored by Demand in paring down the
surrealist vision to fit what he calls domesticated nature... potted plants, gardens, theme parks
and models of wild growth.

Although the Surrealists were varied in their approaches to both Mind and Nature, it can be said
that many of them made art that not only suggests Nature and the Mind arent dualistic, but
together form a single continuum which can't be separated. In this respect, the exhibition seems
to be redefining the uncanny, or at least the domesticated uncanny, as being no more than our
recognition of the moment when the Mind, in its attempt to impose a human-centered order onto
Nature, finds that that order is already there.

If Magrittes forays into the Mind-Nature continuum is only hinted at in the show's title, the
conspicuous hanging of three little-known paintings by Magritte confirms that this most ironic of
Surrealists presides over the exhibition. Each of the paintings is strategically positioned on a wall
draped with wallpaper digitally produced in the fashion of draperies covering a living room bay
window and with which we close ourselves off from the world outside our control. But they
equally suggest theatrical curtains that close off the portal of a proscenium stage from its
anticipating audience.

The great style (Le grand style), 1951

In the airy glades (Parmi les bosquets
lgers), 1965

The universe unmasked, 1932

It may be just my take on things, but Demand appears to have chosen the three Magritte
paintings for their pictorial embodiment of three distinct models of the relationship of Mind to
Nature and the world. If the painting The grand style embodies the exterior-objective space of
Nature, In the airy glades is easily the subjective interior of the mind. In between is The
universe unmasked, the intersubjective space of architecture as the meeting place of inside and
outside; room and landscape; dream and reality.

Considering that Magritte is the artist most famous for distinguishing between the minds
structural conflation of an object with its function as a sign- I mean, of course, Magrittes famous
painting of a pipe with the words Ceci nest pas une pipe (This is not a pipe)- the three
paintings in this show remind us that Magritte had another side to him capable of blurring the
hard distinctions between object, subject, sign and context to effect ambiguities that invite
metaphysical speculation and mysticism, and visual puns that betray the unconscious conflations
of the mind.

It may even be said that the new mainstream media have rendered the age-old dichotomy of the
subjective and objective as near-obsolete in the realms of art and entertainment, while rendering
the intersubjective bridging of subjectivity and objectivity as among the most important new
theoretical and psychological models of use to both scientists and artists today.

A major difference between the Nature and Mind relationship as portrayed in todays popular
arts and the art of the Surrealists is that popular art assumes a mythical interface exists between
the Mind and Nature. Of course, this interface is devised to effect a dramatic and entertaining
narrative tension. In hugely popular films like The Matrix, Avatar and Inception, characters
facing deadly cyber dangers in dreams or some other out-of-body projection wake up to find the
dangers instantly vanish.

The Surrealists, on the other hand, sought to dissolve this mythical boundary. They held the
events of dreaming to be as potentially perilous, if not more, than the events of waking life.
Dreams have the capacity to disinter the repressed immoral and subversive desires of the
unconscious psyche, enabling such desires to follow and overtake the dreamer even more
threateningly when awake. It's ironic that the Surrealists here prove themselves to be more
realistic than the media dream makers of a popular culture obsessed with realistic portrayals.

By contrast, the artists assembled in La carte d aprs nature show no sign of this imagined
interface. Forms and ideas flow freely between Mind and Nature. In this respect, the exhibition is
like a dream journal, that over an extensive span of time relays the accumulating epiphany that
has made the dreamer aware of a stage between dreaming and waking whereby s/he feels s/he is
actively manipulating the form and content of the dream s/he is waking up from. Artists, who are
experts at choosing and editing content and shaping media to conform to their wills, are
particularly well attuned to this stage between waking and dreaming.

It is the artists expertise at mapping the terrain between dreaming and waking- the overlapping
of Mind and Nature- that compels Demand, like Magritte before him, to designate the map (la
carte) not just as a metaphor for art, but as the premier function of art.

Although La carte d aprs nature concerns itself with the enclaves of a refined and fully
awake, if sometimes punning, compilation of imagery and ideas, it no less conveys this sense of
a world unfolding by intelligent design as one moves from work to work in the show, and
especially when we survey whole rooms in succession.

Then, too, in Surrealist art, as in dreams, the artist/dreamer commonly assumes or doubles the
appearance and identity of others- an act that affirms not just the continuum of Mind and Nature,
but also the continuity of the human race. It is perfectly in keeping with the original Surrealists
for Demand to blur the boundary between his own identity and art and the identities and art of
the artists he includes in his show, both living and dead.

In this context Demand has turned Magrittes journal devoted to collected ideas from different
times and places... by way of shared threads of thought into a space whereby the walls function
as pages of a book bearing images and ideas attesting to the reciprocity of Mind and Nature- the
prose of the world one presumes would have enticed the aging Magritte himself.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/g-roger-denson/thomas-demand-la-carte-dapres-
nature_b_970480.html

The blow to the heart

Invitation for a voyage (Linvitation au voyage), 1961

Invitation for a voyage was created by Magritte for his Chicago-based patron, Barnet Hodes,
and featured in an extensive 1964 retrospective of Magrittes works held at the Arkansas Art
Center. Already a friend of several of the Surrealists, Hodes was a unique collector who desired
to own a work by each of the artists represented in the first Surrealist exhibition, as well as a
gouache representing each of Magrittes major themes. As he explained to Magritte, I would
like to have a representative collection of your wonderful pictures in the small form that I enjoy
so much.

Rather than create direct copies, Magritte appears to have reveled in reincarnating his former
subjects in a new medium, on a new scale, and often in new variations, explaining that they
needed to be rethought by me, so that I dont produce a mere mechanical copy. In the case of
Invitation for a voyage, he took the motif of a picture that he had originally painted in 1944.
Dating from the Second World War, that work indulged Magrittes decision at the time to create
works in a faux- Impressionist style. This decision managed to shock many of the collectors of
the day, including Ren Gaff, who is reputed to have seen the oil of Invitation for a voyage
and made disparaging remarks about it.

Magritte had decided controversially to bring light, joy, sensuality and a large dose of
irreverence to his works at that time. Nowhere are these more conspicuously brought to the fore
than in this marriage of the sunset with the rose, two motifs that have been immortalized by
artists as emblems of romantic beauty. Magritte himself, writing to Hodes about the rose that
featured in another picture from his collection, Pandoras box, explained, The brilliance of the
rose corresponds to the importance of its role (element of beauty).

Already in 1944, Magritte had explained of the theme that: I have thought of a very simple idea,
but its simplicity doesnt worry me for a moment, because it is an idea that allows me to give a
more vivid and effective expression to a particular feeling, made up of a nostalgia, poetry, etc. It
is a big rose which appears far out at sea.

Luxe, calme et volupt, Henri Matisse, 1904

The title of Invitation for a voyage was suggested by Marcel Marin; it was taken from the title
of a poem by Charles Baudelaire which featured numerous references to roses, sunsets and other
forms of beauty. It contained a chorus that was repeated several times: L, tout nest qu ordre
et beaut, Luxe, calme et volupt (Thus, everything is nothing but order and beauty, Luxury,
calm and pleasure), and which itself had inspired other artists including Henri Matisse.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/drawings-watercolors/rene-magritte-linvitation-au-voyage-

Meditative rose, Salvador Dali, 1958

Except from beauty, surrealist roses represented the mystery of the soul. Dalis Meditative rose
can be considered something of an enigma coming from a painter whose works are primarily the
stuff of dream and nightmare. Absent are the stretched forms and crutches- instead we have a
pretty picture. Here Dali seems to be showing off his painting skills at a time when many famous
artists (including Dali himself) were painting in a much more abstract manner.

The Om symbol

The painting itself is reminiscent of a natural Om symbol (representing Sanskrit prayers with
specific sound- words) hanging against the sky above a desolate landscape. This work was
completed the same year that Dali published his Nuclear Mysticism manifesto, titled Anti-
matter. Commenting on this newfound belief in science, DNA, and nuclear physics the artist
had this to say, In the Surrealist period I wanted to create the iconography of the interior world
and the world of the marvelous, of my father Freud. Today the exterior world and that of physics,
has transcended the one of psychology. My father today is Dr. Heisenberg. It is uncertain how
this piece fits into either the paranoiac method or the nuclear mysticism practices.
http://www.theartistsalvadordali.com/rose-meditative.htm

A rose in the universe (Une rose dans l univers), 1961

Magritte however was neither a mysticist nor a follower of modern physics (although it seems he
was quite aware of the meaning of contemporary quantum mechanics). A rose in the universe,
stands alone in a pink background, which seems to have about the same color as an infrared radio
picture of the night sky:

The Milky- Way countryside, infrared picture taken by Spitzer radio- telescope

New views from NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope show blooming stars in our Milky Way
galaxys more barren territories, far from its crowded core; We sometimes call this flyover
country, We are finding all sorts of new star formation in the lesser-known areas at the outer
edges of the galaxy, said astronomer Barbara Whitney.
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/news/1527-ssc2013-05-NASA-s-Spitzer-Sees-Milky-Way-s-
Blooming-Countryside

The tomb of the wrestlers (Le tombeau des lutteurs), 1960

However, Magrittes view of the universe is quite distinct, as seen through surrealist eyes.
What is interesting to note, as depicted in The tomb of the wrestlers, is that a rose which stands
for the heart of the universe (or the universe of the heart) is painted in such a way to fit inside
an ordinary room. Magritte here explores not only the universe of an idea, but also how this
universe may fit in the space of the human mind.

In this particular piece, Magritte portrays a gorgeous scene in which the beautiful rose seems to
overtake the room and capture the viewers complete attention to the point where the details of
the room and the snowy landscape outside are overlooked.

The inspiration for the work originated from a conversation Magritte had with Harry Torczyner,
surrounding the Soviet Unions tachiste painters. Tachisim is a French style of abstract painting
that is similar to surrealism, but a style that Magritte was not comfortable with. He said to
Torczyner, They paint white on white, and they believe that this is an achievement.

In response to Magrittes dismissal, Torczyner challenged him to paint, a white rose, in a white
room with a window looking on to a landscape covered with snow. The tomb of the wrestlers
is what Magritte produced, with as minimal white as possible.

So why did Magritte choose to alter the challenge? Well painting the rose a revolutionary red
instead of white was his idea of recognizing Torczyners trip to the Soviet Union, and the Red
October that allowed for the Bolsheviks to govern Russia, and were then, in the 1960s, altering
course after the death of Stalin; thereby making this work a rather telling portrait of Magrittes
sentiments at the time.
http://www.masterworksfineart.es/inventory/3975

The blow to the heart (Le coup au cur), 1952

The blow to the heart is a painting of one of Magrittes icons of a rose. In the painting you can
see the thorns have been replaced by a sword or dagger. Its as if the beautiful flower has been
transformed into a gladiator that has arrived from the sea by an invisible ship and is ready to do
battle.

In a letter from Magritte to Iolas, 1951, Magritte said My present research, at the beginning of
the winter, is concerned with the rose. I must find something precious and worthy to say about
it. By the time he painted this work in 1952, he had experimented briefly with Impressionist
techniques after the war and now returned to the stylized realism that is so particular to his
oeuvre.

The artist here explores what he found as an inherent paradox contained in a rose. In a letter
which he wrote to fellow Surrealist and poet Paul Eluard, Magritte described the exploration that
led him to the creation of The blow to the heart: ... for about two months I have been looking
for a solution to what I call the problem of the rose. My research now having been completed, I
realize that I had probably known the answer to my question for a long time, but in an obscure
fashion, and not only I myself but any other man likewise. This kind of knowledge, which seems
to be organic and doesnt rise to the level of consciousness, was always present, at the beginning
of every effort of research I made.... After completion of the research, it can be easily explained
that the rose is scented air, but it is also cruel, and reminds me of your parricidal rose. I also
recall a passage from Nougs forbidden images: It is because of searing memory that we
become aware of this faint scent of roses...
http://www.mattesonart.com/le-coup-au-coeur-the-blow-to-the-heart.aspx

Ready-made bouquet, 1956

For Magritte, the interplay of pale colors and the bravery of the artists heart takes the form of
battles between opposite elements in his paintings. A rose holding a dagger, for example, is not
necessarily an incompatible picture; roses smell nice but they can also hurt us with their thorns.
Therefore, a rose is an excellent representation for the passions of our heart- faint, pink
memories of the past, together with traumatic experiences which make our heart bleed at the
same time. The world we live in has always these two complementary features.

Primavera, Sandro Botticelli, 1482

Magrittes Ready-Made Bouquet is obviously inspired by Botticellis Primavera.

Most critics agree that Primavera, also known as Allegory of Spring, depicting a group of
mythological figures in a garden, is allegorical for the lush growth of Spring. Other meanings
have also been explored. Among them, the work is sometimes cited as illustrating the ideal of
Neoplatonic love. The painting itself carries no title and was first called La Primavera by the
art historian Giorgio Vasari, 1550.

The reading of the picture is from right to left: Zephyrus, the biting wind of March, kidnaps and
possesses the nymph Chloris, whom he later marries and transforms into a deity; she becomes
the goddess of Spring, Flora (or the Primavera), eternal bearer of life, and is scattering roses on
the ground. This is a tale from the fifth book of Ovids Fasti. In Ovids work the reader is told
till then the earth had been but of one color.

Flora, the goddess of flowers and the season of spring

Next to Flora, or Primavera, is Venus, the goddess of love, accompanied by the Three Graces,
and on the far left is the god Mercury, who here announces the coming of spring. The pastoral
scenery is elaborate. It is indicated that there are 500 identified plant species depicted in the
painting, with about 190 different flowers, of which at least 130 have been specifically named.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primavera_(painting)

The truth in her jasmine bouquet (La vrit dans son bouquet de jasmins) 1954

While roses are considered flowers of the day, jasmines prevail at night. Here the symbolism of
the sun is replaced by that of the moon- but the emotion stays the same: sharp- pointed feelings,
which always help us explore better the world of our soul- feeling both romantic and alert.
Whoever the gentleman depicted in the painting is his conical hat complements the image of the
half moon. If the hat represents a sharp thought then the face of the moon brings the thought
deep in the heart. There is a silver atmosphere, despite the black and white painting, which
merges the sense of sight with the smell of jasmines, which the title suggests. Therefore, the
blow to the heart continues in Magrittes romantic paintings, by placing the sharpest
instruments of the spirit in the softest core of the soul.

The human condition

The plagiary (Le plagiat), 1939-40

This is one of a series of gouache compositions depicting a vase of flowers on a table in an
interior setting. The spray of flowers is depicted as a cut-out silhouette, acting as a window onto
a landscape of grassland, trees and shrubs. This superimposition of forms and the dialogue that
Magritte establishes between revelation and concealment is a frequent tactic in his work. The
incorporation of the birds nest with its three white eggs into the domestic interior- the inclusion
of nature into mans fabricated environment- is a further extension of this trope.

The title of the present work was coined by Magrittes friend, the poet Marcel Marin. Magritte
responded: The title Plagiary is very strong and very fine. I am appropriating it. In 1942,
Magritte and his Surrealist friends poetically re-defined the word garden as a space set
between a landscape and a bunch of flowers. Plagiary encapsulates this notion, and the
wonderful contrast between the sharply-defined reality of the foreground and the gentle color
of nature in the background imbues the work with multi-layered meanings and poetic ambiguity.

The human condition, 1933

This is how Magritte himself explained the painting in 1938, The problem of the window gave
rise to The human condition. In front of a window as seen from the interior of the room, I
placed a painting (canvas and easel) that represented precisely the portion of landscape
concealed by the painting. For instance the tree represented in the painting displaced the tree
behind the painting outside the room. For the viewer the tree is simultaneously inside the room in
the painting and outside the room in the real landscape.

Magritte continues, This is how we see the world, we see it outside ourselves; and yet the only
representation of it is within us. Similarly we sometimes remember a past event and the memory
makes it a present event. Time and space lose that crude meaning which is the only one we have
in our daily experience.

A retrograde loop of two events A and B. Event B predisposes event A, so that A be the cause of
B. Causality seems to be temporarily violated, but in fact both events occur, in a sense,
simultaneously, so that there is no causal relation between them. It is the loop itself which
connects both events.

I have written recently an essay called The extended present. In the endnote I say the
following:

When I first conceived the notion of the extended present, I was unaware of the work of
Edmund Husserl on the phenomenology of temporality, where the same notion is expressed.
Husserl uses the notions of retention and protention as key aspects of his theory. According to
his view, as described in Wikipedia, our experience of the world is not of a series of unconnected
moments. It would be impossible to have an experience of the world if we did not have a sense
of temporality. That our perception brings an impression to our minds depends upon retention
and protention. Retention is the process whereby a phase of a perceptual act is retained in our
consciousness. It is a presentation of that which is no longer before us and is distinct from
immediate experience. A simple example might be that of watching a ball being thrown. We
retain where the ball was in our minds to understand the momentum of the ball as we perceive it
in the immediate present. Retention is not a representation or memory but a presentation of a
temporally extended present. That is, a present that extends beyond the few short milliseconds
that are registered in a moment of sense perception. Protention is our perception of the next
moment. The moment that has yet to be perceived. Again, using the example of a ball, our focus
shifts along the expected path the ball will take. According to Husserl, perception has three
temporal aspects, retention, the immediate present and protention and a flow through which each
moment of protention becomes the retention of the next.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty analyzes the temporal phenomenology of perception as follows:

Husserl uses the terms protentions and retentions for the intentionalities which anchor me to an
environment. They do not run from a central I, but from my perceptual field itself, so to speak,
which draws along in its wake its own horizon of retentions, and bites into the future with its
protentions. I do not pass through a series of instances of now, the images of which I preserve
and which, placed end to end, make a line. With the arrival of every moment, its predecessor
undergoes a change: I still have it in hand and it is still there, but already it is sinking away
below the level of presents; in order to retain it, I need to reach through a thin layer of time. It is
still the preceding moment, and I have the power to rejoin it as it was just now; I am not cut off
from it, but still it would not belong to the past unless something had altered, unless it were
beginning to outline itself against, or project itself upon, my present, whereas a moment ago it
was my present. When a third moment arrives, the second undergoes a new modification; from
being a retention it becomes the retention of a retention, and the layer of time between it and me
thickens.

This is exactly the meaning of our discussion. Events do not form a causal chain of points in
space-time, connected to each other in a linear and non- flexible way. Instead, they are extended
objects spanning space- time. At a first stage, pairs of events are spontaneously created as past-
like and future- like symmetrical conditions. Temporality is then involved, at the second stage,
arranging events in a causal process of future- past division. Thus these conditional pair of events
consist of retained and proteined partners, which will either be expressed and realized, or the
infinite causal loop associated with them will disintegrate and return to the vacuum.

Still, the parts of this spontaneous pair of events are non- locally connected to each other, so that
any causal succession of events that consciousness recognizes is arbitrary, though, in a sense,
necessary. Furthermore, post- conditions and pre- conditions, which correspond to Husserls
protention and retention respectively, are not just perceptual representations of real events, but
instead they represent true conditions realized by consciousness. So what is fundamental in the
whole process is not time, which is just a form of order taking place at the second place and
retrospectively, but the non- local collapse of the infinite loop and the instantaneous distribution
of the events.

Consciousness is certainly not an idle and stationary object at the center of its ego- universe,
separated from all other events that it regards. On the contrary, it participates and forms space-
time by arranging things. It even gives cause and meaning to things. But at the same time,
consciousness is not just a process, the path each time chosen from an infinite number of
possible routes in the distribution of events. It possesses the holistic property of its non- local and
symmetrical deepest nature. It also contains the holographic information of events in each part of
its space- time. So, we may say that consciousness is the awareness of the distribution of events
itself, having the ability both of causally considering the parts, at present, and spontaneously
imagining the totality, in its extended present.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/111723217/The-Extended-Present

It is really interesting, you may read it! Here I just want to say that what we consider as the past
(or even the future) is an event always found in the present because we always consider the
past (or the future) from the present- think about it: we dont travel backward (or forward) in
time; we just consider (or reconsider) an event that we persistently regard as distant but always
from a point of reference in the present. This is important because our past is always deformed
by the present state of consciousness. Again, this is important for the perception of future events
because they are already visible to us here and now. Therefore, what we regard as the present is
in fact an extended object, stretching both forward and backward in time, into the areas of
what we consider as the past and the future; Thus the notion of the extended present.

Magritte from his point of view regards this fuzzy territory between here and there, inside
and outside. In fact there is neither inside nor outside. There is a correspondence between
the external, physical world (which in fact is implied) and the internal, perceptional
representation. Both these realities are virtual. What we consider as proofs for the objective
existence of the physical universe, are all subjective axioms and properties of our own: proof is
logical, pain and fear are emotions, faith is a belief, and existence is an axiom taken as granted.

This led Magritte furthermore to say, I have a great idea (not earth shattering) about the naive
question, What does this picture represent? My idea is that the questioner sees what it
represents, but he wonders what represents the picture, and faced with the difficulty of figuring it
out from this direction, he finds it easier and more fitting to ask what the picture represents.

What the picture represents is our ideas and feelings- in short, whoever is looking at the picture
is representing what he sees. This idea is not, some say, within the realm of knowledge, so it
wont help me protect myself when the occasion arises.


In this painting we look out through the mouth of a cave across a steep mountainous valley. In
the center of the painting, standing on an easel, is a painted canvas representing a castle. We are
led to believe, but can never know for certain, that the painted castle conceals a real castle
behind. Magrittes work often explores the limits of knowledge and the power of illusion.
Perhaps he chose the location of the cave because it makes reference to Platos famous parable of
the cave, itself a critique of human knowledge and understanding. The title of the painting is
almost certainly a reference to Rousseaus statement: Our true study is that of the human
condition.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/plato/caveframes.htm

Platos cave, also titled Analogy of the cave, is presented by the philosopher in his Republic
to compare ...the effect of education and the lack of it on our nature.

Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all
of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things
passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to designate names to these shadows. The
shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. He then explains how the
philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the
shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality
rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

The allegory may be related to Platos theory of Forms, according to which the Forms (or
Ideas/ Archetypes), and not the material world of change known to us through the senses,
possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. Only knowledge of the Forms
constitutes real knowledge. Socrates informs Glaucon that the most excellent must learn the
greatest of all studies, which is to behold the Good. Those who have ascended to this highest
level, however, must not remain there but must return to the cave and dwell with the prisoners,
sharing in their labors and honors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

Plato had trouble with his theory of forms, because he ended up having forms for any material
object (a chair for example). In any case, Magritte was more interested in images as
representations, rather than in forms as universal entities. However, it seems that he believed in
the purity of forms:

Questions such as What does this picture mean, what does it represent? are possible only if
one is incapable of seeing a picture in all its truth, only if one automatically understands that a
very precise image does not show precisely what it is. Its like believing that the implied
meaning (if there is one?) is worth more than the overt meaning. There is no implied meaning in
my paintings, despite the confusion that attributes symbolic meaning to my painting.

How can anyone enjoy interpreting symbols? They are substitutes that are only useful to a
mind that is incapable of knowing the things themselves. A devotee of interpretation cannot see a
bird; he only sees it as a symbol. Although this manner of knowing the world may be useful in
treating mental illness, it would be silly to confuse it with a mind that can be applied to any kind
of thinking at all.


The human condition refers to all human experience. We consider a chain of biological events,
predetermined and common to all of us (death being the final event of this chain). The way
humans deal with these events defines the human condition. However, the way we understand
our problems also shifts the definition of the human condition. In other words, it is a state of
being, not a definite conclusion.

This means that the human condition is also a concession regarding the answers we give to the
fundamental questions of existence: What is the purpose of life? Is there any purpose? Why do
we die? Is there eternal life? How important are we in the cosmos? How should we treat others?
How should we treat the environment and other life forms? Thus, the human condition has not
only an everyday significance, but also a philosophical one.

Some people consider that the human condition can be summarized according to the following
three paradoxes:

- Imagination can go anywhere, while the physical body cannot.
- We are able for the best, but also capable of the worst.
- We hope for an afterlife while we find new ways of self-destruction.

The term has also been used in a negative sense or in a cynical way, in order to bring forward the
vanity of everyday life and of the world in general. We are to saying we are just human beings,
as if we wanted to stress some inferiority with respect to an unidentified supreme cause. This
may be compared to the phrase we are just mortal beings, in a more melodramatic way.
Negative views regarding the human condition may also be derived from negative or nihilistic
feelings against modern (technological) civilization.

Some philosophical movements, such as transhumanism, tend to dramatically change the human
condition. However, skeptics, such as the physicist Enrico Fermi, argue that human nature has
changed a little since the primitive stage, despite any scientific or spiritual progress, as if we had
been carried together with our fundamental instincts to more complex environments.
Transhumanists agree, but argue that this is exactly the problem; having completed our
biological evolution, it is about time that we changed the fundamental parameters of life, by
using the new technologies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_condition

It is interesting to note that the Dada movement had such elements of transhumanism, combing
the physical with the artificial. However surrealism made a turn into the primitive human soul.
Perhaps this was the final step back before the great move forward to the modern era. I just want
to add here that we dont really need to become cyborgs in order to improve out nature. It took
billions of years of evolution for biological life forms; they are made of carbon, not silicone or
steel. What we really need to improve is our imagination and awareness with respect to the
world, not to add some cables to our brain.

Where Euclid walked, 1955

What we should note is that the human condition is found within the context of the anthropic
principle: The world is as we know it, meaning that the way we see the world is filtered by
human intelligence, and vice-versa, human intelligence is an expression of the natural world.
Simply put, if the universe didnt support intelligent life, we wouldnt be here to discuss about it.

Magritte in The human condition series uses the idea to reveal that secret truth: The painting,
which is at the same time the window of our eyes and of our souls, together with all our
experiences, is the landscape. Whatever we know about the external world, all the things we
regard as real, are products of human experience, and lie on the surface of our consciousness.

The ancient Greeks used to say that moderation is the best thing; However the saying also
means each measure is the best. Euclid regularly used measure to define things and the
Elements of his geometry. Much later than Euclid, Proclus told the story of Euclids reply to
Ptolemy, who asked whether there was any shorter way in geometry than that of the Elements.
Euclid replied, There is no royal road to geometry. Another anecdote relates that a student,
probably in Alexandria, after learning the very first proposition in geometry, wanted to know
what he would get by learning these things, whereupon Euclid called his slave and said, Give
him three-pence since he must make gain by what he learns.
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/euclid.html

In the only other key reference to Euclid, Pappus briefly mentioned in the fourth century that
Apollonius spent a very long time with the pupils of Euclid at Alexandria, and it was thus that
he acquired such a scientific habit of thought.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid

In Where Euclid walked, Magritte imagines the landscape at Euclids time, which nevertheless
seems medieval, not ancient. Perhaps this way he wanted to note the great change which
occurred between the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, a transformation which was made possible
by the renewed contact with the ancient texts. The cone of the building has certain geometric
properties (in Euclids Elements there are descriptions of cones), and it appears both in the
canvas and in the landscape, stressing perhaps this passage from fantasy to reality, from intuitive
understanding to scientific reasoning. Therefore, the human condition becomes here transparent,
setting the fundamental perquisites for the comparison between how we perceive the world and
what the knowledge of the world (and ourselves) is, or what it should be.

Heraclitus bridge (Le pont d Hraclites), 1935

Heraclitus bridge is an imaginary construction, and shows that Magritte was aware of Platos
Cave (at least he knew the meaning of the allegory). One end of the bridge is at the entrance of
the cave (our everyday world), while the other end connects the bridge to the sky. The shadows
in the foreground may represent the shadows we see in our everyday experience (in the Cave),
or they may stand for the prisoners (us). The river is probably related to Heraclitus famous
saying everything flows. This is a fine painting, which, beyond any scientific or philosophical
references, illustratively connects the two worlds- the physical and the metaphysical ones.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said: The self-glorification of Heraclitus contains nothing religious; he
sees outside himself only error, illusion, an absence of knowledge- but no bridge leads him to his
fellow man, no overpowering feeling of sympathetic stirring binds them to him.
http://www.celebritytypes.com/quotes/heraclitus.php

The signs of evening, 1926

Magritte thus could be regarded as departed (dpays) form everyday life as Heraclitus was (at
least according to Nietzsche). Magritte was indeed withdrawn, absorbed by his paintings and the
philosophical connotations behind them. However he insisted that his paintings were not
deceitful or misleading, but that they were revealing a deeper aspect of what nature is, and how
we should regard ourselves, therefore exploring the meaning of the human condition.

Evening falls (Le soir qui tombe), 1964

Does a mirror contain the information of what is reflected? Reflection itself remains a mystery.
According to classical optics, what we really see is an imaginary object inferred by reflection.
The following diagram simplifies the process:

A typical textbook diagram showing how reflection in a plane mirror produces a virtual image (I)
of the object (O). The dotted lines indicate virtual rays.

In fact it was Euclid long before Newton who devised such a tricky mechanism to explain
vision, although he believed that the imagery light rays were produced by the human eye.
Either projected by the eye or by the illuminated object, virtual rays is what we finally perceive,
not real objects. This is why some people have reached the conclusion that there must be some
form of previous unconscious knowledge of the object, just before it is visually perceived.

Another violation in Evening falls is that of time and causality; the broken glass seems to have
preserved the information of the landscape. This may imply that the glass had been broken
before it was painted. Is this possible? In physical space no, but in virtual space yes. Both
suns are painted by the painters brush, and both of them are imprinted in the viewers brain.
Both suns are virtual objects: one sun (the visual object) is a representation of perception, and the
other sun (the physical object) is again a representation of imagination. Under this realization,
causality is meaningless. Therefore, what is the real difference (or connection) between what we
perceive about the world and what the world in itself is? Thus the human condition.

The white race

The good year (La bonne anne), 1947

Its said that someday a manned hot air balloon had landed on the roof of his parents house. The
maneuvers undertaken by the men in their efforts to fetch down the enormous, empty bag,
together with the leather clothing of the aeronauts and their earflap helmets, left him with a
deep sensitivity for everything eluding immediate comprehension.
http://www.mattesonart.com/rene-magritte-biography.aspx

The art of living, 1964

Hot air balloon shaped as the Abbey of Saint
Gall

The hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology. It is part of a class
of aircraft known as balloon aircraft. In 1783, in Paris, France, the first untethered manned flight
was performed by Jean-Franois Piltre de Rozier and Franois Laurent d Arlandes in a hot air
balloon created a year earlier by the Montgolfier brothers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_air_balloon

The kings museum (Le muse du roi), 1966

The grand air (Le grand air), 1963-64

The Royal Museum(s) of Fine Arts of Belgium, contains over 20,000 drawings, sculptures, and
paintings, which date from the early 15th century to the present. The museum has an extensive
collection of Flemish painting, among them paintings by Bruegel and Rogier van der Weyden,
Robert Campin, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacob Jordaens. The museum is also proud of its
Rubens Room, which houses more than 20 paintings by the artist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Museums_of_Fine_Arts_of_Belgium

Landscape with the fall of Icarus, now seen as a good early copy of Bruegels original

Landscape with the fall of Icarus is a painting long thought to be by Pieter Bruegel, or a good
early copy by an unknown artist of Bruegels original, perhaps painted in the 1560s. Largely
derived from Ovid, the painting is described in W. H. Audens poem Muse des Beaux-Arts,
named after the museum in which the painting is housed in Brussels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_with_the_Fall_of_Icarus

Audens poem goes like this:

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a
window
or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently,
passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must
be
Children who did not specially want it to
happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run
its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life
and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree;
In Breughels Icarus, for instance: how
everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the
ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure;
the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing
into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that
must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the
sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly
on.

http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/auden.html

The age of enlightenment (Le sicle des
lumires), 1967

The beautiful relations (Les belles relations),
1967

Every day (Tous les jours), 1966

Magritte belonged to the Flemish tradition of his predecessors. But The age of enlightenment
came, with hot- air balloons and telescopes, to train the human senses with the experience of the
new age. The new technology brought about modern painting- certainly the advent of
photography made painters search for abstract objects, invisible for photographic machines.
Again, with the advent of more advanced optical means, such as the telescope, artists once more,
had to disembark or dpayser into the most distant and fantastic places of the universe, in
order to surpass the power of the scientific organs.

A large Zeppelin above the Alpine
mountains, Michal Karcz
http://trigger.photoshelter.com/image/I0000
uMACFXE0jDc

Magritte on Mars, by kiron
http://www.zazzle.co.uk/magritte_on_mars_
posters-228148919558951941

Its rather obvious that Zeppelins look like whales floating in the air- thus the fish depicted in
Magrittes The grand air. Flight in general hides inherent risks for the pilot. Icarus story is not
to be taken in the letter. Although it could be based on a real story, it symbolises the struggle of
the human spirit to reach the sun and the sky, together with the consequences, easily ignored by
ordinary people, as Auden notes in his poem. But theres also reward. Icarus name is here to
stay, while Magritte has had an asteroid named after him (7933 Magritte)

The white race, 1937

An abstract nude figure rests on the sand amidst a beach-like environment. Magritte deconstructs
the female form, depicting an eye, an ear, a mouth, and a nose precariously balanced upon one
another but lacking the coherency to form an identifiable face. Though the legs and arms appear
relatively proportionate, the large, round belly and perfectly circular breasts contribute to the
disproportional nature of this figure. According to Whitfield, this last and most imposing work
in The white race series was executed in the spirit of a Picasso bather. Though Magritte neither
confirmed nor denied this resemblance, he found the comparison to be a very lucid reaction.
http://www.masterworksfineart.com/inventory/2849

Bather, Pablo Picasso, 1928

Seated bather, Pablo Picasso, 1930

Picassos mood during the painting of Seated bather is shown as clues, hidden deep within his
artwork. Picasso used natural colors for the woman and the setting. The natural colors of the
woman cause the viewer, if only for a second, to feel the painting has a sense of realism. The
subtle color and flow of the water show that Picasso most likely was not rushed and felt calm and
relaxed. Picassos sharp contrast of color during the forming of the legs and head he was trying
to make a point that this is how it is supposed to look.

Picassos Seated bather has a surreal-like and very unnerving nature. The womans head is
sectioned off into pieces, her eyes are merely extensions of the top part of the head, her mouth is
sideways and has no jaw connected to the face. The cubism style Picasso used in this painting is
closely related to surrealism.
http://www.pablopicasso.org/seated-bather.jsp

(Part of The white race)

Fossil jaw from worlds oldest known dog
Every dog has its day, but that day took more than 14,000 years to dawn for one canine. A jaw
fragment found in a Swiss cave comes from the earliest known dog, according to scientists who
analyzed and radiocarbon-dated the fossil.
http://www.wired.com/2010/07/oldest_dog/

Is it enough here to say that Magrittes White race has nothing to do with racism (or with
jaws)?

A little of the bandits soul

Magritte was a close friend and colleague of Andre Souris, an eminent Belgian musician. In
1926 Souris and a fellow Belgian, Paul Hooreman, started a quasi-surrealist journal called
Musique and experimented with chance music. By 1927 both Souris and Magritte collaborated
with the leader of the Belgian surrealists, Paul Noug, on the surrealist publication Adieu a
Marie. As the leadership not only of Magritte and Souris but of one of Magrittes oldest friends,
the founder of the Belgian Dada and Surrealist movements, the musician E.L.T. Mesens,
indicated, what distinguished the Belgian surrealists from their Parisian contemporaries was a
deep interest in music. Magrittes brother Paul was a musician too. The official photographic
portrait of the Belgian Surrealists dating from 1934 included both Mesens and Souris as well as
Magritte. Their main spokesman and theorist Noug did not share Andre Bretons more classical
surrealist disregard of music which Breton himself later disavowed in 1946.
http://americansymphony.org/collage/

Le rendez-vous de chasse, Bruxelles, 1934

(Sitting from left to right: Irne Hamoir, Marthe Beauvoisin, Georgette Magritte. Standing from
left to right: E.L.T. Mesens, Ren Magritte, Louis Scutenaire, Andr Souris, Paul Noug)

Belgian Surrealism emerged with the publication of Correspondance in 1924, the same year as
Bretons first manifesto. The periodical was printed on different colored fliers and featured
critiques of many of the French Surrealists writing and philosophies. The Belgian Surrealist
group featured, among others, E.L.T. Mesens, Paul Noug, Rene Magritte, Camille Goemans,
Marcel Lecomte and, a bit later, Marcel Marin. Several members of the Belgian Group
interacted and collaborated with the French Surrealists. Heres a photo of the Brussels surrealist
gang taken in Brussels twenty years later:

The caf La fleur, Bruxelles, March 1953.

(From left to right: Marcel Marin, Camille Goemans, Grard Van Bruaene, Irne Hamoir,
Georgette Magritte, E.L.T. Mesens, Louis Scutenaire, Ren Magritte and Paul Colinet).
http://www.mattesonart.com/1111111111111111111111new-page.aspx

Photos seem to capture time. We all have photos of the past, watching ourselves together with
friends and landscapes as they were some time ago. There seems to be a certain black-and-
white element surrounding photographs, like the previous one, even if they are taken using the
most recent, advanced, machine. Photographs are meant to depict the past, and our past, like
dreams, is supposed to be black and white.

Observatory time: The lovers (A l heure de l observatoire: Les amoureux), Man Ray, 1936

One of Man Rays most memorable paintings, Observatory time, is featured in this black-and-
white photograph, along with a nude. It includes a depiction of the lips of his departed lover, Lee
Miller, floating in the sky above the Paris Observatory. In the photograph, the nude is lying on
her side on a sofa underneath the painting, with a chessboard at her feet. Observatory time hints
at what the woman might be dreaming: a nightmare or an erotic fantasy. The lips in the picture
were an inspiration for the logo of The rocky horror picture show, and many other pop culture
iconic images. The chessboard appears in many of the artists works- Duchamp, Picabia and Man
Ray all loved playing chess. And Man Ray considered a grid of squares, the basis for all art... it
helps you to understand the structure, to master a sense of order. He also made chess set designs
and photographs of chessboards, pieces and players.

Therefore mathematics (like a chess board), is also black- and white. The way our brain sees
color may be considered another mystery: a physicist would say that colors are just light
frequencies. The fact that we perceive (some of) light frequencies as colors is a great wonder.
Even the lips in Observatory time, it seems that we have imagined them to be red.

The flying statue, 1963

(Winged) Victory of Samothrace, 200- 190
BCE

Symmetry however is more important than color. If it werent for the shape of lips, we wouldnt
imagine red color. If it werent for the notion of eternity, we wouldnt think the ocean or an
ancient statue, for example. How life could exist without the sea, the sky, the blue of the eternal?
How could a bird fly in the sky without shape, so irrationally in the absolute vacuum without a
scratch of pain to leave behind? What the tree of my life look like without roots, the human spirit
without the head of ancient statues?

A little of the bandits soul (Un peu de lme
des bandits)

Violin- shaped figurine, Cycladic
civilization, 3200-2800 BCE
http://www.cycladic.gr/frontoffice/portal.asp
?cpage=NODE&cnode=35&p=1
I therefore realized that modern art could not exist without the classical. I recalled, among other
things, the marble statuettes of the Cycladic civilization, during the 3
rd
millennium BCE. Take,
for example, the figurine depicted in the previous figure. Abstraction had already gained such a
high level, so that these ancient people carved headless figures similar to musical instruments.
The fine carving as well as the geometrical proportions are magnificent manifestations of
harmony in art.

The denizens of the river (Les habitantes du fleuve), 1926

What are The denizens of the river thinking about? Are they contemplating about something
along the water bed? Is the water bed an expression of time and eternity? Dolls casually dressed
are common in clothing stores. However there is something strange about the dolls in the
painting. They form a pair, and the female one even wears a glove and holds a mirror.

The harpist from Keros, 2800-2300 BCE

Or what modern theorists of string theory would think about if they hadnt read about the music
of the spheres? Or perhaps if they hadnt listened to the Harpist playing?

The beyond (Lau-del), 1938

Nothing. But again everything. Harmony is universal, therefore its representations are
recognizable by people everywhere and anytime. Even if beauty is subjective, the underlying
symmetries are indispensable- The lost arm of an ancient statue will haunt us until we find a way
to bring it back to modern art. It is this condition under which surrealism and classicism met. It
was the cry of the ghosts of antiquity that were meant to be heard and be dealt with not by neo-
classicism, which just extended the agony, but by surrealism, which found a way of expression
and interpretation of this agony.

What stands out in music or in photography is not the notes or colors, but the implication which
the vibrations cause to imagination. Implication is always stronger than illustration. Again, the
same goes for painting. Prediction is stronger than depiction. In the previous painting what we
try to imagine is The beyond. We try to imagine eternity, and we may think something like an
endless blue sky, even not blue, even not a sky. Perhaps, just the pedestal, upon which some
representation of the eternal may come to stand. But it is always the beyond in all our inquiries
what remains the most pervasive element of all.

The seducer

The Seducer (Le Sducteur), 1950

The name of this painting could be equally Camouflage, or Fata Morgana. It would be thus a
nice game of words between Morgan the Pirate and Morgana the Sorceress. The ship in
Magrittes painting is made out of the natural elements, sky, clouds, and water. Its a mirage, a
deception, therefore a seduction, because it traps the eyes at the image.

The Flying Dutchman, Albert Pinkham Ryder, c. 1887

One of the most famous ghost ships is the Flying Dutchman. It is a legendary ghost ship that can
never make port and is doomed to sail the oceans forever. The myth is likely to have originated
from 17th-century nautical folklore. The oldest extant version dates to the late 18th century.
Sightings in the 19th and 20th centuries reported the ship to be glowing with ghostly light. If
hailed by another ship, the crew of the Flying Dutchman will try to send messages to land, or to
people long dead. In ocean lore, the sight of this phantom ship is a portent of doom.

According to a tale:

The news soon spread through the vessel that a phantom-ship with a ghostly crew was sailing in
the air over a phantom-ocean, and that it was a bad omen, and meant that not one of them should
ever see land again. The captain was told the wonderful tale, and coming on deck, he explained
to the sailors that this strange appearance was caused by the reflection of some ship that was
sailing on the water below this image, but at such a distance they could not see it. There were
certain conditions of the atmosphere, he said, when the suns rays could form a perfect picture in
the air of objects on the earth, like the images one sees in glass or water, but they were not
generally upright, as in the case of this ship, but reversed- turned bottom upwards. This
appearance in the air is called a mirage. He told a sailor to go up to the foretop and look beyond
the phantom-ship. The man obeyed, and reported that he could see on the water, below the ship
in the air, one precisely like it. Just then another ship was seen in the air, only this one was a
steamship, and was bottom-upwards, as the captain had said these mirages generally appeared.
Soon after, the steamship itself came in sight. The sailors were now convinced, and never
afterwards believed in phantom-ships.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Dutchman

But it may reappear soon:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2130598/False-wall-water-created-Fata-
Morgana-mirage-hidden-iceberg-Titanic-late.html

These sort of phenomena are called Fata Morgana. Officially, it is considered an unusual and
complex form of superior mirage that is seen in a narrow band right above the horizon. This
optical phenomenon occurs because rays of light are bent when they pass through air layers of
different temperatures in a steep thermal inversion where an atmospheric duct has formed. Fata
Morgana mirages distort the object or objects which they are based on significantly, often such
that the object is completely unrecognizable. A Fata Morgana can be seen on land or at sea, in
polar regions or in deserts. This kind of mirage can involve almost any kind of distant object,
including boats, islands, and the coastline.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage)

Portrait of Morgan le Fay (Fata Morgana), Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys, 1864
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_le_Fay

Fata Morgana is in fact an Italian phrase derived from the vulgar Latin for fairy and the
Arthurian sorceress Morgan le Fay, from a belief that these mirages, often seen in the Straits of
Sicily, were fairy castles in the air or false land created by her witchcraft to lure sailors to their
death.

The Seducer, 1951

Most obviously unlike a seascape, Magritte has done something odd indeed to the ship: he has
replaced its shape with an extension of the water. If that leaves only a dream, the paintings title,
The Seducer, also suggests uncensored fantasy, and Magritte himself spoke of painting not just
real objects, as in a still life, but real desires. Whoever is carrying out a seduction, no one is
restraining his transgression.

USS destroyer Eldridge, according to the Philadelphia Experiment
http://www.bubblews.com/news/446101-the-philadelphia-expirement
According to another story:

The story goes that in October of 1943, at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, an experiment was
conducted aboard a US Navy Cannon-class destroyer escort called the USS Eldridge, number
DE-173. The experiment involved the creation of a force field which rendered the ship invisible
both to the eye and to radar. The experiment was witnessed by hundreds, possibly thousands, of
sailors both ashore and on other ships nearby. Unfortunately, there were severe side effects to the
crew on board ship. Some were found materialized inside the metal of the ship, others were
never seen again, and still others were driven insane or plagued for years by mysterious cases of
phasing in and out of existence. In typical Navy fashion, everything has been denied.
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4016

The Seducer, 1953

Probably no other painting of his comes as close to monochrome, further obliterating the border
between sea and sky. The wave crests may resemble the traces of a ship firmly scudding across
the high seas, or they may look like treacherously choppy water during a storm. The third variant
(1953), now in a private collection, may incline more closely toward the first version.

One can see The Seducer as carefully analyzing and displacing illusion. One can consider the
water covering the ship as a reminder that, in a proper representation, an approaching ship would
once have lain below the horizon. Besides, unmooring has its own connotations when it comes to
the sea. Do these first two layers of meaning, pleasure and critical reflection on painting itself,
contradict each other? Absolutely, and that already suggests a third, more unsettling level of
interpretation, one that many Surrealists themselves sometimes overlooked in his art
Magrittes watery ship will continue on its course.
http://www.haberarts.com/seducer.htm

Mental complacency (Le confort de lesprit), 1950

Did the Philadelphia Experiment really happen? Well, it will certainly happen in the future, and
then it will be much more magical- in the same sense that mobile phones would have looked
magical less than 50 years ago. The painters job is not to perform miracles in the literal sense,
but to portray them in his paintings. There is nothing wrong with this, and it is really harmless-
dreams have never killed anybody. But a painter, unlike an opportunistic discoverer, has a very
difficult task to perform: his paintings must contain elements to make them timeless. While the
Eldridge (as far as I know) was sold as scrap to a metal firm in Athens, Greece, the Flying
Dutchman is still out there, together with Magrittes Seducer. But it is behind the comfort of the
spirit, in our own castle of the mind that we gaze at the sea, see the ghost ship coming, living all
the mystery, neither fearful nor reassured.

The collective invention

Collective invention, 1934

I found an analysis on the net about Magrittes Collective invention, which is interesting from a
feministic point of view- whatever feminism (against what?) means:

The problem of woman is the most wonderful and disturbing problem there is in the world.
Thus wrote Andr Breton in his Second Manifesto of Surrealism in 1929. In his opinion, the
manifestation of true freedom is achieved thanks to the releasing of suppressed desires. Thus the
Surrealist design for emancipation led to the repudiation of morality as being a source of
oppression and alienation.

In the Surrealists works, depictions of woman repeatedly underwent dehumanization as an
unprecedented thirst for objectifying, transforming and dismembering her body emerged.
Amongst these Surrealistic hybrids was the figure of a mermaid in reverse, the anti-mermaid of
the canvas entitled Collective invention. Here, the mythic image of half-woman, half-fish, with
its deep cultural roots, has been rejected and reworked, her femininity reduced to the role of
genitalia exposed to the sphere of the complete liberation of the male imagination.

The presence of spirit (La prsence desprit), 1960

The beauteous mermaids and sirens were a mythological merging of the female body with fish or
birds, respectively. They inhabited aquatic and rocky spaces and their sensual voices and music
were their defense against men. In the bestiaries, they were manifestations of licentiousness,
debauchery and carnal temptation, whilst all kinds of legends and myths told of their enticing
men into the unfathomable, watery deeps, luring sailors with their magical singing and leading
them along the pathway to their deaths. Edward Lucie-Smith holds that, in the erotic art of the
West, the mermaid was depicted as the thieving seductress who hunts the male imagination.

In Magrittes Collective invention we observe a reversal of this treatment; the half-woman,
half-fish is mute and has been cast up on a sandy seashore, possible inveigled by a man, hooked
and drawn onto dry land by him. Removed from the water, the hybrid figure with the legs and
hips of a woman and the torso and head of a fish lies lifeless. The inability to utter so much as a
sound summons up a monumental association with Franz Kafkas short story The Silence of the
sirens, which had been published three years earlier, in 1931. In the story, Kafka reworks the
Homeric myth of Odysseus brush with the sirens. In The Odyssey, the classical hero overcomes
their deadly singing by instructing his sailors to plug their ears with wax and ordering that he
himself be bound to the mast so that he might listen intently to the rare sensuality of their voices.
In Kafkas story, the sirens remain mute because their silence is intended to prove an even more
lethal weapon than their songs. The power of the glance overcomes the power of the voice here
and it is the man who emerges victorious from the duel. It is he who beguiles the sirens and they
who ultimately suffer death.

The song of the sirens (Le chant des sirnes) 1953

Magritte undertakes a reshaping of the myth which is similar to Kafkas. The figure he painted in
Collective invention, is an inverted mermaid who remains silent and could have been beguiled
and/or caught by a man. Her piscine, animal constituent predominates, emphasizing her
dependency upon the aquatic space. Yet the power, the giving of life, the fertility and the
purification which water symbolizes do not pertain to her. This is no Botticellis Birth of
Venus, a mythical painting of the figure rising from the seas spume, but a painting of the death
of Venus, flung onto the sand by a wave or hooked and hauled to dry land from the salty deeps.
In this way, Magritte inverts and reworks another myth which was also to be a frequent presence
in the pop culture classics which were to follow.

The art of the Surrealists and Magritte is frequently interpreted in the context of Freuds theories
in respect of subconscious sources, the urge of the libido and the fear of castration. Relating art
to the artists psychological condition was intended to provide a convincing argument to the
effect that art is an expression of traumas, experiences, pain and loss endured and survived and
that it reveals desire or conceals it. In this context, Collective invention could be an expression
of the trauma experienced after the death of the artists mother. In the background of Collective
invention beyond the watery waves, behind the horizon, the light of the distant sun still
glimmers. In Freuds theories, the sun is nothing other than a symbol of the father. Considering
the anti-mermaid within categories of the first and most powerful object of sexual desire, in other
words, in this case, the mother, the radiant sun might bear testimony to the presence of the father,
source of prohibitions and law.

In the pornographic representation, primary law, such as the prohibition of incest or other social
taboos, is not binding. Pornography is the collective invention derived from masculine sexual
fantasies and reducing the female figure to the elements of her erogenous zones. It might be
considered as a visual manifestation of the surrealist inclination toward the degradation and
fragmentation of female bodies. Susan Gubar called attention to this in interpreting Magrittes
painting The rape from the standpoint of feminist criticism, but it is an aspect which can also be
attributed to The Collective invention, as well as to other canvases by Magritte.

The figure of the anti-mermaid, however, is an exceptionally degrading, desacralizing and
demythologizing image of woman. In juxtaposition with the piscine torso and head, it takes on a
uniquely blasphemous appearance. It calls into question the culturally rooted representations of
mermaids and the birth of Venus and assails Christian symbolism. Like the silent sirens of
Kafkas short story, Magrittes half-woman, half-fish is exposed to the power of the masculine
gaze. She is stripped not only of the mythical qualities and values of the voice, but also of the
mythical incarnations of beauty. Put to death where the foaming waves meet the shore, she still
does, however, possess her genitalia and through that, she arouses masculine lust.
http://www.academia.edu/4589755/Death_of_a_Mermaid._A_study_on_Rene_Magrittes_LInve
ntion_Collective_Collective_Invention_Honza_Zamojski_Fishing_with_John_Nero_Publishing_
Milan_2013_pp._131-143

I quote:

Xavier Abril maintained that, to take possession of the dream is to be completely a fish, calling
to mind Albert Einstein words to the effect that the mind of the man who dreams is fully satisfied
by what happens to him. Seeking the path to freeing the mind and concealed desires, to releasing
that which is conscious and unconscious, the Surrealists believed in the causative power of art,
which is capable of transforming reality. Oscillating around the pornographic representations of
the female body, they overturned the myths rooted in culture, proposing a new view of the world
of liberated desire. Their questioning of the tendency to imbue woman with a sacred quality led
toward the putting to death and degrading of the mythical sirens and mermaids and of the
mythical Venus. It was also for this reason that Marilyn Monroes oeuvre has been of such
interest to subsequent feminist criticism and disciples of Freuds theories alike. These
interpretive perspectives make it possible to deduce from The collective invention meaningful
relational systems between the collective, which is to say, men versus women and the individual,
in other words, the child versus the mother. They reveal an interesting path for the interpretation
of the Surrealist figures of mermaid and siren, which, in the face of impending social
transformations and in the face of the subjects traumatic experiences, had to be transformed and
put to death once and for all.

The last paragraph is in fact from the previous analysis but I replaced the words Breton with
Einstein and Magritte with Monroe. As you can see the meaning remains the same, which
shows the ambiguous (also mechanistic) character of human speech. This ambiguity is want
Monroe (excuse me, I mean Magritte) wanted to show.

Mermaid and merman, 1866; Unknown Russian folk artist

Mermaids are associated with the mythological Greek sirens as well as with sirenia, a biological
order comprising dugongs and manatees. Some of the historical sightings by sailors may have
been misunderstood encounters with these aquatic mammals. Christopher Columbus reported
seeing mermaids while exploring the Caribbean, and sightings have been reported in the 20th
and 21st centuries in Canada, Israel and Zimbabwe. The U.S. National Ocean Service stated in
2012 that no evidence of mermaids has ever been found.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mermaid

We commonly refer to mermaids as creatures half-human and half-fish, but always the human
part is the upper one. This is because they should be as clever as we are, with a beautiful tail of a
fish. But what if they looked the opposite way? Then they may have looked more like us- we are
certain about our feet, but know little about our brain. A fish rots from the head down.

The wonders of nature (Les merveilles de la nature), 1953

A painting such The wonders of nature fully illustrates Magrittes poetic sensibility. Here he
has depicted two fish-headed lovers apparently joined in song. The conventional mermaid form
of the fish-tailed, human-torsoed creature is reversed, making a creature of fantasy even more
unreal. Despite their petrification in stone, the figures appear to be very much alive, with an
uncannily human quality. The wonders of nature is exemplary of Magrittes use of the theme
and appearance of petrification throughout the 1950s. The painting also contains visual elements
found in earlier paintings, such as the ghost ship that blends with the waves on the horizon,
which made its first appearance in The Seducer, or the figures themselves, found in an earlier
incarnation, Collective invention.

One of Magrittes illustrations for Lautramonts Maldodor, 1948
http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2012/01/18/magrittes-maldoror/

Magritte, like many of the Surrealists, was well acquainted with the prose poem The songs of
Maldoror (Les Chants de Maldoror), by the nineteenth-century French poet Isidore Ducasse,
who worked under the pseudonym Comte de Lautramont. Among the illustrations that Magritte
created for a 1948 edition of Lautramonts work was a depiction of a fish with human legs
sitting on a rock by the sea with a small ship coursing the waves in the distance. This association
may account for the confusion over the paintings title, once given as The lovers and for a long
time known at The song of love. Magritte had informed Joseph and Jory Shapiro, the original
owners of the work, that the title was Le chant damour (The song of love). Yet, when asked by
his friend Harry Torezyner later on, Magritte said that he could not remember the title.
http://mcachicago.org/exhibitions/collection/browse/title/5/19

Illustrations for Eluards The necessities of life (Les necessites de la vie), 1945

In the previous picture we see (among other things) Paul Eluard with a fish tail hanged by the
neck. Such dreadful representations seem to target not only the viewer but also the artist himself.
It was a sort of cynical and merciless method of self-critique, aiming to clean up the artists mind
and soul from the dirt of bourgeois conformism. But it was also the descent to the depths of the
human soul- and perhaps at the same time an expression of the bourgeoisies decadence at the
time.

Heres an excerpt from the Fourth Chant of Lautramonts The songs of Maldoror:

Me... I am always like the basalt! In the middle, as in the beginning of life, the angels are
similar to themselves: It wasnt long ago when I hated myself! Man and me, confined within the
limits of our intelligence, like a lake inside a reef of coral islands, instead of uniting our
respective forces to defend us against chance and misfortune, we are moving away from each
other, by an earthquake of hatred, by taking two opposing roads, as if we were reciprocally
wounded by the tip of a dagger! It looks as if one accepts the contempt that inspires the other
one; Pushed by the motive of a relative dignity, we are rushing not to mislead our opponent;
everyone remains on his side being aware that the peace proclaimed would be impossible to
keep. Well, so be it!- that my war against man drags on, since one recognizes in the other its own
degradation... since we are both mortal enemies. Since I have to win a victory disastrous or
succumb, the fight will be beautiful: me, alone, against humanity. I will not use any weapons
made of wood or iron; I will utilize the layers of minerals extracted from the earth: the powerful
and seraphic melody of the harp will become, under my fingers, a daunting talisman. In more
than one ambushes, man, this sublime monkey, has already pierced my chest with his spear of
porphyry: a soldier does not show his injuries, no matter how glorious they may be. This terrible
war will lay the pain in the two parties: two friends who obstinately seek to destroy each other,
what a drama!
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12005/12005-h/12005-h.htm

This is the eternal battle between the id (the world of instincts) and the super-ego (the ideal
person) performed by the ego (our everyday self). The symbol of the fish comes from the depths
of instinctual drives, blind, mute, and mindless, exactly (and correctly) as Magrittes represents
it- reversed, because it is the head (the spirit) what is missing, not the tail (the instinct).

In The wonders of nature, the two beings face the unknown naked and petrified, while the
Seducer slides in the water, threatening as any ghost ship would be. Is this ghost ship a symbol
of threat for the two creatures untamed love, or does it, on the contrary, magnify the mystery of
their coming together? Well, the title Song of love/ Wonders of nature suggests a high level of
beauty and harmony. Love of song/ Nature of wonders could equally fit. Love is a song of the
heart, while music is the love of the heart; therefore both music and love comprise wonders of
nature. The rock upon which the creatures sit represents the hard, earthly element, while the
ghost ship represents the thin, heavenly element of reality. The two creatures, made of stone,
stand against the silence of the vacuum.

Pyramid power
http://historymystery.eu/pyramids/

Symbols are believed to possess secret powers. A mermaid, for example, is considered a
supernatural being because she is half-fish (not because she is half human.) Although symbols
are abbreviations or citations, what they refer to is not the object but the meaning they try to
explain. For example, numbers and mathematical analogies in general, were invented by humans
in order to explain order and harmony in the world, not just to define the solid objects related to
them. This is not just a problem of form, but mainly of symbolical representation.

Power pyramids, for example, are believed to contain special powers, so that objects kept
inside them can be preserved or sharpened. Its not the object but the shape of the symbol what
creates the alleged effect. Is it possible that a shape affects space-time and the physical forces
inside it? No matter what the secret power of pyramids may be, the effect of objects on space-
time is proved by modern physics thanks to Einsteins theory of relativity. Empty shells rotating
exert a force (Coriolis) on the space-time inside them. Here however, we are interested in the
effects of symbols not just as geometrical shapes but, more generally, as quantities having effects
on a psychic level.

The dreamers painting, Man and His
Symbols, C.G. Jung

A dream of crime & punishment, J.J.
Grandville, 1847

Can symbols possess psychic powers, such as material objects exert physical forces? Carl Jung
talked extensively about the psychic, as well as the metaphysical, aspect of symbols:

To mention but one example out of many, I noted the following on April 1, 1949: Today is
Friday. We have fish for lunch. Somebody happens to mention the custom of making an April
fish of someone. That same morning I made a note of an inscription which read: Est homo
totus medius piscis ab imo. In the afternoon a former patient of mine, whom I had not seen for
months, showed me some extremely impressive pictures of fish which she had painted in the
meantime. In the evening I was shown a piece of embroidery with fish-like sea-monsters in it.
On the morning of April 2 another patient, whom I had not seen for many years, told me a dream
in which she stood on the shore of a lake and saw a large fish that swam straight towards her and
landed at her feet. I was at this time engaged on a study of the fish symbol in history. Only one
of the persons mentioned here knew anything about it.
(Abstract from Carl Jungs book Synchronicity- An acausal connecting principle)

Freud, with respect to the uncanny, would also go a step forward to recognize more parameters
of the phenomenon, such as the case of the meaningful repetition of an event (numbers, names,
or symbols.) Carl Jung related such meaningful coincidences with synchronistic phenomena. In
other words, the feeling of the uncanny may have to do not only with repressed experiences, but
also with a deeper reality of our own psyche. Images seem to appear from the unconscious,
which are common for everyone (Jung called them archetypes), reproducing themselves in the
real world, causing to us certain unexplained but strangely familiar (uncanny) feelings. Perhaps
it was these images or psychic contexts that the surrealists tried to grasp through psychic
automatism, and through the effect of the double:

Paranoiac visage, Salvador Dali, 1935

The previous image rotated

Salvador Dali used this effect in many of his paintings. In the previous painting we may see two
different things- a hill or a face. Dali expanded his notion about the phenomenon and introduced
his so- called paranoiac- critical method. It may sound a bit paranoiac but Dali thought this
was a way to systematize irrational thought. No matter what the interpretation of phenomena
related to the uncanny or the double may be, by exploring and expressing them we liberate
the forces of the unconscious, therefore we defuse it, performing some sort of artistic
psychotherapy. This is not a matter of physical or mental exercise, but of pure psychic force
released, and artistic expression is what helps this force be transformed creatively.

Faraway looks (Les regards perdus), 1927

The glass house (La maison de verre), 1939

A taste of the invisible, 1927

The meaning of night, 1927

Magritte used the effect of the double in paintings with repeating but not intermingling forms,
the images keeping their separate places in space and time (e.g. in paintings such as The end of
contemplation, The double secret, Not to be reproduced). This is not always the case, as in
The glass house, where the face is found at the back of the head.

Interference pattern in Joungs double slit experiment

The effect of the double has its own importance in modern physics. It could be also stated as
the uncertainty (or complementarity) principle, and it is expressed through the wave-particle
duality. In other words, light behaves either as a wave or as a particle, depending on the
uncertainty of our measurements. This is not because of our ignorance. This is a reality of nature.
It is a perhaps answer, with some quantities of yes and no in it. We dont even know if there
is something propagating out there when we measure light. But we can see the interference
pattern. This is a generalization of the pleasure principle in quantum mechanics- the more we try
to measure the momentum, the more we lose the position of some thing.

I would also suggest that, more importantly, the effect of the double in physics means two (or
more objects) at the same place but in different times. It has thus to do with parallel worlds,
existing right here but with different parameters of time. This parallel realities are conceived
by the brain as double (or multiple) images, because the brain cannot interpret more than one
event at a certain time.

(Ichthys), a symbol of Jesus, as an
adopted Christian symbol
The Babylonian God Oannes

As in psychology the fish symbolizes something that comes from within our deepest unconscious
nature, so in religion it is related to different representations of the archetypal god. The world
(Jesus) in ancient Greek, for example, is also identified with the word ,
which means fish.

Pisces, Man Ray, 1938

Women in sardine cans (Femmes aux botes
de sardines), Oscar Domingues, 1937

Connivance (La connivence), 1965

The search for truth (La recherch de la
vrit), 1963

Therefore, it seems that the search for truth, related to the fish symbol, is attained with the
connivance of the secret agents of our own psyche. We may find hard to admit that most, if not
all, of our objections and protests against what we consider provocative or immoral come from
repressions of sexual instincts. But as we have built up a common view about the world, some of
our wrong ideas keep on repeating themselves, like some annoying insects buzzing in our minds,
and which the sooner they are contained and eradicated the better. Magrittes Collective
invention reminds us exactly this- we are the mermaids, sitting at some beach, against the
vastness of eternity, a little bit more clever than fish, making dreams, moving our tails, building a
theory, revising it, building another one... Those who believe that mermaids dont exist are
simply foolish.

Quantum Fish #2

As you see there are also quantum fishes. Im not sure what their properties are. Perhaps they
can jump here and there instantaneously, like sub- atomic particles in the vast quantum ocean of
the vacuum. Perhaps they form pairs of matter and anti-matter, like mermaids and creatures with
fish heads and human legs do. Heres a part of the article related to the previous image:

Quantum resonance is an example of fundamental aspects inherent to experience (or to
existence.) It offers an explanation to questions which remain unanswered, such as the origin of
life and consciousness, the law of probabilities, the nature of subjective experience. The term
refers to a collective or unified (quantum) field of consciousness (resonance) which is manifested
in every form, context, or singularity. However, the notion of quantum resonance expresses this
notion in a new way. On one hand, individuality exists as a singularity within a broader context,
while, on the other hand, individuality exists as the broader context within which a person lives.
http://user.xmission.com/~mkeener/

I was thinking that an object may be independent of our existence but not of our experience.
Whatever we see is different from what it is by itself. Therefore, we change things when we pay
attention to them, at least at the level of knowledge. Absolute truths are not ideal for a painter to
paint, because they lack the flexibility of multiple interpretations. But the magic found in any
authentic piece of art is a truth beyond interpretation. And this is part of the way we experience
the world. Lets say that we are able to conceive the unconceivable- and this is a curious thing.

I believe that the Collective invention is on the same track with the evolution of science,
bringing us through a paradigm shift to the modern era, from para-physics to physics, from the
proof of faith to the faith in proof. But the faith in proof is not a new dogmatic religion. It teaches
neither the love of logic nor the logic of love. It is logic in love. It is faith in experimentation.
What is missing in modern logic is Eros, thought and love on the same level. This is what
Magritte taught us- an artist without spirit is as bad as a scientist without soul- and as bad as
anyone without a sense of magic.

The voice of space

The voice of space, 1928

Early in Magrittes paintings we see some of the painters fixed objects appear. These objects
correspond of course to fixed ideas. Fixed ideas can be seen either as preoccupations or as
premonitions. The difference is that premonitions are rather personal, while preoccupations
may be based on archetypal forms, common to the human unconscious. Magrittes bells,
which in this case look like space balls, are perfect manifestations of some abstract idea, which,
maturing in the painters mind, became a well- defined object. Its shape is spherical, its color
reminds of metal composition, and these objects seem to have harnessed anti-gravity.

Someone could say that Magrittes bells are like spaceships or spheres of consciousness
coming to our world from another, advanced one, to survey or spy on us, with some instruments
hiding behind the small gap of the spheres along their perimeter. However, these objects have
many different uses in Magrittes paintings.

Pink bells, tattered skies (Grelots roses, ciels en lambeaux), 1930

Pink bells, tattered skies, is one of the paintings in which Magritte used the symbol of the bell,
alongside another of his favorite motifs, clouds. As in other Magritte paintings where these
silent bells appear, these ones are physically floating in the air, occupying one half of the
painting, free of their weight, their function and their usual scale, which gives them an unreal
appearance that emphasizes their oneiric power. This is also helped by an almost
photographically accurate technique, which seems to freeze the image in time and space.

The other half of the scene (the painting is divided into two equal areas) is occupied by a sky full
of fluffy cloud formations, in stark contrast to the stately definition of the area taken by the round
bells. The chromatic difference- bright blue for the cloudy background and electric salmon pink
for the bells space- contributes to the general feeling of perplexity and uneasiness emanating
from the picture, such as happens with the best executed Surrealist visions.
http://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/grelots-roses-ciels-lambeaux-pink-bells-
tattered-skies

Jingle Bells, one of the best-known holiday songs in the world, was written by Massachusetts
song writer James Lord Pierpont and published in 1857 under the title One horse open sleigh.
Though it is commonly thought of as a Christmas song, it was actually written and sung for
Thanksgiving. In the winter time, it was common to place bells on the harnesses of horse drawn
sleighs to avoid collisions at intersections. The rhythm of the song mimics that of a trotting
horses bells.
http://www.factfixx.com/2011/12/22/jingle-bells-was-originally-written-for-thanksgiving/

By distorting the scale, weight, and use of an ordinary object and inserting it into a variety of
unaccustomed contexts, Magritte confers on that object a fetishistic intensity. He has written of
the jingle bell, a motif that recurs often in his work: I caused the iron bells hanging from the
necks of our admirable horses to sprout like dangerous plants at the edge of an abyss.

The disturbing impact of the bells presented in an unfamiliar setting is intensified by the cool
academic precision with which they and their environment are painted. The dainty slice of
landscape could be the backdrop of an early Renaissance painting, while the bells themselves, in
their rotund and glowing monumentality, impart a mysterious resonance.
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/2593

The voice of the winds, 1928

This mysterious resonance produced by these spherical objects is not new. The celestial
spheres, or celestial orbs, were the fundamental entities of the cosmological models developed
by Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus and others. In these celestial models the
apparent motions of the fixed stars and the planets are accounted for by treating them as
embedded in rotating spheres made of an ethereal, transparent fifth element (quintessence), like
jewels set in orbs. Since it was believed that the fixed stars did not change their positions relative
to one another, it was argued that they must be on the surface of a single starry sphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_spheres

This sphere is the dome of the sky as conceived by a human being watching from below. The
harmony recognized by early people between this world and the heavens was always based on
some form of symmetry, either mathematical or musical. Musica universalis or Harmony of
the spheres is an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of
celestial bodies- the sun, moon, and planets- as a form of music. This music is not usually
thought to be literally audible, but a harmonic and/or mathematical and/or religious concept. The
idea continued to appeal to thinkers about music until the end of the Renaissance, influencing
scholars of many kinds, including humanists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musica_universalis

Boethius, during the Middle Ages, recognized three levels for the music of the spheres: the
universal music (musica universalis), the music as conceived by humans (musica humana), and
the music performed by artists (musica instrumentis (sounds made by singers and
instrumentalists)

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three consubstantial persons, expressions, or
hypostases: the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit- one God in three persons. The
three persons are distinct, yet are one substance, essence or nature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity

The problem of trichotomy is one of the most fundamental problems of philosophy, regarding
how many separate but elementary parts we need in order to form the world. Another common
philosophical notion is that of duality (good and evil, day and night, feminine and masculine, and
so on). As far as the problem of trichotomy is concerned, it appears not only in theology, but also
in psychology (id- ego- super ego), as well as in other scientific or philosophical fields. For
example, in mathematics, the law of trichotomy states that every real number is either positive,
negative, or zero.

This principle, based on the number three, seems to pervade all levels of human intelligence,
and seems to serve as one of the deepest stabilizing factors of human behavior and personality.
For example, if we consider a fundamental duality like the pair of good and evil, we can further
consider a third element (lets say a spiritual element which lies beyond good and evil) to help us
brake the vicious circle of good and evil. As far as The voice of winds is concerned, there are
three bells appearing in the sky, probably having the ability to ring some sort of music which
the painter conceives and wants us to join him. This voice of the winds certainly goes deeper
than mere acoustic sounds in the air, it has more to do with the ability to listen to the music of an
internal voice, echoing a deeper and universal harmony. The shape, the metallic color, the
narrow frame or window around the perimeter of the spheres, all these elements point out a
representation of a state of consciousness.

The flowers of the abyss, 1928

The flowers of the abyss, 1928

The title of these paintings probably refers to the title of Baudelaires poetic collection Flowers
of evil. In the beginning of the collection, Baudelaire says:

La sottise, l'erreur, le pch, la lsine,
Occupent nos esprits et travaillent nos corps,
Et nous alimentons nos aimables remords,
Comme les mendiants nourrissent leur
vermine.
Stupidity, mistake, sin and stinginess
Occupy our spirit and traverse our bodies
And we are favorably eaten by remorse
Just like the beggars feed the vermin.

And goes on:

Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l'incendie,
N'ont pas encore brod de leurs plaisants
dessins
Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins,
C'est que notre me, hlas! n'est pas assez
hardie.
If rape, poison, the dagger, the fire,
Havent yet embroidered their pleasant
designs
The trivial canvasses of our pitiful destinies,
Its because our souls, alas, are not bold
enough!

The preface concludes with the following malediction:

C'est l'Ennui!- l'il charg d'un pleur
involontaire,
Il rve d'chafauds en fumant son houka.
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre dlicat,
Hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, mon
frre!

Its Boredom!- with eyes full of unwitting
tears,
He dreams of the gallows smoking his
hookah.
You recognize, reader, this tricky monster,
You hypocritical reader, my fellow man, my
brother!

Baudelaire spoke of boredom, death, hospitals and gallows, about Satan and evil. Spleen, as
was defined in Baudelaires poems, is a sentiment or a state in contrast to the Ideal. Baudelaire
influenced all the Francophones (at least), therefore Magritte too. In Magrittes Flowers of the
abyss, his spheres appear either as blossoms of flowers, or as levitating spheres. Its therefore
certain that they represent a state of mind, most likely accompanied by some sentiment of
melancholy. The flowers of the abyss, like the flowers of evil, emerge from the depths of our
soul, objectify our Spleen, a strange, hard to describe, negative emotion, and they are here to
offer the cure with their magical powers.

Automation (L'automate), 1928-29

Automation, 1929

This is another representation of the spheres. The title of these paintings (Automation)
suggests an automated process of the soul, perhaps its own manifestation (let me use the terms
soul and consciousness interchangeably in this context). Creativity in fact is based on
spontaneity; it is therefore related to some automatic process of the unconscious. However, in the
first painting consciousness occupies a chair- and this interpretation brings about an extremely
impossible object! I dont really know what else the painter might have in mind. In the second
painting the sphere again levitates, showing that it doesnt belong to this world, although it
seems to be a very common object to all of us- a representation of the sphere of consciousness.
At least this is my own ide fixe about the meaning of this object.

Apparition 1928

What a remarkable painting this is (for a physicist at least!) It was formerly known as Person
walking toward the horizon. An alternative name could be Person falling toward an event
horizon. The distortion of the image is very significant. We can discern either two holes or a
person split in two (the body and the head corresponding to the two black blobs).

There is an interesting modern theory in physics, string theory, which states that all fundamental
entities consist of strings, miniscule objects which vibrate with different modes and
frequencies, forming the world we know. Normally, strings are very tiny, but, as the painting
suggests, someday, they may be found in the macrocosm.

The painting could also suggest a black hole (and some reflection of it, due to gravitational
lensing), or just two event horizons; one almost circular and another one elongated,
representing some kind of loops or warps in spacetime. In fact, theoretically at least, these sort of
anomalies could appear in the sky, if of course we find someday a way to produce the immense
amount of energy necessary for such phenomena (together with the corresponding knowledge to
avoid the potential dangers).

I believe that when Magritte painted the Threatening weather, more generally when he
imagined threatening situations, it was not just the expression of a negative emotion; it was at the
same time a burst of creativity. The most threatening thing in the world is emptiness, and
Magritte seems to have known that well. His paintings expressing the state of the double, I
mean paintings which at the same time show the interior and the exterior, like the Human
condition or The unexpected answer, presuppose the annihilation of space-time; distance in
space, therefore the passage of time as we know it, could be treated as an illusion, existing only
in our everyday world. Therefore, paintings such as Apparition express sightings of a very
different order in nature, which scientists try to reproduce in the laboratory, while the painter
tries to depict on his canvas.

Universal gravitation (La gravitation universelle), 1943

Here, Magrittes friend Scutenaire is immortalized, wearing his hunting suit, carrying his gun,
partly buried in the wall. Above the wall, we see huge tree trunks, helping to magnify the
gravitational effect. Perhaps these trees are huge electromagnetic columns producing the
immense field necessary for such bizarre quantum phenomena. And this is strange, because, in
this painting, Magritte imagined a state of gravity related to quantum mechanics. Objects
penetrating and intermingling with each other are a common notion in quantum mechanics-
interference or super-position are common terms referring to this strange effect of indivisibility
in nature (at least in the microcosm). Here, Scutenaire seems to be in a state of super-position
with the brick wall. In fact his left arm has become one with the wall. However, there isnt yet
any theory connecting quantum mechanics with gravity- a unified theory of quantum gravity, as
it is called. How can gravity, as the painting suggests, show the same behavior (interference
phenomena) as in quantum mechanics? Well, despite the fact that nobody knows how this may
be done, Magritte suggests that not only the idea but also the representation of the idea in a
painting is not impossible at all.

The battle of Argonne, 1959

Clear ideas, 1958

In a showdown between two seemingly opposite forms, a large cloud and an equally large stone
face each other, floating in the sky above a serene landscape. The viewer cannot help but notice
the disconcerting nature of this work; the giant stone appears as weightless as the cloud, yet
stone is notably heavy and typically anchored to the ground. Of works such as this (that convey
the world of stone) Meuris states, Gravity is necessarily succeeded by weightlessness. And
with Magritte the process is quite independent of the law of physics Actually, all things
considered, the problem of weightlessness has more to do with the poetic than the scientific
dimension. Faced with these paintings, it is appropriate to draw on knowledge. It is enough
that, by their presence before us, they transport us into other realms in a state of total serenity,
outside time.

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, or the Battle of the Argonne Forest, was a part of the final Allied
offensive of World War I that stretched along the entire Western Front. It was fought from
September 26, 1918, until the Armistice on November 11, a total of 47 days. The battle was the
largest in United States military history, involving 1.2 million American soldiers, and was one of
a series of Allied attacks known as the Hundred Days Offensive, which brought the war to an
end. The Meuse-Argonne was the principal engagement of the American expeditionary forces
during the First World War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse-Argonne_Offensive

In Magrittes Battle of Argonne we can see the forest and the sea in the far distance. The
Armistice is represented by the balance between the rock and the cloud below the moon.
However, Magrittes battle is fought between two different abstract forces or elements, the
earthly and the heavenly one. In Clear ideas, the land is removed, and a rock levitates
underneath a cloud and above the ocean. The bottom of the rock is darker, its illumination
becoming brighter as we move towards the cloud and the sky.

Zenos arrow (La fleche de Znon) 1964

In Magrittes sense, there is a connection between wining gravity and wining time. It seems as if
by reversing or even stopping time we could make things float in the air. Zenos arrow is
another example of a levitating rock. Here, the rock is set in the foreground, in front of a cloudy
sky, above the sea.

Zenos arrow is a paradox (among others) conceived by the ancient Greek philosopher in order
to prove the impossibility of motion. It goes like this: If everything when it occupies an equal
space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any
moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes#Arrow_paradox

This is in fact a problem of modern differential calculus (as stated by Newton and Leibnitz): The
motion of an arrow in flight is described by successive infinitesimal dispositions. The problem
however remains the same- if infinitesimals are infinitely small then the total distance should be
infinitely large; or if at an (infinitesimal) instant of time the position of the arrow is measured as
if the arrow was motionless, how is it possible that the arrow is moving? The answer is not
obvious at all, and the modern theory of infinitesimals has produced the problem of limits- a
quantity going to zero without ever becoming zero.

There is a variation of Zenos paradox, the so-called quantum Zeno effect. In 1977, physicists E.
C. G. Sudarshan and B. Misra studying quantum mechanics discovered that the dynamical
evolution (motion) of a quantum system can be hindered (or even inhibited) through observation
of the system. In other words, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Zeno_effect

If we take quantum mechanics as the basis to explain the arrow paradox, it is the observer who
freezes the arrows motion. However, the observer is not measuring the arrow continuously,
but in discrete intervals of time; therefore at the intermediate intervals during which the arrow is
not observed, it can move! The arrow is not considered a quantum object (it is too large), but I
guess in the future all objects will be regarded at least as quantum-like.

I just wanted to stress the importance of the observer here. In fact, we are the ones who both
observe motion and stillness. The arrow by itself can do whatever it wants, but it is the way we
measure it and interpret its condition (moving or being still) what gives the arrow specific
properties with respect to space and time.

Lets think about motion. Lets think for example an object moving. Is it really moving? We
believe things are moving out there while everything is motionless in thought. We could
equivalently say that it is consciousness what is running towards objects. However motion has
also an objective existence. For example, our body will be compressed in a fast accelerating
vehicle or rocket. But again what we realize is the effect of what we consider motion, not the
phenomenon of motion itself.

The same goes for gravity. It is a notion whose real effect is what we feel on our bodies (having
weight for example). Therefore the existence of gravity is what we infer by common experience,
but the cause of such a force is something difficult to grasp. The problem with a levitating rock is
that experience teaches us that all things fall, not that levitation cannot be theoretically achieved.
On the other hand, motion is a condition perceived by the senses and interpreted by the brain as
such. But things do not really move in our brain. Therefore, for the human mind motion is
impossible (in the same sense that objects are weightless when we think about them).

The glass key, 1959

The castle of the Pyrenees, 1959

A different contrast predominates in the picture of a rock hanging motionless in the air, a
contrast between the weight of the stone and the lightness attributed it by the painting. Magritte
characterizes one impossibility by means of another, as in the picture The glass key; at the
same time, he is following a process which he would often employ in order to pay homage to one
of his favorite authors, Dashiel Hammet (who wrote a novel with the same title).

I think that the best title for a picture is a poetic title, Magritte once said. As in his pictures-
here, for example, the rock seemingly hanging motionless in mid-air- Magritte likewise
frequently sought fantastic, poetic motifs for his titles. In this case, the contrast exists not
between different objects but rather between the different qualities of the same object: the weight
of the stone cannot be reconciled with the lightness which the painted picture gives it.

As far as The castle of the Pyrenees is concerned, it was inspired by Anne Radcliffes book
Visions of the castle in the Pyrenees (Les visions du chteau des Pyrnes). From 1959 to 1964
Magritte painted three versions of this subject matter. The final 1964 work was due to his friend
Harry Torczyner, who commissioned Magritte to paint this large-scale oil to cover up a window
in his New York office, whose preference of the painting would be to have the rock floating
above a dark and stormy sea like the North Sea of his youth, but in a bright daytime sky, so that
from the dark ocean we see rising this rock of hope crowned with its fortress-like castle.
http://musiqdragonfly.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/rene-magritte-1898-1967-chateau-des-
pyrenees/

The invisible world (Le monde invisible),
1954

The anniversary (Lanniversaire), 1959

The calligrapher (Le calligraphe), 1958
There is some sort of preoccupation with space in Magrittes paintings with rocks. In The
invisible world, a rock occupies an empty room with a view of the sea and the sky, while in
The anniversary, the rock doesnt leave any room left, as if the rock is space itself. In The
calligrapher, a rock is standing alone in a desert landscape. Certainly rocks represent endurance
against eternity, both naturally and psychologically. Rocks, if they dont fly, are certainly objects
we can lean on; when they do fly, we may preserve our dreams in a palace built upon such a
rock (like the Castle of the Pyrenees).

Magrittes preoccupation with space is also found in paintings with houses:

The breast, 1961

Spiritual look

The breast shows numerous three to four-floored houses heaped up like in the case of a car-
dump. Evidently Magritte questions the box-concept of modern architecture. The picture looks
very strange, because, usually, houses cannot be heaped up like this. They are not stable units
that can be vertically piled up under any spatial conditions like boxes, cars, or pieces of wood.
Houses of this type are composed of different elements. They fall apart correspondingly.

In Spiritual look, architectural speculation has moved away from the ground getting caught in
the heights of an absurd tower. Magritte ironically questions our ideas about the house as a
machine-like unit. It is not a tool for dwelling, a planned functional whole. It follows other laws,
those of a gradually evolved tectonic cultural landscape intimately related to man. Doors,
windows, rooms etc. all have their own lives, their own structure, their own history. Note that in
Magrittes house-dump no human being is indicated!

The whole oeuvre of Magritte is organized in this way. He experiments with one or many
houses, asks spatial, temporal and causal questions in and around buildings, produces tests with
parts of houses, with the in front and behind of walls, with furniture, with monuments.
http://home.worldcom.ch/negenter/015AcrobatArchives/CPublications/MagritteArchist_E.pdf

The listening room, 1952

The listening room, 1958

The listening room gives viewers cause to think once they consider the title of the work and
attach it to the physical work of art. Not a huge painting in itself, it depicts a mighty green apple
within a tiny room. Or maybe it is an ordinary sized apple placed within a tiny room? This is
typical of Magritte, who amused himself by playing with scale in his work. In Magrittes own
words on discussing his unnatural placement of objects, he describes a union that suggests the
essential mystery of the world. Art for me is not an end in itself, but a means of evoking that
mystery.

Magritte painted this theme twice, once in 1952 and yet again in 1958. The apple remains
consistent, however the room in which it appears is rich in background color in the earlier
version. Having a deep brown wooden floor and terracotta walls against an ivory painted
window frame and ceiling, the painting seems warm and inviting. The window allows in light
that allows the skill of the artist to be fully appreciated in his depiction of the apple skin. Beyond
the window, the fields echo the green hues of the fruit. In the later painting, however, the room
has become more of a cell like, pale structure with stone floor and walls. The window, now a
glass free archway, lends the painting a stark, cold interpretation. The apple itself appears to
stand out more in the second painting, the coolness of the background a starker contrast. The
viewer could simply reach out and remove the fruit from its confines.

It is interesting to study the attention to detail. The painting could almost be photographic in
Magrittes realistic approach to the piece of fruit, yet he chooses to place it in an impossible
situation. Furthermore, he gives it an ironic title, there are neither ears with which to listen, nor
anything within the painting to listen to. The apple remains silent in what appears to be a silent
room. Perhaps Magritte intended the title to apply to the viewer and not the viewed? Do
viewers, on reflection of the painting, begin to listen to their own thoughts on the subject? After
all, in Freuds theory of symbolism in dreams, the apple represents a breast and people should
perhaps note that Magrittes own mother committed suicide when he was young. It is understood
that his father attempted to lock her in a room in order to keep her safe from herself. Maybe once
all this is considered, then The listening room becomes a place for silent contemplation and
grief.
http://www.finearts360.com/index.php/artwork-analysis-the-listening-room-by-magritte-65/

The principle of Archimedes (Le principle d Archimde)

It is interesting to note here that what we consider space is something absolutely non- existent. It
is objects which give a sense of space. For example, two objects in space define the distance in
between. Furthermore, space itself is defined as the interior of an object. What we commonly
refer to as space is in fact the interior of the universe. No space can be defined outside these
limits. In other words, space is always relative to some reference point, with respect to an
observer.

However, the observer is not found in an absolute position in space. He also refers to the object
he observes or to a point of reference of another observer; and so on. Here the observer is the
viewer, and the system he observes is the painting. Lets take for example the Listening
room first. The huge apple occupies the room. The space of the room is defined by the interior
of the apple, leaving outside the corners of the room.- It is very interesting to note that
Archimedes was the first who tried to calculate the area (or perimeter) of a cycle using another
object (a polygon with a gradually increasing number of sides) inside the circle. This is I believe
the fundamental notion (as well as the secret) behind Magrittes attempt to artistically square the
circle, to fill the room (which is an object) with an apple (which is another object).

As far as The principle of Archimedes is concerned, Archimedes defined the principle as
follows: Any object, wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to
the weight of the fluid displaced by the object.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes'_principle

This is related to the force of buoyancy. Hot air balloons illustrate the principle: They float in the
air because the air they contain is lighter (has lower density) than the air outside. Magritte had
painted balloons, and it seems he was astonished by the principle. Therefore he decided to use
the principle to paint apples floating in the air. Can apples float in the air? Well, any object
could, provided it was less dense than air. The problem here is not the form of the apple but the
composition of the object (whatever its shape). In Einsteins theory of general relativity, the
energy density of the vacuum is related to gravity, as well as temperature, and other forces which
may be present. Could we construct an object lighter than empty space? Well, it would suffice
to be lighter, less dense, than the density of the local gravitational field in order to make it not to
fall. I dont know if Magritte knew that free fall is true inertial motion (therefore free falling
objects or observers are considered stationary from their frame of reference). Nevertheless,
things float in empty space, away from gravity, in space stations for example. Someone in a
space station could take a plate with apples and arrange them in such a way as depicted in
Magrittes painting. Then he could paint them or take a picture of them, imitating Magrittes
painting. However this has nothing to do with Archimedes principle or Magrittes initial
intention. Or has it?

The familiar world (Le monde familier), 1958

I left this painting to be the last one, regarding the Voice of space unity, because it summarizes
the painters ideas about the relativity of space. The three objects are set in an opposite direction
(the rock higher, the bell lower, and the cloud in the middle), suggesting that the bell could be
considered the lightest object of the three- but the heaviest in importance. The bell here seems
to exert some force of resonance, through sound or microwave vibrations, on the other objects,
making them levitate. Although magical, this resonance sphere, or bell, appears to be a
physical object, as it casts shadow on the beach, just in front of the vast sea. The vastness of the
sea expressed in the painting, suggests the idea of eternity. The three objects are therefore set
according to an eternal representation- the earth (the rock), the heavens (the cloud in the sky),
consciousness (the sphere), against the ocean of the eternal. Therefore, space has its own voice;
either in the form of the cosmic background microwave radiation of physics, or in the form of the
imaginary sounds produced by magical surrealistic objects, such as Magrittes bells.

The voice of blood

It would be a mistake to take Magrittes titles literally. But theres certainly some underlying
meaning or principle. Here, for example, the symbolism of the spheres, or bells, which we
previously encountered (although impersonal here), together with a huge tree (not bilboquet-
like this time), and a house, forms a basic triad- the spirit, the body, and the heart, respectively-
of the memory (or voice) of blood.

The voice of blood (La voix du sang), 1947

The voice of blood, 1948

In The voice of blood and other works of the late 1940s, Magritte returned to the mysterious
imagery and representational surrealistic style, after spending the earlier portion of the decade
producing parodies of Impressionism. The mysterious image of a mighty, leafy tree transformed
into a cylindrical cupboard with a white ball and illuminated house reveals the lasting impact of
the Italian painter Giorgio de Chiricos pittura metafisica on Magritte's oeuvre. The artist may
have based the unfolding bark doors of this tree on an illustration of cork harvesting that he
found in the Larousse encyclopedia, one of his preferred sources of existing imagery. Magrittes
colleague, the playwright Claude Spaak, has suggested that Magritte found this image in a
chapter from Lewis Carrolls Alices adventures in Wonderland, where she remarks that one
of the trees had a door leading right into it.

Having established a new visualization of the compartmented tree with the present work,
Magritte painted many subsequent versions with the same title, each of these works retaining this
basic iconography with very slight modifications. In 1947, Magritte painted two gouaches of this
scene and he produced a second oil painting with a crimson curtain (second image), as well as
two more gouaches in the following year.


Whereas Magritte cropped out the trees canopy in these images, the version painted in 1959
expands the composition to encompass the whole tree, which he preserved in the final canvas
done in 1961.

The title of these works may also translate as The call of blood, or alternately Blood will tell,
which confers an ominous character onto the scene. The illuminated windows of the tiny house
suggest an unseen and possibly nefarious activity. Magritte twice offered commentary on this
work in 1948, yet his enigmatic words amplify the mysterious quality of the imagery. Addressing
the scene in his text, Magritte states: The words dictated to us by the blood sometimes appear
foreign to us. Here, it seems to want to command us to open up magic riches in the trees. In an
exhibition catalogue from the same year, Magritte refers to the tree as an enchanted creature,
writing: We could hear the hearts of the trees beating before the hearts of men. This cryptic
subject matter is enhanced by an ambiguous sense of scale that is established in the sphere and
house. The viewer must contemplate whether he can accept these two objects as a conventional
sports ball and a dollhouse, especially if the house is possibly life-sized.

Threshold of forest (Le seuil de la foret),
1926

The parade (La parade), 1940

The Voice of blood series build upon ideas that Magritte had previously conceived in previous
paintings. In the Threshold of forest, we see a tree baring a wall in its trunk, suggesting a
intermediate stage between trees and buildings, an idea which was later transformed in the
Voice of blood series of paintings. In the parade, we find a blue print for the idea of a curtain
behind the tree in the 1948 version of The voice of blood.

Paul Eluard wrote a poem in 1935, with respect to Magrittes paintings. It goes like this:

Steps of the eye
Through the bars of forms
A never-ending staircase
None-existent rest
One of the steps is hidden by a cloud
Another by a big knife
Another by a tree which unfolds
Like a carpet
Without gestures
All the steps are hidden
Green leaves have been scattered
Immense fields deduced forests
At sundown leaden banisters
On a level with the clearings
In the light milk of morning
The sand pours its rays
Onto the silhouettes of the mirrors
Their cold, pale shoulders
Their decorative smiles
The tree is tinted with invulnerable fruits.

The parade was exhibited in a small exhibition held in Brussels during the Occupation in 1941,
and was acquired by Eluard. The deceptive simplicity of this pictures composition, with its near-
desert landscape, a tree and a curtain, lends it a forceful immediacy. The image is easy to read,
yet more complex to decipher. At the same time, it is after the initial jolt of recognition that The
parade slowly reveals its mysteries. The gnarled tree is shown against a red curtain similar to
that which appears in several of Magrittes paintings. In this way, Magritte throws various
conventions of artistic tradition into question: the contrast between interior and exterior,
represented by curtain and tree, has somehow been exploded. Likewise, the idea of concealment
and revelation represented by the curtain has been reversed: the tree, far from being hidden, is
displayed to the viewer, while the potentially barren landscape in the background has been
suppressed. Magritte has used the rich red of the curtain to thrust the meticulously-rendered bark
of the tree into bold relief, creating an intriguing and aesthetic dissonance between the textures of
the wood and of the soft material in the background.

Dolmen in the snow, Caspar David Friedrich, 1807

In The parade, Magritte has subverted the usual presentation of trees in paintings. Here, he has
done this by showing the tree firstly without leaves, and secondly cropped in such a manner that
most of its bulk and height is implied to continue far above the top edge of the canvas. To some
extent, it recalls the expressive trees in the paintings of, say, Caspar David Friedrich, for instance
his Dolmen in the snow from circa 1807. In both paintings, the trees appear to function in part
as substitutes for human subjects, proxies able to convey some sense of sublime fallacy. But in
Magrittes painting that sentiment is transformed into something distinctly Magrittean- it has an
understated wit and playfulness, as the artist plays with our perceptions and expectations.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/rene-magritte-la-parade-5532339-details.aspx#top

Almayers folly (La folie almayer), 1951

The red model (Le model rouge), 1935

Almayers Folly, is Joseph Conrads first novel, published in 1895. Set in the late 19th century,
it centers on the life of the Dutch trader Kaspar Almayer in the Borneo jungle and his
relationship to his mixed heritage daughter Nina.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almayer's_Folly

In Magrittes version, the tree has large roots, just like mangrove trees in Borneo, but it is rooted
in the air. Furthermore, the tree trunk is a castle, half ruined, perhaps to suggest its antiquity. In
The red model, the boots have become one with the feet wearing them. Such sort of tautologies
emphasize the common origin of things, as well as criticize the common way in which we treat
things of everyday use.

Regarding the subject, Magritte said: The problem of shoes demonstrates how the most barbaric
things pass as acceptable through the force of habit. One feels, thanks to The red model, that
the union of a human foot and a leather shoe arises in reality from a monstrous custom.

The uncanny affinity between the feet and the shoes drives our curiosity and undermines our
habitual conceptual polarity: feet/shoe, human/non-human, civilization/wilderness,
inside/outside. To combine human feet with leather to form a new object is an expression and
demonstration of hybridization and monstrosity. The frightening reversal reveals a monstrous
habit when the outside becomes inside. The container (boot) contains the contained- the
privileged human-flesh-foot. Then, with the backdrop of the ground, one would recognize the
foot of the boot as a stranded thing. This thing-ness objectifies a human entity as a non-
human entity that shatters the viewers subject position. The awareness of the thing-ness of foot
and the hybridity of such combination evoke a bizarre feeling which could be designated as
monstrous. Monstrosity of being designates the ontological grasping of an alien world that
belongs to the realm of infinity and totality.

The monstrosity in The red model suggests a spilt- feet/shoe, human/non-human,
civilization/wilderness, inside/outside. In the awareness of the reversal, we transfer from the
esthetical to the ethical undertaking- we recognize a monstrosity in the human custom- a human
unskins the animal in order to make a thing to cover the human skin, and in doing so he
terminates the being of the animal (and reduces it to become stuff) to construct being for
humans. Here we recognize a preference to an orderly interiority as being (and exteriority as
non-being). Human identity is created by bracketing off the wild outside of the human skin.
The freedom to either put on the leather (to integrate the being of animal into the human
organism) and or put off the leather (and regard it as stuff to create distance between the human
and the wild) is regarded as process of culturalization. Such a violence of nailing- of
compulsory associating, assimilating alien things together is an indispensable element of dream
and memory. Habit, or a persistence of memory, is indispensable in monstrosity.
http://www.nem.tku.edu.tw/courses/modernity/2B/Magritte_01.htm

Im very glad that I found such a monstrous analysis concerning The red model. I have
always believed that art is a great way toward psychoanalysis (and even better than). We dont
need to understand Dalis monstrous images; it suffices to recognize them- this is how we get
them out of ourselves. The uncanny is explicitly depicted in The red model, with a human-like
shoe (or a shoe-like foot). The feeling of the uncanny emerges, since we cannot make up our
mind if the object is human (a being) or footwear (a thing).

The oldest known leather shoe, about 5500 years old, found in Armenia

However, I dont believe that shoes are barbaric at all. The earliest known shoes are sandals
dating from approximately 7,000 or 8,000 BCE, found in Oregon, USA. The worlds oldest
leather shoe, made from a single piece of cowhide laced with a leather cord along seams at the
front and back, was found in Armenia, and is believed to date to 3,500 BCE. tzi the Icemans
shoes, dating to 3,300 BCE, featured brown bearskin bases, deerskin side panels, and a bark-
string net, which pulled tight around the foot. However, it is estimated that shoes may have been
used long before this, but it is difficult to find evidence of the earliest footwear due to the highly
perishable nature of early shoes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe

I dont know if Magritte regarded humans as barbarians because we skin animals to provide
ourselves with clothes (among other things), or if he believed that walking barefoot is a sign of
civilization. But the point is that the statement itself is a tautology: By wearing shoes, we are at
the same time civilized (because we know the technology) and savages (because we skin
animals). Even if we didnt skin animals, wearing shoes would remain related to an ambiguous
behavior: No matter how civilized we become, we keep on wearing clothes to protect our naked
parts from the environment- and from the common view.

The labours of Alexander (Les travaux d Alexandre), 1950

The original story (about the Gordian Knot) goes something like this: Gordias, before becoming
king of the Frygians was a peasant. At one time the Phrygians were without a king. An oracle
decreed that the next man to enter the city driving an ox-cart should become their king. Gordias
(then a peasant farmer) drove into town on an ox-cart, and, on entering the city, Gordias was
declared king by the priests. The ox-cart remained in the palace of the kings of Phrygia when
Alexander arrived. Alexander attempted to untie the knot. When he could not find the end to the
knot to unbind it, he sliced it in half with a stroke of his sword, producing the required ends (the
so-called Alexandrian solution).

Alexander tried to solve the problem because an oracle had prophesied that the one to untie the
knot would become the king of Asia. However Alexander solved the problem by using brute
force! This is why the phrase Gordian Knot is often used as a metaphor for an intractable
problem (disentangling an impossible knot) solved easily (and arbitrarily) by cheating or
thinking outside the box. However, unlike fable, true myth has few completely arbitrary
elements. This myth taken as a whole seems designed to confer legitimacy to dynastic change in
this central Anatolian kingdom: thus Alexanders brutal cutting of the knot... ended an ancient
dispensation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_Knot

The comparison suggested here is rather clear: As Alexander solved an ancient problem (the
problem of tyrannical regimes) with military force, so Magritte ended the tyranny of images
with artistic methods. As in the case of the Gordian Knot the knot symbolizes a problem which
needs solution, in The labors of Alexander the objects represent meanings (therefore other
objects) underlying and underlining the true problem.

The imaginative faculty, 1948

A similar problem refers to Columbuss egg. It refers to a brilliant idea or discovery that seems
simple or easy after the fact. The expression refers to an apocryphal story in which Christopher
Columbus, having been told that discovering the Americas was inevitable and no great
accomplishment, challenges his critics to make an egg stand on its tip. After his challengers give
up, Columbus does it himself by tapping the egg on the table to flatten its tip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus

As the term is often alluded to when discussing creativity, and has also been used as the trade
name of puzzles, Magrittes Effective affinities, or the previous painting, The imaginative
faculty, express the painters ingenuity in solving problems. How could someone, for example,
depict the male sexual organ in a simple, also artistic, way? Magritte found a solution by using a
candle and three eggs (one egg being redundant!).

Clairvoyance (Self- portrait), 1936

https://www.flickr.com/photos/centralasian/
6601917423/

Instead of Columbuss eggs or Gordian knots, Magritte used Magrittean apples to illustrate the
same principle- how to use an object as a complement in order to find the simplest possible
solution to a problem with an equally important respective meaning. In Archimedes principle,
Magritte used apples to float, instead of whatever objects Archimedes originally used, to solve
the problem of buoyancy. -However Columbuss egg reappears in the previous painting-.

An Archimedean point is a hypothetical vantage point from which an observer can objectively
perceive the subject of inquiry, with a view of totality. The ideal of removing oneself from the
object of study so that one can see it in relation to all other things, but remain independent of
them, is described by a view from an Archimedean point. The expression comes from
Archimedes, who supposedly claimed that he could lift the Earth off its foundation if he were
given a place to stand, one solid point, and a long enough lever. This is also mentioned in
Descartes second meditation with regards to finding certainty, the 'unmovable point'
Archimedes sought.

Skeptical and anti-realist philosophers criticize the possibility of an Achimedean point, claiming
it is a form of scientism. Example quote: We can no more separate our theories and concepts
from our data and percepts than we can find a true Archimedean point- a gods-eye view- of
ourselves and our world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedean_point

How interesting this is- a kind of belief in absolute truth. It is also related to the observer effect
in physics, and the subject-object problem in psychology and philosophy. This is the importance:
If we could remove ourselves from the thing we observe, then this thing could be seen perfectly
in its totality, without the influence of the observer. Exactly this problem is depicted in
Magrittes Clairvoyance. The painter becomes the absolute observer, who observes himself
painting his own portrait. But again, the painter is not the absolute observer. He refers to the
viewer, who in turn refers to someone else, and so on, ad infinitum. The problem of infinity
(infinite regress) arises here against any attempt for absolute knowledge.

In Magrittes initial painting, The labors of Alexander, the tree holds the axe, as if it felled
itself. This is impossible, because it is a self-referring action. The picture is also reminiscent of
one who chopped off ones own head. Again we have the same problem of self-reference and of
the impossibility of absolute reference. It is as if we were able to push ourselves so that we
started to move. This is the endless and cumbersome journey of knowledge which we tend to
search for in an absolute manner.

The search for the absolute (La recherche de
labsolu), 1960

The search for the absolute, 1963

An exquisite, autumnal gouache from 1960, The search for the absolute shows one of
Magrittes most iconic and favored motifs, the tree-leaf. However, where in his earlier
explorations of this theme the leaf was green, standing gargantuan, absurd, magical and
magnificent in its landscape, here it is denuded of foliage, the branches or veins the only
remaining trace of its former verdant self. Nonetheless, the emphatic flatness of the leaf has been
retained in this image, ensuring that Magrittes conceptual game remains in play. At the same
time, appearing bare and thus allowing the pink glow of the sky to filter through its gauze of
branches, The search for the absolute attains a profound sense of visual lyricism that adds to
the appropriateness of its title.

The title of the present gouache likely stems from the novel The quest for the absolute (La
recherche de l absolu) by Honor de Balzac (1834), which portrays the destructive effects of one
mans obsession with alchemy and a quest for absolute truth. Magritte often took inspiration
from literature, film, and musical scores when coming up with titles for his canvases, and he also
invited suggestions from friends such as the writers Paul Noug and Louis Scutenaire, who is
thought to have contributed the title for the present work. As in many of Magrittes paintings
after 1930, the title has a tenuous, indirect or seemingly incongruous relationship with the
imagery, through which the artist invites the viewer to build associations on his own.

The search for the absolute, 1940

The search for the absolute is a variation on an idea that Magritte first depicted in three oil
paintings at the end of 1940. Magritte described these canvases to the Belgian playwright Claude
Spaak in a letter from January 1941, stating: Among the recent canvases, there are three
versions of The search for the absolute, which is a leafless tree (in winter) but with branches
that provide the shape of a leaf, a leaf even so! One version takes places in the evening with a
setting sun, another in the morning with a white sphere on the horizon, and the third shows this
great, self-willed leaf rising against a starry sky.

Easter morning, Caspar David Friedrich, 1833

By the time Magritte revisited the theme of The search for the absolute in the 1960s, the
tension of the Second World War was far in the past. Accordingly, his subject has a romantic
warmth to it that was lacking in its chillier 1940 incarnation. Indeed, the contrast between the
branches, or veins, of this tree-leaf against the pink sky recall the 1833 German painter Caspar
David Friedrichs work Easter morning. Deliberately invoking the visual language of Friedrich,
Magritte has depicted his expansive landscape with a low horizon, leading into a meditative
distance, with the single tree-leaf in the foreground acting as an anchor to the composition,
serving as an analogue not for the trees of Easter morning, but instead for the often solitary
figures the German painter used in the foregrounds of his pictures.

The search for the absolute (posthumous publication)

Magrittes deadpan style of representation sets formal rationalism against an improbable and
fantastical sense of scale; the ball is an oppressive presence when contrasted with to the
miniscule figures, yet without the suggestion of the landscape setting, the gouache could almost
pass for a purely scientific representation of two frontal, hand-sized objects. The use of an
enlarged leaf to represent a tree, the substitution of a part for the whole, underscores his
exploration of provocative encounters between objects that are based on an inherent association
with each other. Continuing this game of affinities, the leaf-shaped tree also suggests a
circulatory system as it branches through a human lung, lending the image a human aspect,
which further contrasts with the hard, inanimate perfection of the ball. The branching lines
describe the nature of the quest; they are a series of paths to be chosen and taken while none
actually leads to the absolute.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/rene-magritte-la-recherche-de-labsolu-4983569-
details.aspx#top
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/drawings-watercolors/rene-magritte-la-recherche-de-labsolu-

This is the journey of the absolute- back to our roots, at the same time. The Voice of blood
unity suggests such a journey. It is not just an elaborate artistic way to depict a tree, a house, and
a childs game (a ball) in the same place at the same time. It is also the simultaneous gathering of
three objects, which correspond to three distinct respective meanings. Blood runs in our veins.
Trees have their own veins, and Magritte often depicted leaf-like trees with veins. This is our
earthly past in the soil, where we all come from and where we will all end. The house could be
related to childhood, therefore memories. Our blood is full of memories. Memories are stored in
genes and carried by blood. Blood is our heritage and our biggest obligation. The ball, resting on
the upper tree-floor, is again related to the spirit (just like all bells or space-balls in Magrittes
paintings.) The spirit is placed above the heart or any family ties (represented by the house), and
well above the roots of the tree (physical drives, hidden instincts). We cannot avoid the call of
blood, but at the same time we cannot help following the call which echoes in the highest
pockets of the heavens, beyond the tip of the tree, or behind the curtain, in the deepest roots of
our soul.

Time transfixed

Reflections of time (Les reflets du temps),
1928

Reflections of time, 1927

What is time? Time is one of the most common things or notions, which we deal with every
day. Heres a definition:

The system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or
future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/time

This is the most common, causal interpretation of time. Time in this sense is defined as the
gap between succeeding events (in a series where the previous event causes the following one).
This way time is defined through the relations between events. But what if the relations were
different? What if, for example, a couple or group of events appeared spontaneously, without any
apparent relationship between them whatsoever? What if the hands of a clock pointed towards a
canon and the sky, as depicted in the first painting Reflections of time?

In the second painting, the clock looks like a strange device consisting of the sound hole of a
violin, while the clock, whose face looks more like a precious stone, has one hand extended,
with a small pearl at the end. The only notion of time in this painting is implied by the shadow
that the hand of the clock casts on the ground.

The lining of sleep, 1928

F-shaped sound holes are common in Magrittes paintings, and they are used, lets say, to
improve the artistic resonance of the painting. There is a certain connection between time and
sound. In fact we perceive time through our ears mostly. Now I suspect that we also perceive
space mostly with the help of our ears. It is the emptiness found all around us, echoed in the
wind, or the sound of silence itself what gives us the best impression about space and time
emptiness. Indeed, time is not the ticking of the clock but the gap in between two ticks. In the
same sense, space is the gap in between two positions, not the position themselves. What an
astonishing discovery: space-time is just a notion with the help of which we feel the gaps all
around us. This is what happens in The lining of sleep: The f-holes of a musical instrument,
together with some other of its parts have risen in the night sky, inviting us, as the curtain falls,
to listen to the world of dreams.

The end of time (La fin du temp), 1927

Magrittes notion of time is also revealed in cut out paper paintings. In the End of time, one has
the impression that one may stop time by replacing the face of a clock with a cut out paper, as if
the holes of the paper formed traps for the passage of time. The time device of this painting is
leaning on a table (or even a wall) with characteristic wood lines. The wood lines seem to have
an impact on some notion of time in the painting, as tree rings could have.

Man with a newspaper, 1928

Time is considered not only in the context of causality (that things should have a purpose in
order to occur), but it is also regarded as continuous. However, a fragmented picture of time is
illustrated in the Man with a newspaper. The painting looks as if taken from the movies,
consisting of separate frames, the man disappearing after the first frame.

Magritte told Andre Bosmans in 1960 that the image of a man seated in a room was based on an
illustration in The natural method of healing, by F.E. Bilz, a popular guide to health, first
published in 1898. The book is illustrated with a large number of quaint steel engravings. This
particular one was done to illustrate an Ideal incandescent fuel stove with flue recommended by
Professor Bilz for any place where there is no chimney, and where much warmth is required.
Magritte followed the main lines of the composition, but eliminated a number of details and
simplified the forms throughout. The most conspicuous changes are that the pipe runs vertically
upwards instead of bending almost at right angles; the shelf and the vase with peacock feathers
have been eliminated; the curtains are different and the view through the window is of landscape
instead of buildings; there are more flowers on the window ledge; the object in the foreground is
a stool instead of a chair; and the man is not smoking. Georgette Magritte confirms that there is a
copy of the French language edition of this book in her husbands library and that this particular
page is missing, having probably been extracted to work from.

The repetition of the same image in four compartments (almost identical except for the presence
of the seated man in the upper left section only) is itself highly unusual in Magrittes work. A.N.
Girling has pointed out that cross-eyed viewing of the two pairs of images, and especially the
lower pair, produces a strongly three-dimensional stereoscopic effect, which because of a slight
sideways displacement of the images he believes must have been deliberate. It may be added that
the table and stools have also been shifted downwards in the lower pair of images, and one looks
more down onto them. However, Georgette writes that she never heard her husband speak of
stereoscopes, that he took no interest in the bizarre pairs of photographs of a stereoscopic kind
and that the family never possessed a stereoscope.

When Magritte was asked whether his painting could have any connection with Bergsons
theories of time on account of its repetition of an image and the fact that a man is present in one
compartment but is absent from the other three, he replied: The man with a newspaper... like my
other paintings, is concerned with the description of a thought combining forms (visual) drawn
from the tangible world- but in such a way that mystery is evoked. This thought is inspired in the
sense that it both resembles forms of the visual world and that it evokes the mystery without
which no world and no thought would be possible. I regard the description of inspired thought as
poetry. Inspired thought (as I understand it) arises spontaneously: one may search for it but it
comes independently of the will. The man with a newspaper is the image of a thought and the
latter does not correspond to a philosophical doctrine. Bergsons theories describe ideas; what I
paint contains no idea. I paint something to be seen: an image in itself which is the image of a
thought in itself. This thought (like all mystery) defies interpretation. However, it is possible to
speak of this thought, to comment on the image which describes it. To do this well requires
inspiration.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/magritte-man-with-a-newspaper-t00680/text-catalogue-entry

Time transfixed (La dure poignarde), 1938

However, it seems that Magritte was indeed influenced by Bergson, as the previous title
suggests. Duration was a key concept in Bergsons philosophy, and the title (dure poignarde)
means something like duration suspended. It literally translates as stabbed duration, but the
element of suspended time is well supported by the train, emerging from within the fireplace, as
if nailed onto the wall. The clock also, exactly above the train, further supports this view of
suspended time.

Bergson was a French philosopher influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. He
believed that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and
science for understanding reality. Bergson rejected what he saw as the overly mechanistic
predominant view of causality. He argued that we must allow space for free will to unfold in an
autonomous and unpredictable fashion.

Bergson attempted to redefine the modern conceptions of time, space, and causality in his
concept of duration. He introduced his theory of duration as a theory of time and consciousness
in his essay Time and free will, first published in 1889. On the contrary to Kant, who believed
that time and space could exist independently of consciousness, Bergson realized that the
moment one attempted to measure a moment, it would be gone: one measures an immobile,
complete line, whereas time is mobile and incomplete. Therefore, for the individual, time may
speed up or slow down, whereas, for science, it would remain the same.

With respect to Zeno, who believed that motion is impossible, Bergson argued that the problem
only arises when mobility and time, that is, duration, are mistaken for the spatial line that
underlies them. Time and mobility are mistakenly treated as things, not progressions. They are
treated retrospectively as a things spatial trajectory, which can be divided ad infinitum, whereas
they are, in fact, an indivisible whole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duration_(philosophy)

Magritte, who was reportedly unhappy with the generally accepted translation of Time
transfixed, hoped that Edward James, who had bought the painting, would hang it at the base of
his staircase so that the train would stab guests on their way up to the ballroom. James instead
chose to hang the painting above his own fireplace. Magritte described his motivation for this
painting: I decided to paint the image of a locomotive In order for its mystery to be evoked,
another immediately familiar image without mystery- the image of a dining room fireplace- was
joined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Transfixed

Piazza d Italia, Giorgio de Chirico, 1913

The anxious journey, Giorgio de Chirico,
1913

The depiction of locomotives (as well as of other steam powered machines and vehicles) was in
fact one of De Chiricos favorite themes in his early paintings. For example, in Piazza d Italia
we see a locomotive, while in The anxious journey we see a steam- boat. De Chirico combined
classical painting (statues for example) with the industrialized and modernized environment
which he grew in. Magritte first saw de Chiricos works in the beginning of the 1920s. However,
Magritte didnt joined De Chirico in the latters modernizing efforts. Magritte sought the soul of
the steam in a locomotive, not the locomotive itself. In the same sense, the clock in Time
transfixed, is there to make us thing about duration, not what brand it is, or what time it shows.
Note that one of the candlesticks in the painting has no reflection in the mirror. Therefore this
candle stick is just a virtual duplicate- a consequence of transfixed time.

The voyager (Le voyageur), 1937

Calabi- Yau manifold

This is another painting which apparently contains a complex notion of time. Time here is
wrapped or warped, together with some of Magrittes favorite surrealist objects. Objects define
space therefore also time. Objects also compose our memories. In our minds time runs
differently from physical time. But as we compare distances between objects to define space, so
we compare objects (or events) to define time. Two successive ticks of the clock are two events
which have importance for an observer who measures time duration- not for the universe.

When I first saw Magrittes this compactified conglomeration hanging in the sky (The
voyager), I remembered depictions of manifolds. Manifolds are multi-dimensional geometric
constructions which can help describe and visualize objects with complex shapes. In physics,
manifolds are used in superstring theory to depict extra dimensions of spacetime (which may
reach as much as 10 or 11). It is interesting to say that strings (also called branes in this context)
offer a generalization of a particle to higher dimensions. Our own universe could be a massive
10-brane (with 10 spatial dimensions); then there might be other branes existing in a higher
dimensional space. If branes are actually universes, then this might possibly imply the existence
of a multiverse. Physicist Brian Greene illustrates this by saying that it is as if the branes are
slices of bread, and a multiverse is the loaf of all the slices together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabi%E2%80%93Yau_manifold
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brane_cosmology

The golden legend, 1958

In fact this painting could represent the generalization of multiverse theory; here each loaf of
bread is a multiverse. But how many universes are out there? And what do we really mean
when we say dimensions? Is the universe found somewhere else but inside the manifold of
our brain? And what is the meaning of dimensions in space-time, within the spaceless and
timeless confines of our mind? Is the physical theory we have about the universe more complex
(or more important) than a loaf of bread?

I remember that when Dali was asked by the physicist Ilya Prigogine concerning his painting
Persistence of memory about the meaning of the melting clocks (if he incorporated the theory
of relativity in the notion), Dali replied that the soft watches were not inspired by the theory of
relativity, but by the surrealist perception of a Camembert cheese melting in the sun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persistence_of_Memory

This answer was apparently cynical most likely because Dali wanted to point out how strong our
persistence of memory is concerning the theories we built about the world (and how difficult it
is to change our views).

The month of the grape harvest, 1959

I was thinking that if there was another (a second) dimension of time, an object could be found
simultaneously in two different places at the same time. If time had an infinite number of extra
dimensions, its multiplication effect could be infinite. In The month of the grape harvest,
Magritte explores the notion with astonishing simplicity: The people depicted look as if they
were copies of the same time-machine (although not perfect copies). Each person in fact
represents just an instant from the history of the same consciousness- the one that invented them.
They are too many to be Magrittes acquaintances all of them. Therefore the meaning is not
about social relationships but, on the contrary, about a lonely mind reproducing its own parts.

Still life with stoneware jug, wine glass,
herring and bread, Pieter Claesz, 1642

Living still life, Salvador Dali, 1956

Causality and continuity with respect to time are notions under scrutiny by modern science.
Quantum mechanics (quantum means discrete quantity) considers the possibility of a
quantized space-time, where quantum particles may jump instantaneously from place to place in
quantum teleportation, or they can be connected with a spooky action at a distance, as once
Einstein said about a strange phenomenon predicted by quantum mechanics but now proven to
be correct, and which is called quantum entanglement. In our thoughts, time can stop and
distance can disappear; but what can never stop is thought itself. It is the motion of our own
consciousness what gives meaning to space and time, and this is what gives rise to paradoxes.

Still lifes are such paradoxes because they depict common objects and themes from everyday life
as if they were stabbed by the painter so that he could avoid the passage of time. What is also
interesting is that many early still life paintings used the trompe lil technique, as in Claeszs
painting- the knife and the glass are balancing at the edge of the table as if they were ready to
fall. Dali in Living still life, explored further the notion by making a painting where everything
seems to float.

Fine realities, 1964

The land of miracles (Le pays des miracles),
1964

Magritte indeed painted still lifes. In Fine realities, a table is lying on an apple (and not vice-
versa), while in The land of miracles, we can see a room through a landscape. The
impossibility expressed in such paintings is based on how we perceive objects, therefore on how
we conceive the notions of space and time.

One may say that there really is a simple way of understanding time, and this is decay. No matter
what we wither, we get old, and eventually we die. The metaphysical problem of time can be
therefore reduced to the study of a dead fish, a corpse or a statue, a rotten apple or a decaying
radioactive particle.

Still lifes represent snapshots of everyday events, ordinary or extraordinary, which were
captured just for an instant of time, before they moved on. In this sense, all paintings are still
lifes, because they capture just a scene of an event in space and time, not motion. But again, any
painting also incorporates motion- the painting may have appeared suddenly in the painters
mind, but it took time (therefore motion) to be painted on the canvas. Still lifes also express
things and events gone- dead natures used to be alive. Where do things go when they leave? Are
still lifes dead, or do they keep on living in the illusive world of paintings and in our
memories? No matter what effect a painting intends to create, the space and time, the meaningful
relation and causal succession of the objects, and the reconstructed continuity and totality of the
scenes, are all just still lifes of consciousness.

Hegels holiday, 1958

Hegels holiday is another example of a still life. There is a letter written by Magritte to Suzi
Gablik explaining the genesis of the work:

My latest painting began with the question: how to show a glass of water in a painting in such a
way that it would not be indifferent? Or whimsical, or arbitrary, or weak- but, allow us to use the
word, with genius? I began by drawing many glasses of water, always with a linear mark on the
glass. This line, after the 100th or 150th drawing, widened out and finally took the form of an
umbrella. The umbrella was then put into the glass, and to conclude, underneath the glass; which
is the exact solution to the initial question: how to paint a glass of water with genius. I then
thought that Hegel (another genius) would have been very sensitive to this object which has two
opposing functions: at the same time not to admit any water (repelling it) and to admit it
(containing it). He would have been delighted, I think, or amused (as on vacation), and I call the
painting, Hegels Holiday.

Here follows an analysis of the painting:

What is fascinating here is to watch how the work progresses almost beyond or against
Magrittes will, as though he can only look at it unfold before his eyes. The subject of the
painting begins as a kind of stain in the water that repeats itself from drawing to drawing before
taking on its final form as an umbrella. It is as though there is some unconscious force at play of
which Magritte is only an effect, which precedes him and which he can only trace out or follow.
Magritte does not know at any stage what he is imitating or what his series of drawings has in
common. But the extraordinary thing is that out of this series of comparisons something is
produced that- perhaps- has nothing in common with that original line with which he began. That
umbrella is almost infinitely different from that linear mark on the glass he began by imitating.

And what about the final comparison between the umbrella and the glass of water? Here too, as
Magritte notes, there are two opposed things: an umbrella that does not admit or repels water and
a glass that admits or contains it. But, again, the strange thing is that we somehow find
something in common between these two opposites - or, at least, the problem is raised for us:
what do these opposites have in common, what do both resemble, the one transparent and
admitting water and the other opaque and repelling it? Is this not, however, the very problem of
painting itself, this bringing together of two opposed qualities? The opaque and the transparent,
that which admits light and water and that which excludes them, the canvas as a window and the
canvas as a wall? Can we not say that Hegels holiday is a painting of painting itself, an
attempt to show or represent the very thing that allows painting- painting as the transformation of
unidentifiable blobs of paint into identifiable and nameable objects? Is not that passage from the
mark or stain to the object we see there the very passage implied in all painting?

Portrait, 1935

It is this relationship between the painters own experience of the picture as he paints it and the
feeling that he is already the spectator, looking back at the picture after it is painted, that Lacan
spoke of as the gaze. It was the gaze for Lacan - that which sees you from the picture before
you see it - that for him explained the possibility of the painter making his stains on the canvas
recognizable. He is attempting to represent this gaze of the other. But the paradox is that, at the
very moment he captures this gaze, it reveals itself as a mere umbrella, something that seems to
bear no relationship to anything else, to hover inexplicably in the air supported by nothing. Our
look is inescapably drawn towards the umbrella as the solution to the painting or as that in which
the solution to the painting is to be found. But, as Magritte says, this umbrella does not admit or
repels our look at the same time. That is, what is shown is that, if the umbrella is the unconscious
origin of the painting, as though Magritte has somehow forgotten it- and it is that prior gaze
which allows him to remember it- this umbrella also only comes about at the end of the painting,
after we ourselves have seen it.

This gaze is the interaction between the observer and what is observed. But what we observe
depends on the collective memories of all things having been observed in all the history of
mankind. The way we see things depends on the predispositions of our unconscious. The
painter, on the other side, is not excepted from this rule; he too draws images according to the
landscape of the collective unconscious; and this is exactly the secret of common identification
between the painter and the audience. However, this illustrative, unconscious world of
inspiration is dynamic- it changes. Therefore new ideas and new objects may arise. Here comes
the ingenuity of the painter to present these new ideas in an innovative and revolutionary
manner:

What is it that the water and the umbrella have in common? It is, of course, that line from which
the umbrella sprang, which was, as Magritte says, at first in the water and then underneath it.
But, if we look closely at the painting, it is just this line- the point or spur at the top of the
umbrella- which is missing. More precisely, then, it is because this line which they have in
common is now missing that the water is allowed to balance on top of the umbrella, that the two
can be compared. And it would be this line that we have called the stain. It is exactly through the
disappearance of this stain that everything comes into being in the paining. It is through its
exclusion that everything else is able to be balanced around it and compared to it. It, as it were,
annunciates itself. It cannot be refuted because its very absence only proves it all the more.

Foucault writes about this stain or similitude which allows these resemblances and which like a
sovereign makes things appear. Perhaps we see this sovereign crowned in Hegels holiday,
crowned precisely with the transparent ring of a glass of water, testament to his power to make
things appear by himself disappearing. And we must not forget that Hegel who understood better
than anybody the power of the vacancy of the king, the king as that place-holder of the void
for whom everything and everybody stands in. That is, a king who works even when- and
perhaps especially when- he is not working, who is always and never on holiday.
http://www.artdes.monash.edu.au/globe/issue3/hegels.html

In my view, what is important in Hegels holiday is the painted symbolism of a philosophical
idea; otherwise the painting would have been simply called Holidays. According to Hegel,

Heraclitus is the one who first declared the nature of the infinite and first grasped nature as in
itself infinite, that is, its essence as process. The origin of philosophy is to be dated from
Heraclitus. His is the persistent Idea that is the same in all philosophers up to the present day, as
it was the Idea of Plato and Aristotle. For Hegel, Heraclituss great achievements were to have
understood the nature of the infinite, which for Hegel includes understanding the inherent
contradictoriness and negativity of reality, and to have grasped that reality is becoming or
process, and that being and nothingness are mere empty abstractions. According to Hegel,
Heraclituss obscurity comes from his being a true philosopher who grasped the ultimate
philosophical truth and therefore expressed himself in a way that goes beyond the abstract and
limited nature of common sense and is difficult to grasp by those who operate within common
sense. Hegel asserted that in Heraclitus he had an antecedent for his logic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel

It is the saying everything flows that is illustrated with a glass of water in Hegels Holidays.
However, the everlasting flow is now contained in the glass. Therefore the painter has succeeded
in also containing the notion. This notion of flow is in fact a way consciousness understands
infinity, using an everyday element (common water). The prospect of the infinite is certainly
manifested in the curvature of the umbrella and its parabolic ribs. The umbrella is opened like
the membrane of bats, as dreams unleash themselves from the cave of our deepest thoughtful
fears. The umbrella is here to protect us, and it offers us its handle to grasp reality.

As far as the opposition between an umbrella and a glass of water is concerned, I believe that
these objects represent in fact a unity. An umbrella is useless without the rain, therefore it was
made for this purpose. An umbrella is a compliment to the rain, and at the same time a substitute
for a shelter against eternity. This is I believe the secret of a painting successful in its analogies:
the consideration of the complementarity of the opposites- against a nightmare of eternal struggle
between them.

The heartstrings, 1960

This prospect of the complementarity principle (which by the way is a synonym for the
uncertainty principle) is expressed in The heartstrings. Someone has left his glass of
champagne in the middle of a landscape, waiting to be filled by the rain. A cloud rests on top of
the glass, slowly filling the inside. This is the fulfillment of a thought, which evaporated, change
phase, and returned with a new form to one of its natural containers- a glass of pleasure.

This makes sense given the process that Magritte used in his works, of which he stated, I cannot
paint before I have the whole picture in my head. It happens slowly I want to paint a cloud. So
I draw some clouds, maybe a hundred of them. And each time I surround them with shapes
whose meaning remains hidden from me until such time as inspiration visits anew and I know
what fits beneath the cloud is a champagne glass.

The future of voices 1927

Time (spacetime) in fact is an extended object. All we recall about the past, or imagine about the
future, are considered in the present. There is no future or past outside our successive instants
of here and now. Events outside this here and now are just conditions either to be fulfilled or
to be proven wrong. We may consider ourselves realists, but our lives are guided by dreams,
fears, beliefs and expectations. In the world of our thoughts everything floats, going from place
to place instantaneously, travelling in time.

All events are potential, connected for a moment to a particular ego which makes them real, and
then again they live their separate lives. But these conditional events or objects form our world-
we are indeed composed of illusive entities that we have agreed to call them particles. As
objects occupy space and define the distance in between them, so they define time by their
distributions and (re)arrangements. Time is defined by the successive sounds clocks make, or the
traces objects leave behind as they move on, even though the related motions are of secondary
importance.

In the The future of voices, the objects constitute a unity in future time. Their conditionality is
expressed by the fact that they float in the air- A leaf, which sometimes takes the form of trees; a
sponge, which is also found in the Pleasure principle; a valise, which represents itself and
implies a journey; and a pipe, which is not a pipe. The objects form a quaternity this time.

There is an interesting concept of quaternity in Jungian psychology related to religion. According
to a rule, words about theological constructs (such as god) can be interpreted as referring to
structures within the psyche. By this rule, Jung interprets the Father as the self, the source of
energy within the psyche; the Son as an emergent structure of consciousness that replaces the
self-alienated ego; and the Holy Spirit as a mediating structure between the ego and the self.
However, Jung believed that the psyche moves toward completion in fours (made up of pairs of
opposites), and that therefore the Christian formulation of the Trinity would give way to a
quaternity by including missing aspects. (This analysis prompted Jung to send a congratulatory
note to Pope Pius XII in 1950 upon the adoption of the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, to wit completing the quaternity.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_interpretation_of_religion

The notion of quaternity already exists in modern physics. It is time the fourth parameter
(dimension), added to the three dimensions of space, in order to form a four-dimensional unity.
In fact without time the model of the world would be incomplete- nothing could move or change.

This notion is expressed in the Future of voices. The voices are conditions about the future. If
these conditions are to be represented by the four objects of the painting, then I believe that the
valise is a newly discovered fourth element. The sponge (pleasure), the leaf (the canon= rule),
and the pipe (the illusive object) form a triad- a method towards the illusive object of pleasure.
The suitcase is the carrier which makes things portable. We pack up our things and begin a
journey towards happiness.

But happiness is not to be understood as pleasure itself. The painting expresses just a condition.
The objects float in the air, suggesting that time has been cancelled. Therefore its about time we
reconsidered the voices we hear about this condition, and what our (more inspired)
interpretation of what lies ahead in the future, at the end of our journey, would be.

The enchanted realm

The enchanted realm is Magrittes masterful series of 8 canvases done in 1953. Each canvas
recreates the best versions of his earlier paintings. I include some paintings (could be relevant or
not) which I found by random search on the net.

The enchanted realm (I)

Chameleon

Camouflage in nature is a defensive mechanism against predators, but, at the same time, it is a
wonder of nature by itself;

While the word chameleon is often used to describe people who change given their social
surroundings, actual chameleons often change colors to signal their physiological condition and
intention to other chameleons.
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/a-camouflaged-chameleon

This house looks very much like the one in Magrittes Empire of lights:

Here came the evening, mists and clouds came down from nowhere, everything started getting
darker and darker. We had our dinner before lights went off and entered our room. Shantanu took
out his guitar and old hostel days renovated in candle light. The forest was resting in complete
darkness, chilling breeze passing by and the night got started!
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/88861-empty-forest-house-dark-night-candle-
guitar-3musketeers-driving-binsar-nainital.html

The enchanted realm (II)

Women holding pigeons in art is an expression of purity. The following painting, for example,
portrays Gala Dali, Salvador Dalis wife and muse:

Leda Atomica, Salvador Dali, 1949

It is said that Gala saved Dali from his own madness, and he signed his painting with his and her
name as it is mostly with your blood, Gala, that I paint my pictures.
http://captainratface.tumblr.com/post/22427541638/bashiebat-wornsole-it-is-said-that-gala

http://australianmuseum.net.au/image/Tube-Worms-Illustration

The worm-like structures which Magritte uses, either as castles or candles, could be a
representation of the human guts or libido. However, these structures are living creatures (tube-
worms), common in all the seas around the world.

The enchanted realm (III)

The Ahmadiyya mosque in Zrich (built 1963), the oldest Swiss mosque with a minaret

The federal popular initiative against the construction of minarets was a successful federal
popular initiative in Switzerland to prevent the construction of Mosque minarets. In a November
2009 referendum, a constitutional amendment banning the construction of new minarets was
approved by 57.5% of the participating voters. Only four of the 26 Swiss cantons, mostly in the
French-speaking part of Switzerland, opposed the initiative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_popular_initiative_%22against_the_construction_of_minare
ts%22

Silkworms

Insects on leaves were depicted by the surrealists as an indication of still lifes; But as a silkworm
eat the leaves to produce something splendid (silk), so the painter devours his raw materials to
produce a piece of art. However, the mystery of silk production (by the silkworm) is yet
unsolved, in the same way that the secret of inspiration is:

The secrets behind the mighty strength of silk could be unraveled by neutron-scattering
experiments being carried out in France. Early results have revealed that silk worms spin their
silky threads in a process that seems completely counterintuitive to what is expected.
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/oct/11/unravelling-the-secrets-of-silk-production

The enchanted realm (IV)

I found this painting on the net to compare with Magrittes Seducer. Here, the ghost ship
reaches the end of the earth, as if it had reached the limits of imagination itself;

The flat earth theory, stating that the world is a flat disk rather than a sphere, was believed in by
many cultures around the globe up to around the fourth century B.C. when philosophers and
scientists came to the conclusion that the Earth was actually a sphere. But this was just a
beginning of a centuries long debate. In fact, the flat-earth theory, tied to the geocentric
cosmology of Ptolemy, dominated among clergymen and even navigators until the 16th century
A.D. when Copernicus questioned the very essence of this dogma.
http://www.neosurrealismart.com/modern-art-prints/?artworks/final-frontier-voyager-fes-the-
flat-earth-society.html

Magritte became an inspiration for modern artists. The reverse representation of a mermaid
became popular:

Ellen Wetmore (US), Collective invention: What would that grand Rene Magritte inverted
mermaid painting look like as a performance with a real woman on a real beach and one real,
dead smelly fish?
http://miascreen.com/archives/902

It could also be considered prophetic, as far as genetic engineering is concerned:

A fish called wonder: This new species seems to have developed an Adams apple
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1205442/Theres-fishy-pictures-Either-genetic-
engineerings-got-way-hand-someones-Photoshop-.html

The enchanted realm (V)

When Alice went to Wonderland, anything she dreamed of could become true. For example,
trees could speak

Humans have long felt the presence of spirits living in the forest. For Keith Jennings, those
ethereal beings take the form of human faces, peering out from the bark of trees. The sculptor
began creating the wooden sages in his backyard with basic hand tools. Eventually, he was
commissioned to transform twenty oaks on St. Simon's Island off of the coast of Georgia for the
project, Tree Spirits. Blending in with their surroundings, the visages appear from stumps, look
through ferns, emerge from of gnarled trunks.
http://inhabitat.com/keith-jennings-carves-mysterious-spirits-into-living-trees/

http://www.ephemerania.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=420

What is it more painstaiking? To work on the construction of Stonehenge, or to paint The
legend of the centuries? I believe that both enterprises are equally difficult. A painter needs
muscles as much as a construction worker needs artistic talent. They say that Stonehenge served
as an astronomical calendar. In such a case, The legend of the centuries could serve as a
measure of relative scales. But whatever the initial purpose or the message, both paintings and
megalithic structures are monuments of the human heritage.

The enchanted realm (VI)

The leaning tower of Pisa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_Tower
_of_Pisa

http://www.realmagick.com/leaning/

It is said that Galileo measured the properties of free fall by letting objects fall from the top of
the leaning tower of Pisa. It is also known that both a rock and a feather will fall simultaneously
on the ground (without air resistance). Magritte seems to be well aware of this fact. This was a
discovery as important as the discovery of fire. A musical instrument catching fire, a feather
compared to the softness of a woman leaning on a rock, all express certainly an artistic
inclination.

The enchanted realm (VII)

Masquerade balls were very common in the carnival season in the past centuries all around
Europe. Masks incarnate personas and at the same time they hide ones everyday look. But in
many cases the mask we wear becomes attached to our face and we cant get rid of it (or of the
character the mask portrays). Edgar Allan Poes short story The masque of the red death is
based at a masquerade ball in which a central figure turns out to be his costume.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_ball

In the heart of Transylvania lies the most mysterious place in Romania. In Hoia-Baciu Forest,
considered by the locals to be the most terrifying place where often, people who visit it suffer all
sorts of mysterious sensations.
http://www.hoiabaciuforest.com/articles/

https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/devlin_9_01.html

The human psyche is perplex like the Gordian knot; dense as a forest. The mythical creatures
which people see in haunted forests, at the same time inhabit the human soul. This is why we are
so fond of stories like Alice in Wonderland: the wonders of tomorrow is just what we havent
dreamt of yet. If Alice represents the world of our dreams, Alexander stands for all our
ambitions. The labors of Alexander is not just the story of a tree which cut down itself; It
represents the achievement of finding not only an efficient solution to a problem, but also
realizing a sufficient problem to the solution. If there were limits to our thought, there would be
no place left to go.

The enchanted realm (VIII)

A cur de lion necklace certainly goes with a lion wearing a garland of flowers around its neck.
It also fits with majesty, or with a candlestick which has the shape of the face of queen
Scheherazade. In the original tale, she escapes death by keeping her husband busy with her
stories. Her stories succeed in liberating her husband from his insatiable sexual appetite. This is
why the Liberator holds her scepter; look how much tamed the lion looks, sitting by the side of
the Liberators foot. While for an animal the libido is expressed as a brutal force, in humans it
can be transformed into artistic power.

Youth illustrated (La jeunesse illustre), 1937

This is a parade, with many different objects down the street; a barrel, a torso, a lion, a pool-
table, a trumpet, a leaf-tree, a bicycle, etc. These objects come from the painters mind as he
recalls his youthful, surrealist, imaginary memories. They are not real memories, but adopted
ones, serving the artistic biographical qualifications of the painter.

Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michelangelo, 1508 and 1512
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Chapel_ceiling

The enchanted realm, Knokke-le-Zoute casino
http://herbiegoesbananas.tumblr.com/post/10816204689/interior-of-the-knokke-le-zoute-casino-
belgium

In fact, The enchanted realm is a series of paintings where Magritte made a revision of some of
his favorite subjects. If Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Magritte painted the
walls in the Knokke-le-Zoute casino. Of course, the time gap is about 500 years; therefore any
comparison should consider this time frame. But for me the artistic progress is obvious- its just
that the nudist and angelic paradise of Adam have become the pure and granite Domain of
Arnheim

The domain of Arnheim

The grand family, 1963

The grand family (variation)

Bird depictions in Magrittes paintings take the form of the landscape itself in many occasions,
as if they were flying chameleons, so to speak. In The grand family, the bird forms a part of the
sky, and its shape intensifies the colors of the part of the sky it occupies, while in the second
painting the birds feathers are covered with flowers. This way, the bird becomes an integral part
of nature, or a part of nature takes the shape of a bird, while the bird becomes a living piece of
space and time.

The background of The large family displays a dreary sky, either on the verge of a storm or,
could the pink light on the horizon signify the end of one? The ominous clouds together with the
rolling sea below evoke turbulent feelings, perhaps symbolizing the trials and tribulations that
families often endure together. On the other hand, a significant contrast is created between the
gloomy surroundings and the frontal white bird, a common symbol of peace. Window-like, this
bird reveals within its silhouette a calm blue sky with white fluffy clouds that bring about
feelings of warmth, much like those experienced on a beautiful summer day. The bird may well
represent the unity and love within a family unit. In depicting harmony and discord, Magritte
skillfully portrayed the concept of family in The large family by evoking relevant and intense
emotions through symbolic surrealism.
http://www.renemagritte.org/the-large-family.jsp

The kiss, 1951

Variations of The large family are shown in The kiss. These two paintings can be regarded as
complementary. In the first painting, a bird in the shape of clouds occupies a part of the night
sky, while in the second painting, the opposite takes place- it is day but the bird within its shape
depicts the night sky.

The promise, 1966

The return, 1940

The promise looks like The grand family but here the bird has the shape of a part of the
cloudy sky while the rest of the canvas is blue. In The return, there is a nest with three eggs on
the window ledge beneath the flying bird; however one has the impression that the nest does not
belong to the bird, because the nest and the eggs look real but the bird looks like just a part of the
sky. Could we say that the painter somehow solved the chicken- egg dilemma, or does he just
underline it?

Concerning this dilemma, it is an old problem related to causality, and evokes questions about
how life and the universe in general began.

Aristotle was puzzled by the idea that there could be a first bird or egg and concluded that both
the bird and egg must have always existed:

If there has been a first man he must have been born without father or mother- which is
repugnant to nature. For there could not have been a first egg to give a beginning to birds, or
there should have been a first bird which gave a beginning to eggs; for a bird comes from an
egg.

The same he held good for all species, believing, with Plato, that everything before it appeared
on earth had first its being in spirit.

Another solution to the problem found in the Eastern tradition of Buddhism and Hinduism, is the
cyclical notion of time. The concept of eternal return, in the Western culture is found in the
writings of Nietzsche, who indicates that there is repetition of time. The assumption is that time
is eternally repetitive, and therefore, there is no first in eternity; there is no creation. The
answer then becomes: neither the egg nor the chicken is first. There is no first in a cyclical
view of time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_or_the_egg

My view is that the problem lies in the logical view of time. Time, according to common sense,
must be like an arrow, like a birds peak, leading towards some direction. However, before the
egg hatches time is not triggered yet. At this stage the bird is a condition, and conditions are
timeless. It could be any kind of bird (or anything else) which might hatch in the real world at
any time. This is interesting because it has to do with a state in the universe before space and
time (therefore at this stage there isnt any time to talk about yet). In some sense, The spirit of
the bird laid down the egg from which the bird would hatch in reality. Magrittes painting is in
fact expressing such a condition: The eggs are found in the room, while the bird is in the sky. But
both the sky and the room lie on the surface of the canvas, and at the same time on the surface
of our consciousness. Whatever we think about space, time, and causality, they are conditions
only to be brought about afterwards, when we make the attempt to give the painting a rational
explanation.

Spring, 1965

Here, the bird forms part of the forest beneath. The nest with eggs has been brought to the
foreground, creating Magrittes favorite juxtaposition between the two worlds: the interior and
the exterior ones. The title of the painting suggests that the painter celebrates spring, which in
this case is the birth of an idea.

According to Christies, by the time Spring was painted, Magritte had long been filtering the
visual world from his unique perspective, taking the simple elements and assumptions from
everyday life and converting them, twisting them, giving them just enough of a nudge and a
disruption that they would take on new qualities. In this picture, Magritte has chosen a selection
of simple elements bird, trees, eggs and reconfigured their properties to marvelous effect. In turn,
the genuine world of visual impetus surrounding the viewer regains some of its poetry and
mystery - when next we see a bird, we no longer take for granted the strangeness of its ability to
fly or the uniqueness of its appearance.

In Spring, Magritte appears to question the nature of the two-dimensional representation of the
three-dimensional world in part through the visual puzzle with which the viewer is presented,
and also through the deliberate cut-out appearance of the bird itself. Is Magritte deliberately
pointing out the flatness of painting in comparison to the 'depth' of the real world? Is he implying
that another dimension lies beyond our grasp, beyond the veil of our prosaic, habit-numbed
appreciation of the world around us?

Magritte himself explained that the elements that comprise his works are not stand-ins for other
meanings, are not products of the worlds of dream and the subconscious that had so fascinated
other artists associated with the Surreal:

In the images I paint, there is no question of either dream, escape, or symbols. My images are
not substitutes for either sleeping or waking dreams. They do not give us the illusion of escaping
from reality. They do not replace the habit of degrading what we see into conventional symbols,
old or new.

I conceive painting as the art of juxtaposing colors in such a way that their effective aspect
disappears and allows a poetic image to become visible. This image is the total description of a
thought that unites- in a poetic order- familiar figures of the visible: skies, people, trees,
mountains, furniture, stars, solids, inscriptions, etc. The poetic order evokes mystery, it responds
to our natural interest in the unknown.

Poetic images are visible, but they are as intangible as the universe. These poetic images hide
nothing: they show nothing but the figures of the visible. Painting is totally unfitted for
representing the invisible, that is, what cannot be illuminated by the light: pleasure, sorrow,
knowledge and ignorance, speech and silence, etc.

After having attempted to understand non-traditional painting, we admit that it cannot be
understood. In any case, we are not assuming any serious responsibility: we do not have to know
or to learn anything. Imaginary irrationality is futile and boring. However, we can understand
poetic thought by making it a part of ourselves and by taking care not to remove from the known
the unknown elements it contains.

In Spring, it is clear, then, that the bird, the eggs, the woodland are not symbols, but are there
representing themselves, bringing to light their own particularities and peculiarities, making us
all the more aware of their singular properties, in short, forcing the viewer to contemplate the
unknown elements that they contain.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/rene-magritte-le-printemps-5036603-details.aspx

The key to the fields, 1936

The domain of Arnheim, 1949

Magritte had a formative trauma that inflected his work, and even manifested itself directly in a
number of paintings. His mother, suicidality depressed, drowned herself, and the young Magritte
(allegedly) saw her body dragged out of the water, her wet nightgown covering her face. A
woman with her face covered by a wet cloth appears in several of Magrittes paintings. So of
course they must be a sort of working-through process, painting his internal demons as a means
of therapy, right? Thats what any psychologist or art critic would say, and certainly what Freud,
the inspiration for the Surrealists, would have said. But Magritte remained coy about interpreting
his own paintings. He took what might be called The Roland Barthess defense.

Barthes was a French critic and philosopher who wrote a very famous essay that is required
reading in literary and art classes worldwide, called The death of the author. In brief, Barthess
argument is that, from the moment a work of art leaves the artists hands and is presented to an
audience, the author loses any possible power over the interpretation of the work. The
interpretation is solely up to the audience, and in fact each viewer or reader of the work is
entitled to their own opinion, untainted by the guidance of the author. Only the content of the
work, without any supplementary material or commentary, can tell the audience how to interpret
it.

To say that Magritte employed the Roland Barthess defense is to say that he refused to interpret
any of his works. He created the paintings, gave them a name, and presented them to the public.
Are his paintings of a woman with a cloth covering her face about his mother? Maybe; but thats
not for him to say. The burden of interpretation is on the audience, with the author receding into
the background to watch, and perhaps smile, as people seek meaning in paintings by mining the
biography of the painter.

The key to the fields, should not, therefore, require an exegesis. For an art historian to explain
what the painting means defeats Magrittes purpose. It shows just what you see: the broken glass
from a window sill contains the view outside that window, as if the glass were a photographic
plate.

How should this be interpreted? That what we see is transient? That our eye and memory act like
window glass? That we do not, in fact, look at a window with broken glass, but at a painting of a
window with broken glass? And how does the title pertain? Are those fields in the title, then, the
fields that may be seen through the painted window, and this painting is the key? All are
legitimate questions, but where are the answers?

Magritte loved visual puzzles that, coupled with evocative titles, drew his viewers into a vibrant
mystery, begged them to solve it, and then left it unresolved. For many, this is a frustrating
endeavor. Imagine an Agatha Christie whodunit mystery with the last chapter left out? Magritte
would say that we need more mystery in our lives, to shake us out of our torpor. To present a
mystery and then solve it cleanly defeats the purpose, as it only temporarily shakes up the
viewer, and then lets the world settle back into place, loose ends neatly tied. But to leave the
viewer wanting to solve the puzzle, when the author himself has not conceived of the solution,
preserves the natural human desire for solution, but keeps it from ever being satisfied.

For art historians, who are trained to link allegories and artistic enigmas with specific Biblical
scenes, Greek myths, or complex iconographic schemes, Magritte can be as frustrating as he is
wonderful. Critics try to interpret away mysteries. The worst thing for critic is to admit that they
dont understand, that they havent the words, that the artist has won this tug-of-war. Magritte,
up in Heaven, is smiling as are we on Earth, who are privileged to engage in the mysteries that
his paintings provide.
http://blogs.artinfo.com/secrethistoryofart/2011/01/27/inside-the-masterpiece-rene-magritte-key-
to-the-fields/

I just want to add to this that the Human condition as conceived by Magritte, the relationship
between the human sphere of perception and the universe outside, took a very artistically
wondrous and dramatic form, in his obsession to solve (or fully express) the puzzle of human
consciousness. One of the greatest, and most fundamental, mysteries of human knowledge is
that, in fact, everything we know lies inside us, as a mere representation or interpretation of what
we perceive about the world through our senses, and of what we consider real (without having
any other alternative), using some sort of axiomatic assumption of complete correspondence
between the two words- the inner and the outer ones. This is just an assumption, a principle of
analogy, which states that the universe and what we perceive as the universe is one and the same.
But is it the same? Am I the same one with whom you suppose I am, based on what you are
reading right now? Is Magrittes Domain of Arnheim the same world in his mind as the world
depicted in the painting, or as the world perceived by anyone else?

Call of peaks, 1943

This dramatic (as well as marvelously depicted) juxtaposition was an obsession in Magrittes
life. Scientifically it could be related to some form of autism. But even so, a psychological trait
only illustrates true physical phenomena. The separation between the other universe and
ourselves becomes ultimate in autism but it really exists in everyone. This is why it is so
important to be careful to draw the right conclusions from what we see, and to try to be as less
critical as possible, especially when the expression of others is concerned.

In the Call of peaks one of the painters fixed ideas finally materializes. It is a certain
landscape, familiar to the painters countryside, perhaps also combined with a landscape from
what the painter had read or had seen elsewhere. The mirror-like, Human condition-style
window, together with the painters illusive bird, fulfill the Promise of Return, to these high
peaks. The painter listened to the Call of peaks, and now he can be reassured that he found his
place, together with his Grand family of images, in the Domain of Arnheim.



The domain of Arnheim, 1950, (Arnheim in German translates Home of the eagle,) is one of
Edgar Allan Poes lesser-known stories. The critics have taken little notice of it, and when they
do, its generally interpreted in vague terms of death imagery, or- God save us!- as a treatise on
gardening. This is a great pity if more people understood the true meaning of the story, the
world would be much the better for it. It is actually one of Poes most profound and beautiful
works, and one of the very few where we are given a glimpse into his true inner self.

On the surface, The Domain of Arnheim is a tale of a fantastically wealthy man the unnamed
narrator calls only Ellison, who desires to express the true character, the august aims, the
supreme majesty and dignity of the poetic sentiment. He achieves his goal through creating
Arnheim, a castle and landscape-garden of supreme loveliness. As Ellison says, man cant
affect the general condition of man, but must be thrown back... upon self.
http://worldofpoe.blogspot.gr/2009/10/domain-of-arnheim.html

As Poe narrates,

Ellison became neither musician nor poet; although no man lived more profoundly enamored of
music and poetry. Under other circumstances than those which invested him, it is not impossible
that he would have become a painter But Ellison maintained that the richest, the truest and
most natural, if not altogether the most extensive province, had been unaccountably neglected.
No definition had spoken of the landscape-gardener as of the poet; yet it seemed to my friend
that the creation of the landscape-garden offered to the proper Muse the most magnificent of
opportunities. Here, indeed, was the fairest field for the display of imagination in the endless
combining of forms of novel beauty; the elements to enter into combination being, by a vast
superiority, the most glorious which the earth could afford. In the multiform and multicolor of
the flower and the trees, he recognized the most direct and energetic efforts of Nature at physical
loveliness. And in the direction or concentration of this effort- or, more properly, in its
adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it on earth- he perceived that he should be
employing the best means- laboring to the greatest advantage- in the fulfillment, not only of his
own destiny as poet, but of the august purposes for which the Deity had implanted the poetic
sentiment in man

Ellison instead of becoming an artist of the paper or of the canvas, he became an artist of art, a
landscape engineer, a terraformer. Is this inferior to the common ways art is expressed? Ellison
avoided becoming an imitator of nature, but became a creator himself. Is imagination more
powerful than nature? It is certainly more powerful than simple mimicry. But Poe believes that
creativity can surpass even nature itself:

Mr Ellison did much towards solving what has always seemed to me an enigma:- I mean the
fact that no such combination of scenery exists in nature as the painter of genius may produce
While the component parts (of natural landscapes) may defy, individually, the highest skill of the
artist, the arrangement of these parts will always be susceptible of improvement. In short, no
position can be attained on the wide surface of the natural earth, from which an artistical eye,
looking steadily, will not find matter of offence in what is termed the composition of the
landscape The mathematics afford no more absolute demonstrations than the sentiment of his
art yields the artist. He not only believes, but positively knows, that such and such apparently
arbitrary arrangements of matter constitute and alone constitute the true beauty. His reasons,
however, have not yet been matured into expression. It remains for a more profound analysis
than the world has yet seen, fully to investigate and express them.

Therefore, artistic imagination can be stronger than mere physical reproduction. By
recombination, the artist or scientist may produce new landscapes for the viewer to watch,
provided that the creator has a good knowledge of geometrical proportions.

In the second part of his story, Poe talks about Arnheim:

It was not until the close of the fourth year of our search that we found a locality with which
Ellison professed himself satisfied. It is, of course, needless to say where was the locality. The
late death of my friend, in causing his domain to be thrown open to certain classes of visitor, has
given to Arnheim a species of secret and subdued if not solemn celebrity Floating gently
onward, but with a velocity slight augmented, the voyager, after many short turns, finds his
progress apparently barred by a gigantic gate or rather door of burnished gold, elaborately carved
and fretted, and reflecting the direct rays of the now fast-sinking sun with an effulgence that
seems to wreathe the whole surrounding forest in flames. This gate is inserted in the lofty wall;
which here appears to cross the river at right angles Its ponderous wings are slowly and
musically expanded. The boat glides between them, and commences a rapid descent into a vast
amphitheatre entirely begirt with purple mountains, whose bases are laved by a gleaming river
throughout the full extent of their circuit. Meantime the whole Paradise of Arnheim bursts upon
the view

There is a gush of entrancing melody; there is an oppressive sense of strange sweet odor;- there
is a dream-like intermingling to the eye of tall slender Eastern trees- bosky shrubberies- flocks of
golden and crimson birds- lily-fringed lakes- meadows of violets, tulips, poppies, hyacinths, and
tuberoses- long inter-tangled lines of silver streamlets- and, up-springing confusedly from amid
all, a mass of semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic architecture, sustaining itself as if by miracle in mid-
air, glittering in the red sunlight with a hundred oriels, minarets, and pinnacles; and seeming the
phantom handiwork, conjointly, of the Sylphs, of the Fairies, of the Genii, and of the Gnomes.
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/eapoe/bl-eapoe-domain.htm

The domain of Arnheim (variation)

Villa d Este fountains

The Domain of Arnheim may be Poes greatest story. Poe himself held it in high esteem. He
wrote, The Domain of Arnheim expresses much of my soul.
http://www.mattesonart.com/magritte-and-poe-strange-brew.aspx

Incidentally, searching on the net for eagle-mountain I fell across the Villa d Este, Tivoli, near
Rome, Italy, and it is a fine example of Renaissance architecture and the Italian Renaissance
garden.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_d%27Este

One can see the eagle standing between the springs. Although it is a Renaissance garden, not a
Surrealist, like Edward Jamess, one, it well defines Magrittes or Poes spirit of eagle-like,
elevated landscapes. The domain of Arnheim, no matter if it corresponds to a real place, is
fantastic, secret, and must remain unspoiled.

Mount Clarence King, Ansel Adams, 1925
http://members.chello.nl/rtheuerz/Adams/W
ork2.htm

Domain of Arnheim (variant), 1967

By googling eagle-mountains, I also run into this photo of Ansel Adams. He was more or less
contemporary to Magritte. Nevertheless the coincidence is uncanny. Both of the previous
pictures are black and white, and one may imagine Mount Clarence King opening its wings to
become the mountain in Arnheims domain.

Ansel Adams was trying to create a more perfect landscape. Other artists have argued that
natural landscapes are imperfect and can be improved. It is the theme of Poes story The
Domain of Arnheim.

And yet how unintelligible is this! In all other matters we are justly instructed to regard nature
as supreme. With her details we shrink from competition. Who shall presume to imitate the
colors of the tulip, or to improve the proportions of the lily of the valley?

Who shall presume? None other than Ellison, the protagonist of the story, who uses his
immense inheritance to create the perfect landscape. And yet, what is the perfect landscape that
he imagines? Or is there such a thing? Could nature which is not God, nor an emanation from
God, but which still is nature in the sense of the handiwork of the angels that hover between man
and God.

The narrator asks again,

what we regard as exaltation of the landscape may be really such, as respects only the moral
or human point of view. Each alteration of the natural scenery may possibly effect a blemish in
the picture, if we can suppose this picture viewed at large from some point distant from the
earths surface, although not beyond the limits of its atmosphere. It is easily understood that what
might improve a closely scrutinized detail, may at the same time injure a general or more
distantly observed effect. There may be a class of beings, human once, but now invisible to
humanity, to whom, from afar, our disorder may seem order- our un-picturesqueness picturesque,
in a word, the earth-angels, for whose scrutiny more especially than our own, and for whose
death- refined appreciation of the beautiful, may have been set in array by God the wide
landscape-gardens of the hemispheres.

There is something endlessly puzzling about his imagery. Is the narrator describing something
beautiful or horrific? Is this seemingly one-way trip down a river an excursion into Paradise or
into Hell? Is the narrator mad, delusional or hopelessly imprisoned in Ellisons odd vision? Is
Ellisons vision of Heaven more terrible than what we might presume to be a vision of Hell?

This is the terrible ambiguity of the story that I find endlessly compelling. It also brings us back
to the vexing question of Ansel Adamss despised alphabet letters- the hideous L and the
insulting P. Dennis Purcell says that it was unwanted. And so, the removal of the L- P is a
restoration of the landscape to a more primitive and more pristine state. The landscape before the
advent of man.

I should refrain from any attempt to explain Magrittes work. Isnt the essence of his art an
attempt to confound, to create ambiguity without resolution? Much like Poe. Has the granite bird
been carved into the ridge? (By Ellison?) Are the nest and egg real? Isnt it all just paint on
canvas?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/cartesian-blogging-part-
3/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

The fanatics (Les fanatiques), 1955

The spot on the map, 1955

Paradise or Hell? What makes the difference? Why Magrittes peaceful imagery of cloud-birds
and eagle-mountains transformed into birds of fire in the previous two paintings? I would say
that the main (and perhaps the only) difference is the painters mood to experiment with different
ideas and colors on his familiar subjects. An eagle can be as scary as majestic. Here, the elements
of fire and the night prevail. Eagles dont usually fly at night, therefore this is the representation
of an eagle in a world of dreams. If The Domain of Arnheim is the dream, then The spot on
the map is the nightmare. This eagle hovers in the skies in order to attack and devour our soul.
Is Prometheus lying somewhere behind the fire? Is this his suffering for stealing the secret of fire
to give it to us? Perhaps; but the story wants to say that together with the gift of fire comes the
martyrdom of its misuse. And this is the case for the fanatics, either religious or political,
throughout human history.

The fountain of youth (La fontaine de
jouvence), 1958

Ready-made fortune (Fortune faite), 1957

The first painting reads roseau, which means reed. The word reed of course is irrelevant by
any means, therefore it could be an anagram or a misspelling of another word (Jean-Jacques
Rousseau could be a candidate for example). The second painting reads a boire, a manger,
meaning to eat, to drink. This is a sarcasm, probably against those who had established a
ready-made fortune, spending their lives eating and drinking, without having the talent to
appreciate fine art.

According to a letter Magritte wrote to Andr Bosmans in April 1959:

For the development of The fountain of youth, I can say that it began about 1933-34. I was
trying to paint a mountain and thought of giving it a birds shape and calling this image The
domain of Arnheim, the title of one of Poes stories. Poe would have liked seeing this mountain
(he shows us landscapes and mountains in his story). Ready-made fortune and The fountain of
youth are stones bearing such inscriptions as Coblenz, Roseau or boire, manger.
These stones can be seen as a little piece of The domain of Arnheim.

The smile (Le sourire), 1943

At the same time, the present work is a development of the idea that had been worked out in
various versions of The smile. Between 1955 and 1958, Magritte and his friend Maurice Rapin,
who was associated with the Surrealist group, corresponded regularly. On 26 May 1957 Magritte
sent Rapin a sketch of the present work saying: I have just started on Having made good, its
an old stone with an inscription in a street under a starry sky. Scutenaire and Colinet are ill with
pleasure about it. Scutenaire later wrote about the image: A boire, manger, thus does a
street cry out, for streets cry.

Magrittes choice of a stone in the shape of a birds head stresses on the one hand the heaviness
of the material but on the other hand it gives the image the appearance of weightlessness,
invoking a poetic dimension in contrast to the physical dimension charted by science. As he
wrote to Andr Bosmans in 1961: It is heaviness that is suggested and not its laws; it is
suggested without physics.
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.pdf.N08437.html/f/50/N08437-50.pdf

Anyway, there isnt such property of matter as heaviness. Probably Magritte wanted to stress
instead the lightness of such paintings of his, painting tomb-stones with meaningless epigraphs
on them. However, behind this hilarious mood, which dominated Magritte more than once in his
career, one can discern a sentiment of bitterness. Magritte was hurt many times by many idiots
savants, therefore he would always take the opportunity to hit back, to get revenge, as well as to
sell some toute faite copies of his paintings, signed Magritte by him. Is art intelligible either
to the rich or to the famous, or only to those pure enough (and rich in the soul), who can really
appreciate art, and may enter the domain of Arnheim?

The empire of lights

The name of the artist of this painting is Alex Andreev. He calls his style hermetic, and his
work is certainly compelling. Many of his (computer- aided) paintings, seem to imagine this very
specific urban future, in which humanity has adapted to a new life in the clouds after having
more or less ruined, then abandoned, the ground. For instance, here are a cluster of skyscraping
apartments, at once desolate and whimsical.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/21480/imagined-futures-alex-andreev

These flying kites could be pieces of paper, mutated people, flights of imagination, inspired by
the wind- blown clothes on the balconies, while the block-of-flats look more like what the name
implies: blocks of apartments. The high degree of ambivalence and multiple ways of
interpretation certainly make the painting surrealist, hermetic or not.

The empire of lights (Lempire des lumires), 1954

Between 1949 and 1964, Magritte made seventeen oils and ten gouache versions of The empire
of lights, one of his most famous and sought-after themes, each of which displays some
variation on a dimly lit nocturnal street scene with an eerily shuttered house and glowing
lamppost below a sunlit blue sky with puffy white clouds. Magritte explained the origin of the
image in a radio interview in 1956, stating:

What is represented in a picture is what is visible to the eye; it is the thing or the things that had
to be thought of. Thus, what is represented in the picture are the things I thought of, to be
precise, a nocturnal landscape and a sky scape such as can be seen in broad daylight. The
landscape suggests night and the sky scape day. This evocation of night and day seems to me to
have the power to surprise and delight us. I call this power: poetry.

Magrittes friend, the Belgian poet and philosopher Paul Noug suggested the title for this image,
playing on the double meaning of the French word empire as both empire and territory.
Noug was undoubtedly sensitive to Magrittes conviction that his paintings never expressed a
singular idea, but rather were a form of stimulus that created new thoughts in the mind of the
viewer:

Titles play an important part in Magrittes paintings, stated the poet, but it is not the part one
might be tempted to imagine. The title isnt a program to be carried out. It comes after the
picture. Its as if it were its confirmation, and it often constitutes an exemplary manifestation of
the efficacy of the image. This is why it doesnt matter whether the title occurs to the painter
himself afterwards, or is found by someone else who has an understanding of his painting. I am
quite well placed to know that it is almost never Magritte who invents the titles of his pictures.
His paintings could do without titles, and that is why it has sometimes been said that on the
whole the title is no more than a conversational gambit.

Indeed, when Paul Colinet, one of Magrittes closest friends, ventured a definitive explanation
for the imagery of The empire of lights, Magritte confided to another friend, The attempt at an
explanation (which is no more than an attempt) is unfortunate: I am supposed to be a great
mystic, someone who brings comfort (because of the luminous sky) for unpleasant things (the
dark houses and trees in the landscape). It was well intentioned, no doubt, but it leaves us on the
level of pathetic humanity.

By including day and night, two normally irreconcilable conditions, within a spatially continuous
scene, Magritte disrupts the viewers sense of time. After I had painted The empire of lights,
he recalled to a friend in 1966, I got the idea that night and day exist together, that they are one.
This is reasonable, or at the very least its in keeping with our knowledge: in the world night
always exists at the same time as day (just as sadness always exists in some people at the same
time as happiness in others). But such ideas are not poetic. What is poetic is the visible image of
the picture.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/rene-magritte-lempire-des-lumieres-5138353-
details.aspx

Gods salon, 1948

Magritte had already experimented with a similar theme in his 1948 Gods salon. The painting
depicts a night scene with a house brightly lit up by daylight. Clearly this experiment didnt work
as well. According to Roisin the painting The empire of lights was inspired in Magritte by a
poem of Lewis Carroll:

... the sun on the sea was shining/ it shone with all its forces/ it did its best to reflect the
sparkling and calm waves/ and it was very odd, you see, because/ it was in the middle of the
night.

The pink house, William Degouve de Nuncques, 1892

This painting is surely the inspiration of Magrittes various Empire of Light paintings. At first
glance, Degouve de Nuncques painting looks to be quite normal but if you look at the house the
exterior is magically lit up as if in daylight. His painting, The House of Mystery, or The Pink
House, was inspired by Edgar Allan Poes Gothic tale The fall of the house of Usher.

Magrittes house in The empire of lights, even inspired horror films. The previous scene is
from The Exorcist, in which the character Father Merrin stands in front of the MacNeil
familys (whose daughter was possessed by the devil) house. It is the scene where Fr. Merrin
steps out of a cab and stands in front of the MacNeil residence bathed in an eerie glow.
http://listverse.com/2009/10/30/25-fascinating-facts-about-the-exorcist/

Meditation, 1936

Philosophers lamp, 1936

No matter if some people had been inspired by the dark side of the empire of lights, light is a
force of enlightenment, not of obscurity. One may say that light was born out of darkness but
its purpose was to illuminate everything. The power of light is not only physical but also (and
mostly) metaphysical. It is interesting to note that despite light makes everything visible, light
itself is invisible; we dont see light, only the illuminated objects. Even in modern physics light
remains a ghost which has cast a lot of controversy, concerning the existence of the ether, as
well as the interpretation of space-time.

For Magritte light was the illuminating element making visible and combing different objects
together. These relationships, occurring by what light reveals, look like some kind of snake-like
candles, glowing their dim light, on a beach, by the sea-shore of a vast abyss. This scene is
portrayed in Magrittes Meditation. The vast and dark sea represents our ignorance, while the
dim light is our consciousness, trying to figure out the world that lies ahead of our little, worm-
like, bodies, while the painter recycles this pleasurable idea with a pipe-like device connecting
his mouth to his nose.

Our consciousness also tries to find some pleasure in everyday life. The philosophers lamp is
the painters inspiration of how this pleasure, joined with creativity, may be attained. The candle
again is depicted with a snake-like twisted body, ending to a lighten fuse, instead of an
enlightened head (as in the Pleasure principle).

This recycling aspect of pleasure, similar to the self-referential nature of thought, is united in the
eternal cycle of light and darkness, right and wrong, good and evil, and so on. But by removing
any moral allusion from the subject, it is just night and day what remains; the succession of
instants of light by instants when light disappears. Therefore, the accomplishment of the painter
to depict both the light and the night in the same painting, as he did in The empire of lights,
portrays his ability to encompass the full cycle of light, and of the human experience at the same
time.

The empire of lights, 1950

Magritte gradually increased the size of these works, and selected a vertical format, thus focusing
attention on a single dollhouse-like residence whose tightly shuttered first floor is illuminated by
lamplight. The glowing second floor windows are obscured by the lowest branches of the tall
tree that stretches into the daytime sky. The markedly increased psychological tension of these
works from the mid1950s illustrates Siegfried Gohrs conviction that, by repeating and
reinterpreting successful themes, Magritte was arranging and rearranging visual elements until
they produced a shock like a blow from a boxers glove- whose force, however, remained purely
visual and mental.


The detailed brushstrokes give this painting the appearance of a photograph. They are smooth, so
the individual brushstrokes are not seen. It seems almost as if the viewer were looking through a
window rather than a work of art. The painting is very 3- dimensional in that there is a
foreground and a background and a middle ground. The placing with the house in the center and
the tree on the left of it with the sky on the top and the water below creates a calming
atmosphere. The water looks as if it is moving because of the speckled reflections of the house
and tree. The bright baby blue sky contrasts the dark gray house, trees and water. The foreground
helps lead the viewers eye up to the light. The sky takes up almost half of the painting, causing
the tall tree in the middle to stand out, and the tree leads the viewers eye down to the light by the
door and water. The sky gives the appearance of daytime because it is light, while the rest of the
painting seems to be night because it is dark and black. The painting is almost monochromatic,
having only blue, white, black, and yellow/gold. The painting gives off a sense of serenity, and
calmness because it is still and quiet. It gives the appearance of either a warm summer night
because the sky stays lighter later, or a cold winter morning because the sky gets light earlier.
The detailed sky, with the realistic clouds, could be representing heaven.

This painting represents Surrealism, because it is a mix of the real world (everything in it could
be seen in real life) and the unconscious mind (the objects are placed in a non- realistic fashion).
The scene could not possibly be depicted in real life, because the sky is a different time of day
than the rest of the painting, which shows that it is definitely a surrealist painting.
http://www.mattesonart.com/lempire-des-lumieres-empire-of-the-lights.aspx


While the success of the title The empire of lights lay in its expression of the ambivalent nature
of reality itself, the title was often misunderstood and mistranslated to mean empire rather than
dominion. As Breton wrote:

Ren Magrittes work and thought could not fail to come out at that opposite pole from the zone
of facility- and of capitulation- that goes by the name of chiaroscuro (the technique of using
light and shade in pictorial representation, also called claire-obscure). To him, inevitably, fell
the task of separating the subtle from the dense, without which effort no transmutation is
possible. To attack this problem called for all his audacity- to extract simultaneously what is light
from the shadow and what is shadow from the light. In this work the violence done to accepted
ideas and conventions is such that most of those who go by quickly think they saw the stars in
the daytime sky. In Magrittes entire performance there is present to a high degree what
Apollinaire called genuine good sense, which is, of course, that of the great poets.

Invariably Surrealist landscapes are wrought with contradictions that are intended to arouse
wonder as they defy comprehension. Though they may seem to spurn suggestions of a future and
an ultimate order, The empire of lights succeeds in reminding the viewer of the recurring,
inescapable paradoxes of life itself.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/rene-magritte-lempire-des-lumieres-3905814-

The empire of the lights, 1967 (unfinished)

Rene Magritte, two months before his death, wrote Sarane Alexandrian a letter in which he said:

I conceive of the art of painting as the science of juxtaposing colors in such a way that their
actual appearance disappears and lets a poetic image emerge There are no subjects, no
themes in my painting. It is a matter of imagining images whose poetry restores to what is
known that which is absolutely unknown and unknowable.

Magritte continued painting until 1967, the year of his death, leaving the above unfinished
painting on his easel. The work had been commissioned by a young German collector from
Cologne, who wanted something in the nature of The empire of lights; he was destined never
to take possession of the picture he had ordered. The uncompleted painting would remain on its
easel in the painters house in Brussels until the death of Georgette Magritte in 1986.

Magritte described his paintings by saying, My painting is visible images which conceal
nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself
this simple question, What does that mean? It does not mean anything, because mystery means
nothing either, it is unknowable.

A lonely sky- tram stop

Waiting for the tram to arrive
http://mentalfloss.com/article/21480/imagined-futures-alex-andreev

Einstein once said that what is remarkable about the mystery of the universe is that we
understand it. This is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable. The
unknown is something which completely eludes us (we dont have even the slightest idea about
it). The unknowable, however, is something that we understand that we dont understand; in
other words, it is something mysterious but within the capacities of our perception. This is what
Magritte portrays in his paintings- the mysteries of human thought illustrated in a canvas.

The two previous paintings, conceived by the aforementioned artist Alex Andreev, evoke such a
knowable mystery. The sky-tram is a surrealist object because it can be conceivable (although
in many different ways). Its shape and function seem to be familiar (although we dont know
exactly how the object functions). In the second painting, the artist seems to have been familiar
with Magrittes painting The lovers (or at least Id like such an explanation). The two
passengers do not wear hoods, like in Magrittes painting, but their faces are turned away from
the viewer. Dreams are not to be disturbed.

The son of man

Life obliges me to do something, so I paint, Ren Magritte.
http://blindmenandanelephant.blogspot.gr/2009/10/rene-magritte.html

The postcard, 1960

Fish

It is now traditional that I do at least one Name of village postcard every year, and this one
seems, well, surreal. The choice of the word loaf on the road might not strike anyone as
obvious until you realize that I make the word by mixing up the letters from existing words, and
I have a limited choice using Slow and its Welsh counterpart, ARAF. The location for the
picture was Cragina, in Radnorshire.
http://www.jasperfforde.com/giveaway/tnu154.html

Man in bowler hat (L homme au chapeau
melon), 1964

Good faith (La bonne foi), 1964-65

I guess Magritte uses the bowler hat as a substitute for his personality. I would say its a
combination of modesty and dignity; or, in simple words, an element of surrealistic aristocracy.

The bowler hat is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown originally created in 1849 for the British
soldier and politician Edward Coke. The bowler hat was popular with the working class during
the Victorian era, and later on with the middle and upper classes in the United Kingdom. Later in
the United Kingdom, it would come to be worn as work dress by the officers of the Queens
Guard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowler_hat

Hermes wearing a petasos hat, 380-370 BCE

Woman in a flowered hat, Pierre- Auguste
Renoir, 1899

One of the first pictorial depictions of a hat appears in a Thebes tomb painting which shows a
man wearing a conical straw hat. Other early hats were the Pileus, a simple skull cap; the
Phrygian cap, worn by freed slaves in Greece and Rome; and the Greek petasos, the first known
hat with a brim. Women wore veils, kerchiefs, hoods, caps and wimples. St. Clement, the patron
saint of felt hatmakers, is said to have discovered wool felt when he filled his sandals with flax
fibers to protect his feet.

Woman with Flowered Hat, Roy
Lichtenstein, 1963

Dora Maar au Chat, Pablo Picasso, 1941
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_with_Flowered_Hat

In the Middle Ages, hats were a marker of social status and used to single out certain groups.
Extravagant hats were popular in the 1980s, and in the early 21st century, flamboyant hats made
a comeback, with a new wave of competitive young milliners designing creations that include
turban caps, trompe-loeil-effect felt hats and tall headpieces made of human hair. Some new hat
collections have been described as wearable sculpture. Many modern pop stars have
commissioned hats as publicity stunts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hat

This 1899 advertising poster for a magician
prominently features the hat-trick
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hat-
trick_(magic_trick)

The pilgrim (Le plerin), 1966

Top hats are associated with stage magic, in particular the hat trick. In 1814, the French magician
Comte became the first conjurer on record to pull a white rabbit out of a top hat though this is
also attributed to the much later John Henry Anderson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_hat

In The pilgrim, Magritte explores perhaps the notion of prayer, taking of his hat in a gesture of
religious respect- to put it better, taking of his head in an act of magic.

The schoolmaster, 1954

Intimate friend (L ami intime), 1958

This is a similar setting as in The golden legend, and but this time theres just one loaf of bread
and one wine glass and of course his bowler hatted man with his back turned blocks the view. In
my opinion these are religious icons and Magritte used them frequently from the mid-1940s
onward.

The Nightingale 1962

This is one of several paintings with religious themes. Magritte, a professed agnostic in keeping
with his rejection of organized religion, was secretly religious. Later in life he painted several
religious paintings. Here God sits on a cloud above a train.

The wood, Max Ernst, 1927

It is however a caricature of god.- There isnt any question that Magritte felt more indebted to
the spirit of objects a la Marcel Duchamp than to the spirit of The wood, by his friend Max
Ernst, for example, for whom he painted The Nightingale. It is important to underline the
considerable emphasis of the intellectual, reason-orientated, reflective starting-point behind
Magrittes work, painting for philosophers or at least for lovers of philosophical thought. In
Magrittes art, the poetic shock, the aesthetic stimulation prompted by the picture, most
definitely should not be separated from a love of thinking, an unrestrained pleasure in reflection
and nimbleness of mind.

The mysteries of the horizon, 1955

The Earth rising from the Moon

The spirit of adventure ((L esprit d
aventure), 1962

Neil Armstrong walking on the moon (1969)

It is interesting to note that Buzz Aldrin is reflected on Armstrongs helmet, like Magrittes
companions are reflected on his back, in The spirit of adventure. In The mysteries of the
horizon, again we see how visionary and prophetic Magritte was about the achievements of (art
and) science, and of the human mind and efforts.

Was the Apollo 11 moon landing a hoax? Of course, it matters whether it is true or not. But in
some ways it does not. What is important, now, is that young people learn about scientific
method and process (which has links to legal process and human rights) and how to search for
and interrogate different forms of evidence. Using the arguments and evidence (including a lot of
visual evidence, which can be manipulated) of the issues around the moon landings brings into
sharper focus not only a need for skills of presenting , analyzing and interpreting evidence but
also an understanding about bias and prejudice within the media, and how peoples views and
understandings can be manipulated.
http://rayharris57.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/was-the-apollo-11-moon-landing-a-hoax-unesco-
and-the-international-year-of-astronomy/

In science this is called falsifiability- an inherent possibility to prove a statement to be false. A
statement is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive an observation or an argument which
proves the statement in question to be false. In this sense, falsify is synonymous with nullify,
meaning not to commit fraud but show to be false. Some philosophers argue that science must
be falsifiable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

Religion, on the other hand is based on dogma, therefore it is not falsifiable. However,
Magrittes religion is always falsifiable, as his images are so transparent that it seems they
almost dont exist, therefore his art is more like a kind of meta-art. Magrittes art is also
extremely genuine- despite drawing some lovely pictures, for example, of the Earth and the
Moon, he prefers to decompose the notions, to offer instead a completely new picture of the
earth and the moon, as in The mysteries of the horizon. This way the mystery of nature
becomes a common object for everyday experience and use.

Robert Louis Stevensons Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is known for its portrayal
of a split personality and has become synonymous with multiple personalities in both lay and
scientific literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptations_of_Strange_Case_of_Dr._Jekyll_and_Mr._Hyde

Dissociative identity disorder (DID), previously known as multiple personality disorder
(MPD), is a mental disorder characterized by at least two distinct and relatively enduring
identities or dissociated personality states that alternately control a persons behavior, and is
accompanied by memory impairment for important information not explained by ordinary
forgetfulness. These symptoms are not accounted for by substance abuse, seizures, other medical
conditions, nor by imaginative play in children. Diagnosis is often difficult as there is
considerable comorbidity with other mental disorders. Malingering should be considered if there
is possible financial or forensic gain, as well as factitious disorder if help-seeking behavior is
prominent.

DID is one of the most controversial psychiatric disorders with no clear consensus regarding its
diagnosis or treatment. Research on effectiveness of treatment has been concerned primarily with
clinical approaches and case studies. Dissociative symptoms range from common lapses in
attention, becoming distracted by something else, and daydreaming, to pathological dissociative
disorders. No systematic, empirically-supported definition of dissociation exists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
http://evemaebridgesgoulden.wordpress.com
/2012/10/06/57/
Half- Magritte

It is interesting (also amusing) to note that there isnt any certain definition for a multiple
personality disorder, which means that probably there isnt any disorder of this kind at all. I
personally believe that psychic diseases are always expressed in a social context (therefore they
truly are social diseases). For example, lets suppose someone is crazy. So, whats the problem?
From the moment we treat this person badly, psychopathology appears. Was Salvador Dali
crazy? What are the limits between madness and genius? Should we kill all abnormal babies
even before they are born, depriving thus society from its future Mozarts even before they are
born?

As far as Magritte is concerned, I guess he was lucky that his mother gave birth to him before
she committed suicide. This is a mothers ultimate sacrifice (almost archetypal), which Magritte
transformed into pure art. In fact, I dont believe that there are multiple personalities; its just
one person (with a single personality) facing multiple solutions to the same problem. But even
one bad solution is enough to bring a dead-end.

Friend of order (L ami de l ordre) 1964

The happy donor (L heureux donateur)
1966

Its certain that Magritte was a person with a multiple personality, meaning that he used to find
many ways to solve a problem. But Magritte approached his problems not psychologically but
mentally. In the previous paintings, we see that Magrittes preoccupation was not that of a
dissociated personality, but that of a holistic one, trying to unite the opposites; both the inside
and the outside. It seems as if the human body was a cave which one could look through- just to
find out what had already been inside. This is unification in full scale.

Taste of the invisible, 1964

Kissing Magritte

In the Taste of the invisible, the apple represents (the taste of) the part of the face which is
hidden by the apple. Therefore, the apple is an object of absence, not of presence. Strange as it
may seem, we often find missing things more imposing. It is as if things left behind a sort of
shadow. which is more powerful than the original body. Again, things which haunt us are those
we dont possess, or which dont even exist. But it is not correct to say that ghosts dont exist.
Apparently (phenomenologically) they are real.

In Kissing Magritte printed collage, Joe Webb removes the bowler hat wearing gentlemans
face to reveal Magrittes signature clouds in the background. It is an acknowledgement that
although the artist is no longer with us his influence continues.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/330029478912769626/

The Son of Man, 1964

http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/05/
23/rene-magritte/

Magritte painted The Son of Man as a self-portrait. The painting consists of a man in an
overcoat and a bowler hat standing in front of a low wall, beyond which is the sea and a cloudy
sky. The mans face is largely obscured by a hovering green apple. However, the mans eyes can
be seen peeking over the edge of the apple. Another subtle feature is that the mans left arm
appears to bend backwards at the elbow.

About the painting, Magritte said: At least it hides the face partly. Well, so you have the
apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. Its something that
happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden
by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show
us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say,
between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_of_Man

The Son of Man is Magrittes alter-ego, seemingly innocuous but really a Fantmas character
with a touch of danger lurking under his facade. Magritte strongly identified with Fantmas in
his early work and it becomes his Jungian animus, his diabolical subconscious.
http://www.mattesonart.com/magritte-on-his-paintings--interpreted-and-translated-by-r-
matteson.aspx

The present picture is one of only five self-portraits that Magritte ever painted. It was
commissioned by Harry Torczyner, who first proposed the work to Magritte in a letter written in
1963. In Magrittes reply, he explained to Torczyner:

Your idea for a portrait of the artist raises a problem of conscience: it has happened (three
times) that I have put myself in a picture, but the intention at the start was to paint a picture, not
to do a portrait. I am able (or rather have been able) to paint a few portraits which were intended
as such, but if the subject is myself, my visual appearance, this raises a problem that I am not
sure of being able to resolve. I will of necessity have to think about it, since the problem has
arisen. I cannot promise to get the better of it by the end of this year! However, it would be in the
order of things for inspiration- which happens spontaneously- to occur before then.

According to Sylvester and Whitfield, Magritte in fact only discovered a solution to this problem
in 1964 when he made the gouache Taste of the invisible; Magritte did not initially conceive of
the gouache as a self-portrait, but soon realized it provided the perfect imagery for Torczyners
commission.

Agritte painted only four self-portraits: Attempting the impossible (1928), The philosophers
lamp and Clairvoyance (1936), and The magician (1951). In addition, The therapist (1937)
may be a kind of self-portrait, since Magritte posed for a photograph based on the picture. It is
striking that the titles of all these paintings refer to magical powers. Throughout his career
Magritte repeatedly emphasized his fascination with the shamanistic force of art. For example, in
his famous lecture Lifeline, he stated that he was attracted to art as a child because painting
seemed to me magical and the painter to be gifted with superior powers; and he also said that in
art it is the power of enchantment which matters. The Son of Man is the most enigmatic and
mysterious, the most haunting and magical of all his self-portraits.

Like other members of his Surrealist circle in Brussels, Magritte chose to dress and live in a
deliberately staid and bourgeois manner. The bowler hat was a key part of his conservative
costume. As he explained to Life magazine in 1965:

The bowler is a headdress that is not original: it poses no surprise. And I wear it. I am not eager
to singularize myself. If I wanted to create a sensation in the street, I would dress for it. But I
don't want to.

Magritte typically asked his close friends to suggest titles for his works. Concerning The Son of
Man, he explained to Bosmans:

For the picture of the apple in front of a mans face Scutenaire and I tried to find a title, and it
was his wife Irene who thought of the son of man, which was recognized as being excellent and
definitive.

The Son of Man is, of course, a name for Jesus Christ in the New Testament, but Magritte
repeatedly said he did not intend its use here to have any theological meaning. Nevertheless,
David Sylvester has written:

The fact is that the objects he chose to attach to the bowler-hatted men are often irredeemably
symbolic objects. The son of man has a symbol of the Fall before his eyes, another the symbol of
the Holy Ghost... It is fitting. Magritte behaves like God. He makes fire burn without consuming,
puts boulders in the sky, pins clouds to the ground, turns men to stone, makes stone birds fly,
forbids us to look upon his face, etc.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/rene-magritte-le-fils-de-lhomme-1404203-

Golconda (Golconde), 1953

Golconda depicts a scene of nearly identical men dressed in dark overcoats and bowler hats,
who seem to be drops of heavy rain (or to be floating like helium balloons, though there is no
actual indication of motion), against a backdrop of buildings and blue sky. The men are spaced in
rhombic grids facing the viewpoint and receding back in grid layers.

Magritte lived in a similar suburban environment, and dressed in a similar fashion. Charly
Herscovici, commented on Golconda:

Magritte was fascinated by the seductiveness of images. Ordinarily, you see a picture of
something and you believe in it, you are seduced by it; you take its honesty for granted. But
Magritte knew that representations of things can lie. These images of men aren't men, just
pictures of them, so they don't have to follow any rules. This painting is fun, but it also makes us
aware of the falsity of representation.

One interpretation is that Magritte is demonstrating the line between individuality and group
association, and how it is blurred. All of these men are dressed the same, have the same bodily
features and are all floating/falling. This leaves us to look at the men as a group. Whereas if we
look at each person, we can predict that they may be completely different from another figure.

As was often the case with Magrittes works, the title Golconda was found by his poet friend
Scutenaire. Golkonda is a ruined city in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, near Hyderabad,
which from the mid-14th century until the end of the 17th was the capital of two successive
kingdoms; the fame it acquired through being the center of the regions legendary diamond
industry was such that its name remains a synonym for mine of wealth. Magritte included a
likeness of Scutenaire in the painting- his face is used for the large man by the chimney of the
house on the right of the picture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golconda_(painting)

Rene Magritte at MOMA, 1965; Photograph: Steve Schapiro

According to the photographer, In 1964, I went to the Museum of Modern Art in New York
(MOMA) to shoot Ren Magritte. There he was inside, sitting on a bench. His wife and dog were
with him, and they were surrounded by his pictures. I was doing Magritte, one of my favorite
artists, for Life magazine and I only had an hour and half; but for each photograph, Magritte
decided to become part of, or connected to, one of his works.

There was a painting of a big rock with a castle, so Magritte lay down on a bench in front of it,
with his head on his hat; my photograph then looked like he was dreaming the picture. The one
above works because Magritte actually resembles the protagonists in many of his pictures,
especially the ones wearing that trademark hat. The challenge- always- is how to make a picture
special. If youre working with someone imaginative, an artist operating at Magrittes level, it
can turn into a collaboration. In this case, it definitely did. We were all in high spirits. We didnt
talk much: our relationship was basically based on smiling. We did another shot of Magritte and
this painting, with a hand coming in from the side holding Magrittes bowler hat over his head. It
added our own surreal touch
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/nov/03/photography-steve-schapiro-best-shot

To be a surrealist means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and
being always on the lookout for what has never been.
http://missmonet.net/2014/02/18/artistic-expression-the-surrealist-style-of-rene-magritte/

Meeting pleasure (A la rencontre du plaisir),
1950

Meeting pleasure, 1962

In Meeting pleasure, the bowler-hatted man who has featured in so many of his works and
which even during his own career was to become an icon associated with him is shown striding
from a desolate landscape scene against the backdrop of a curtain while another man looks
across the wasteland towards some houses and what may be the dawn, his back to the viewer.
The painting was included by the author Alain Robbe-Grillet in his anti-novel La belle captive,
which weaved a plot through 77 of Magrittes pictures:

It looks as though morning might be sunny, and Ill be sitting without my cane and moustache
on the terrace of the Rudolphe caf, facing the sea, having exchanged the dark overcoat and
bowler hat for a light-weight suit more in keeping with this place and the time of year. It will
enable me all the better to pass unnoticed among the strollers.

In Meeting pleasure, there is little that is overtly Surreal about the composition: on the ground
stands a grelot, a carriage-bell. Meanwhile, the curtain, so reminiscent of Old Master paintings
where such items were often included as a display of trompe-loeil adds a sense of mystery,
ensuring that the space shown appears both interior and exterior.

Indeed, this recalls Sigmund Freuds notion of the uncanny (heimlich). Freud himself explored
the concept that the word heimlich, homely or familiar, and unheimlich in fact overlap in
their meanings. Certainly in Magrittes Towards pleasure, the homely interiority of the curtain
is shown in direct tension both to the barren scene beyond and the activities of the striding,
bowler-hatted man as he spirits away an object that appears vase-like yet barely unidentifiable.

Sunset (Brothers), Caspar David Friedrich, 1835

With his back turned to us and the crepuscular sky, bruised with the pinks and oranges of the
rising or setting sun, Meeting pleasure appears to evoke the works of Caspar David Friedrich,
for instance his image of brothers in his Sunset. There is a sense of projection, as the viewer
places him- or herself in the position of the main protagonist, who becomes a shell, an everyman
as well as an anchor plunging us into the world of this landscape. That everyman status is all the
more intriguing as it appears to continue the practice of oblique self-portraiture in which
Magritte reveled throughout his career.

The identification of the main figure - the one not wearing a bowler hat - with Magritte appears
confirmed by comparison with a photograph, under the title La vertu recompense, taken in
1934 showing the artist himself with his back turned to the camera against a similar, sparsely-
built backdrop. That photograph appears to have inspired Meeting pleasure.

To the modern viewer, it may appear ironic that the figure based on Magritte in Meeting
pleasure is the one not wearing a bowler hat. However, Magritte himself explained that he had
selected the bowler hat as a motif in part because it was so endemic: at the time that he started
painting them in the 1930s, they were worn by many people. For Magritte, they were a disguise
that allowed him to blend into the world: The bowler... poses no surprise. It is a headdress that
is not original. And I wear it. I am not eager to singularize myself. It was only later that his use
of this headwear in his paintings would become so specifically associated with his own image, a
notion underscored by its recurrence in modern popular culture.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/rene-magritte-a-la-rencontre-du-plaisir-5650376-
details.aspx

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rene_Magritte_by_Wolleh.jpg

Meeting pleasure Its an extension of the pleasure principle, which Magritte was very
familiar with, and which he had also painted in his The pleasure principle. There is some sense
of self-satisfaction, or better self- fulfilment, in all Magrittes paintings with bowler hats, or
even with missing heads. Its not the body which stays; its the spirit which leaves. This goes
beyond the pleasure principle. As the photo suggests, Magritte is enjoying a cigarette (not a pipe)
with his body turned sideways, implying the direction which the smoke of the cigarette should
take, which is also the road beyond pleasure- and beyond reality, in fact.

Memories of a journey

By 1950 Magritte started his petrification (turning live objects into stone) period, including the
Memory of a journey series of paintings. He had already experimented turning birds and leaves
to stone in the 1940s, but now the entire scenes are petrified, and according to Magritte in the
1955 version of Memory of a journey, only the light of the candle is real. Edgar Allen Poe
was also interested in petrification, adding long foot notes on the subject to The thousand and
second tale.

The pledge (La parole donne), 1950

The pledge is part of Magrittes petrification period. Sometimes referred to as his stone age
pictures, these works celebrate Magrittes love of paradox; The giant stone apple seen here, for
example, has a leafy stem which underscores both its arrested growth and its incongruous
presence amongst forebodingly angular outcroppings of mottled grey stone. Indeed, Magritte
regarded the state of petrification as a visual expression of disaster and death. As Abraham
Hammacher has stated, One can trace this preoccupation with a petrified world in all. Magrittes
works did not regard petrification as a process, but as a kind of catastrophe, like that at Pompeii,
when lava transfixed the world and brought all movement to a halt. The theme of objects
transformed or transforming into stone also reprises the inherent violence of Magrittes earlier
series of paintings in which figures in famous works such as Manets Balcony or Davids
Mme Rcamier are replaced by coffins, or the metamorphic paintings of 1927 in which
landscapes, and figures are changed into wood.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/rene-magritte-la-parole-donnee-5138356-
details.aspx#top

The great table, 1962-63

The great table, 1965

The great table, is an extension of Magrittes petrified objects. Here its just a giant apple and a
pear.

Memory of a journey, 1962-63

Petrification served a more literal purpose in Magrittes paintings, as observed by the physicist
Albert V. Baez: The force of gravity, which we dismiss as commonplace in our daily lives,
becomes powerful and awesome here. We can step on an ordinary stone any day without giving
it a second thought, but the stone in the paintings is compelling. The artist has made it
extraordinary. It reminds us that all stones are extraordinary.

Magrittes own thoughts on the matter were more philosophical, likening the solid nature of the
stone to the mental and physical constitution of the human being. For others, his paintings of the
monolith were signifiers of time, place and permanence. As Roger Shattuck comments, I know
of no painting that conveys so totally the sense of a universe in suspense, a universe in which
everything is waiting and nothing moves.

Sixteenth of September (Le seize Septembre), 1956

The Memory of a journey series also revolves around the conceptual relationship between day
and night that figures so prominently in Magrittes most celebrated compositions, such as The
empire of lights. The delicate crescent moon that rises above the apple is subtly incongruous
with the day lit sky. The evocation of night and day is precisely the sort of reconciliation of
opposites prized by the Surrealists, as in, for example, the opening line of Bretons poem L
aigrette (The egret): Si seulement il faisait du soleil cette nuit (If only the sun were to
come out tonight).
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.pdf.L12002.html/f/18/L12002-18.pdf

Memory of a journey, 1952


Memory of journey, 1951

I believe that the petrification Magritte used is an extension of still life paintings. Still lifes
have been one of the most common subjects in art. They revolve around nature, but also around a
timeless aspect of life. Perhaps deep in the unconscious of the artists there is the need to conquer
time, together with conquering the secrets of art by using the trompe l oeil effect, which is
commonly found in still lifes.

The magic potion (Le philter), 1951

The horns of desire (Les cornes du dsire),
1960

This is another example of Magrittes paintings where he uses petrification. In The magic
potion, there is a statue made out of stone of a man wearing a suit. The trick is that the man is
missing, or he is invisible.

The same holds for The horns of desire. There isnt any horns here. But the horns are
imaginary extensions of deeper desires, and probably they have a different form and meaning at
that level. What statues dont possess is a soul. They are representations of beings who used to
be alive (either as mortal or as gods). But the statue, also regarding its eternal perspective, is
something neither alive nor dead. It is one of the best artistic expressions of the uncanny, and
of a still life. Therefore, the statue needs not possess a soul. It is a vessel itself, coming from
antiquity, from the depths of time, offering us the opportunity to fill it with our thoughts and
emotions- fulfilling at the same time our own lives.

The idol, 1965
The wasted footsteps, 1950

The smile, 1951

The great tide (La grande mare), 1951

In the Wasted footsteps a hawk emerges from the rock, as if the rock had the shape of the bird.
The bird is the guardian of the passage: None shall pass. This is the secret mountainous land of
the highest thoughts and desires. But you may enter if your heart and your mind are as brave and
as swift as those of a hawk.

The idol, on the other hand, looks more like a pigeon, although a petrified one. It is captured in
time hovering above a sea shore full of stones. The sea however is looking vibrant. The bird
therefore serves as a flying statue, capturing the passage of time in eternity.

In the first version of The smile, there is the enigmatic inscription on the stone: An 192370
(Year 192370). In the second version, there are some dates inscribed on the stones, reading
Anno (year in Latin) and numbers, some of them serving as calendar dates and others,
perhaps, as street numbers.

In The great tide, the sea is missing; instead there is a painting (within the painting) depicting
the sky with clouds and bells, while the landscape is filled with rocks, some of which seem to
be hanging on the painting. This is a rockslide, a secret tide which left behind a transformed
landscape, with rocks and a canvas on the beach.

The vibrant model (Le modele vivant), 1952

The malicious sack (Le sac malice), 1959

The vibrant model is one of Magrittes best examples of distortion. The material is wood,
although it seems it follows its own lines. The malicious sack is an anatomy of the human
heart, petrified, and put into a stone vase.

Song of violet, 1951


The song of violet, is another painting in which everything appears to be made of stone. In
Memory of a journey (1955), the poet Marcel Lecomte stands next to a stone lion. Magritte had
said that only the flame of the candlelight is real. The indifference of stones is the same as not
existing, Magritte added.

Is this light able to escape still time? This is interesting: No matter what happens, light never
stops. It also intensifies its effect on ice-like stone. Even if we manage to capture a snapshot of
passing time on a film or on a canvas, time has passed away, together with the light, which
enabled us to develop the caption.

It is this realistic indifference of what we dont consider what makes unobserved objects equal
to inexistent things. Think about it: The sun and the moon, for example, are there whether we
like it or not. But when the artist depicts these heavenly bodies on a canvas, on the wall of a
cave, on a piece of paper, or anywhere else, the object depicted is not the heavenly body but an
image in the artists mind. It is a symbol representing the physical object but it shouldnt be
confused with the object itself.


Depicting the leaning tower of Pisa supported by a feather, this Memory of a journey is a
remarkable example of the way in which Magrittes art appropriates images from popular
culture, and turns them into fantastic compositions. Reproductions of famous paintings, travel
brochures, postcards and other souvenirs were often seized upon as sources for his paintings and
gouaches, as is the case in the present work. Since the leaning tower of Pisa holds the same
mystifying appeal within architecture as Mona Lisa does in painting, Magritte would have
certainly relished its status as a popular icon. By adding the feather as a support for the famously
unstable building, the artist seeks to subvert the laws of physics, as well as to question the
viewers perception of an image so deeply rooted in common culture.

The title Magritte chose for the present work was conceivably inspired by J.A. Gobineaus book
Souvenirs de voyage, which Magritte had in his library. Its more poetic resonance certainly
struck a chord with the artist and his inclination for unusual titles, and emphasizes the ubiquitous
appeal of the image.


The obelisk and the fountains in Place de la
Concorde, France

There is a certain similarity between these two pictures, and probably Magrittes inspiration was
the Place de la Concorde.

The center of the Place is occupied by a giant Egyptian obelisk, one of two the Egyptian
government gave to the French in the 19th century. The other one stayed in Egypt, too difficult
and heavy to move to France with the technology at that time. In the 1990s, President Franois
Mitterrand gave the second obelisk back to the Egyptians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_de_la_Concorde

The straight path (Le droit chemin), 1962

Dol de Breton

Dol de Breton is currently the largest standing stone in France, on the borders of Normandy
and Brittany. The nearby Mont Dol is the place where St. Michael is said to have fought
Lucifer. The syllable dol is also used in the Breton word dolmen, which means stone-table.
It has been dressed (from pink granite) so that it is almost square at the bottom. The menhir
stands 9.5m high with an estimated weight of 150 tons.
http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/francedoldebreton.htm

Therefore, the straight path is found by following the direction suggested by these huge
monoliths, both erected as monuments and depicted in art.

Still life with a skull and a writing quill, Pieter Claesz, 1628

The tradition of still lifes goes far beyond Magrittes petrifications: Still-life painting as an
independent genre or specialty first flourished in the Netherlands during the early 1600s,
although German and French painters were also early participants in the development, and less
continuous traditions of Italian and Spanish still-life painting date from the same period. Still-life
motifs occur fairly frequently in manuscripts, books of hours, and panel paintings of the 1400s
and 1500s.

Many of the objects depicted in these early works are symbolic of some quality of the Virgin or
another religious figure (for example, the lily stands for purity), while other objects may remind
the viewer of an edifying concept such as worldly vanity or temperance. Moralizing meanings
are also common in independent still-life paintings of the seventeenth century, which range from
such obviously didactic works as Pieter Claeszs Still life with a skull and a writing quill to rich
displays of luxury items like Abraham van Beyerens Still life with lobster and fruit. In the
latter work, the pocket watch, which symbolizes the fleeting nature of earthly pleasures, may be
considered more of an intellectual conceit than a sober warning against the desire for material
things like the objects depicted or the painting itself.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nstl/hd_nstl.htm

Lobster telephone, Salvador Dali, 1936
Still life with lobster and fruit, Abraham van
Beyeren, 1650s

Therefore we see that even Dalis famous lobster telephone was not his own inspiration but had
its precursors in still life paintings of the past. Even Magrittes still lifes depicting statues (such
as the head of the statue in Memory) had their precursors:

The attributes of painting and sculpture, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, 1728

Chardin, who was French, is considered a master of still life. His influence on the art of the
modern era is wide-ranging, apparent in Manet and Czanne. He was also one of Matisses most
admired painters; as an art student Matisse made copies of four Chardin paintings in the Louvre.

Marcel Proust, in the chapter How to open your eyes? from In search of lost time ( la
recherche du temps perdu), describes a melancholic young man sitting at his simple breakfast
table. The only comfort he finds is in the imaginary ideas of beauty depicted in the great
masterpieces of the Louvre, materializing fancy palaces, rich princes, and the like. The author
tell him to follow him to another section of the Louvre where the pictures of Jean-Baptiste
Chardin are. There he would see the beauty in still life at home and in everyday activities like
peeling turnips.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste-Sim%C3%A9on_Chardin

Still life with plaster cast, Paul Cezanne,
1894

Still life with skull and candlestick, Paul
Cezanne, 1866

This work is often seen as one of the most radical compositions that Czanne produced due to its
abstract tendencies that heralded the coming of the Cubist movement. In Still life with plaster
cast there is a clear distorting of the image. A dirty white colored plaster cast of a young boy
with no arms is stood on a table among some fruit. Czannes Still life with plaster cast was
also unusual because of its subject matter choice. Not only was it a still life diverging from
reality, but it was also mixing the mystical with the ordinary.
http://www.artble.com/artists/paul_cezanne/paintings/still_life_with_plaster_cast

Of all artists of his time, it is perhaps Czanne who had the most profound influence on twentieth
century art (Matisse admired his use of color and Picasso developed the flattened structure of
Czannes compositions to create the Cubist style.) During his time he was unknown as a
painter, had few friends, mistrusted critics and exhibited very rarely. He demonstrated antisocial
behaviors such as not washing and refusing to shake hands. Many of his early works were
painted with deep pigments and dark tones, reminiscent of romantic and melancholic
expressionism of previous generations and reflective of his own self-doubt and depression.
http://blog.welove-music.com/index.php/tag/painting/

Modern abstract art also attributes its influences to the great still life or surrealist artists of the
past:

Paintings that fall off their canvases; its clear, reviewing selected works by Daniel Borins and
Jennifer Marman, that to them art is never quite what it seems. The Toronto duo has made a
career out of binding familiar with unfamiliar- Led Zeppelin band members into a dry,
diagrammatic print, for instance, or a balcony from the terror-laced Munich Olympics into
Smurf-scale.
http://www.canadianart.ca/see-it/2009/01/29/daniel-borins-jennifer-marman/

Escape into reality

Escape into reality is a painting/sculpture from Czech artist, Michael Trpk. It is made of
cement, wood, and acrylic paint. In the description of his work, Michael tackles two of the
biggest questions in the art world: What is art, and why does art matter?

Escape into reality is a combination of a painting, a relief and a sculpture, it outlines a transition
between real and virtual world, between 2d and 3d form, between sensed and tangible Art
tries to be new and discovering, so is an artist a scientist or an inventor? Modern art is a
conceptual one and it can seldom defend itself, so does it make an artist a rhetorician or a
philosopher? If art needs a form to convey an idea, should an artist be a skillful craftsman? If art
is supposed to be digital, is an artist due to be an expert on information technologies? Is an artist
a diplomat or a strategist who can present nothing like something and make the viewers believe
in it? Who actually is still an artist and who is not? As long as an artist can be all and exercise
anything, why everybody is not an artist? Will any object become a piece of art being exhibited
in a gallery and will a person who places an object in a gallery become an artist? What is then the
purpose of art? To convey an idea or draw attention by means of a special, ingenious or more
sophisticated form to things around us? Or should art be made use of as an aesthetical
supplement and is more likely to be the design? If art is supposed to be another form of
communication, does it need any commentary? Or- is art something what is useless and thats
why there are galleries to make it usable? As it is difficult to find a boundary between real and
virtual, it is impossible to limit the art. I dont know what a painting thinks about itself if it does
think anything at all, nor I know if form is important for art. Supposing there is no form, energy,
which can be turned into form, remains Boundaries dont exist
http://www.robotspacebrain.com/tag/painting/

Sculptures and paintings

This may be one of the most exciting projects Ive gotten to work on in my studio so far...
working on a tall oil painting of the figure while watching a very talented sculptor build a piece
at the same time. As Matt (the sculptor) explores different angles and searches for the perfect s-
curve on the figure, spontaneous outbursts of yes! resonate from his corner as he realizes he has
gotten it just right.
http://www.studio81.biz/2012/02/figure-sculptures-and-paintings.html

I believe there is a huge gap between classical and modern art, if we consider surrealism not
modern anymore. But I dont think surrealism has been surpassed yet. Will modern art become
classical in the future? I really dont know. But it is certain that something will spring out of
the modern era to create a new revolution (which is probably evolving right now). People tend to
be romantic about the past and pessimistic about the future. This may be natural. I dont believe
that Magritte was a precursor of pop art. I believe that pop art used Magritte as its father to lean
on. However, one thing is certain: Artistic talent is neither classical nor modern. It is always
revolutionary and innovating, fighting against contemporary paradigms in order to change the
world view, therefore the world itself. Whatever still life paintings will be in the future, the
point is the same: To capture time is always an act of immortality. And the good artist becomes
the best of them (immortals) all.

Ceci continu de ne pas tre une pipe

The treason of images, 1952

People question images before listening to them; they question them with rhyme or reason.
And then they are amazed if the expected answer is not forthcoming. Thus a word of advice is in
order. A sunset, a river, a town, a woman, can be looked at in all simplicity; and in silence. A
silence that -something- will fill. So it is with the paintings of Rene Magritte. The expression
wait and see sometimes takes on a profound meaning.
Paul Noug 1944

Who suspects that this triangle of canvas may perhaps contain something that will permanently
alter the meaning of justice and love, the meaning, manner and tension of a human existence?
Here are all our familiar objects... but presented in such a way that if we then turn back and look
at the world again, something that was so banal that it no longer existed for us, suddenly acquires
such formidable and fascinating density that we cannot even guess what new relationships we
may form with it. The universe is changed; nothing is ordinary anymore.
Louis Scutenaire, 1942

Rene Magrittes paintings- whose conditioning and objective make them unique in the history
of painting- were created for the discovery, the preservation and the multiplication of the
adventurous reality which is both the most elating and the nearest to us: the unknown.
Paul Colinet, 1953

I would also like to remind you that what would appear to be the framework of Magrittes daily
life is humor, and that this is to be found in his work- sometimes- almost imperceptibly, but at
other times in a far more precise fashion. Moreover, it is not entirely without a spirit of
mystification. Magritte is not averse to people misunderstanding him, and he himself provokes
these misunderstandings with obvious pleasure.
Camille Goemans, 1949

My Dear Rene,
I have always felt that your paintings reverse the usual procedure: before one can look at them
they are already scrutinizing the distracted onlooker. I shake your steady hand.
Man Ray, 1937

Magritte paints in the mirror the positive image of fiction, points the finger in reverse towards
the hand, pierces the eye through which the cranium is flooded with broad daylight by night...
affirming the endless truth of the absurd.
Roland Penrose, 1958

Would you like someone who can turn night into day? Would you like to be sure that desires
are often struck by lightning? Would you like to walk through a transparent door? Would you
like poetic order from chaos? And fire, wouldnt you like to control fire, and gravity and air and
the stars? Would you like someone who could make things seem what they really are? Then you
will like Rene Magritte.
Dorothea Tanning, 1961

If the spectator finds that my paintings are a kind of defiance of common sense, then he
realizes something obvious. I want nonetheless to add that for me the world is a defiance of
common sense.

There is a mistaken idea about painting that is very widespread- namely that painting has the
power to express, something of which it is certainly incapable. Emotions do not have any
concrete form which can be reproduced in painting. To the fine man who asked me Which is the
picture which expresses joy? I can only say That one which gives you joy to see. I
particularly like this idea that my paintings say nothing.
Rene Magritte, 1945

In comparison to his earlier Futurist painting style, Magritte became increasingly realistic after
1925. That is to say, he turned away from arbitrary color, distortion, and bold brushstrokes in
favor of a highly descriptive method of painting. Magritte relied on the illusion of space and the
clarity of contours to create tactile forms that appear familiar and lifelike. The art historian Roger
Shattuck describes this phenomenon wonderfully in his 1966 article entitled This is not Rene
Magritte:

He takes the entire Western tradition of optical likeness, perfected through two and a half
thousand years of subsidized research, and applies it scrupulously to challenge the act of thought.
Every separate item in his paintings looks like something we know. Yet no painting as a whole
looks like anything we ever saw or conceived before we stood in front of it and looked.

Most art historical discourses refer to Magritte as a Surrealist even though this leaves out a great
deal of the story. Magritte did not even view himself as a Surrealist, stating in a letter to his
friend Andre Bosmans, Im neither a Surrealist nor a Cubist nor a Patawhatever even
though I have a fairly strong weakness for the so-called Cubist and Futurist schools. In reality,
he only stayed in Paris for three years (1927- 1930) and had problems with certain Surrealist
philosophies. He was interested in their ideas concerning the layered dimensions of reality and
the power of dislocation, but did not share the groups enthusiasm for chance, the fantastic, or
the intuitive creativity of trance-induced states.

The artist spent the majority of his life collaborating with a small band of friends in Brussels
where he lived until his death in 1967. They called themselves the Belgian Surrealists and
worked together for over thirty years. Committed to group activity, they drew up manifestoes,
organized exhibitions, made films, edited reviews, and stimulated the art community in Brussels
with their various projects. Magrittes personal philosophy of art fits better into this context than
it does with the Paris Surrealists.

Magritte chose not to have a studio, but instead worked in a small corner of his living room, as if
to hide the fact that he was a full-time artist. This attitude is best summarized by a statement
Noug wrote to Andre Breton in Paris, warning the French poet about the narcissism he saw
creeping into artistic circles with the words, I would quite like it if those of us whose names are
beginning to make their mark were to erase them.

Magritte searched postcards, illustrations, childrens books, and medical manuals for what he
termed neutral or indifferent images and copied them in his paintings. He wanted to undermine
the idea of uniqueness in a work of art. Magritte professed indifference to quality in his art and
the work of others; he claimed to have no talent, no originality, no artistic aptitude, just ideas he
sought to express in visual form. He once told an interviewer:

I always try to make sure that the actual painting isnt noticed, that it is as little visible as
possible. I work rather like the sort of writer who tries to find the simplest tone, who eschews all
stylistic effects, so that the only thing the reader is able to see in his work is the idea he was
trying to express. So the act of painting is hidden in my work.

Magritte had a major impact on 20th-century art. Artists such as Robert Rauschenberg (1925- ),
Jasper Johns (1930- ), Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), and Andy Warhol (1928-87) were greatly
influenced by his approach to art. Indeed, many of the ideas he embraced-appropriation, word-
imagery, dislocation, collage, satire, and contradiction-continue to be explored by many artists
today. What is more, Magrittes art is familiar to a mass audience. His images have been used
extensively by the advertising industry. As we look at Magrittes work, it is important to realize
the ways in which his voice resounds in our contemporary culture. Fifty years ago he
commented, I dont want to belong to my time, but then added, or for that matter, to any
other.
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/citi/resources/Rsrc_001620.pdf

Not everyone likes Magritte however. Some people try to find forgery in almost all of his works.
According to Patricia Allmer, Blavier and Marin draw attention to similarities between passages
of Magrittes most autobiographical of his writings, Lifeline, and passages from Edgar Alan
Poes Berenice (1835), and also with Max Ernsts celebrated text Le 10 Aot 1925 which
was published in 1936, a year before Magrittes first version of Lifeline. These similarities
suggest Magrittes possible appropriation and adaptation of these past texts for his own
autobiographical writings. For example, Magritte describes, in Lifeline:

Therefore, I decided around 1925, to paint the objects only with their apparent details, because
my research could only be developed under these circumstances. I gave up on all except one way
of painting, which brought me to a point which I had to transgress. This decision, which allowed
me to break with a by then comfortable habit, was eased by the way, through long observations,
in which I found an opportunity in a popular Brasserie in Brussels. The psychological state I was
in, caused the decorative molding on a door to appear as if it would have a mysterious existence,
and I was long in touch with its reality.

Blavier suggests that these lines can be compared to Edgar Allan Poes Berenice, in which the
hero narrates:

To muse for long unwearied hours with my attention riveted to some frivolous device on the
margin, or in the typography of a book; to become absorbed for the better part of a summers
day, in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry, or upon the door; to lose myself for an
entire night in watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire; to dream away whole
days over the perfume of a flower; to repeat monotonously some common word, until the sound,
by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind.

However, Blavier also notes that Magrittes text might also bear comparison with Ernsts
writing, pointing to Marcel Marins citation of Magrittes passage, following a citation of
Ernsts text Le 10 aot 1925 , in his book Les Corrections naturelles:

On August 10, 1925 an intolerable visual obsession made me discover the technical means that
enabled me to put Leonardos lesson into practice. It started from a childhood memory in
which a panel of false mahogany across from my bed provoked a vision in my mind while I was
half asleep, and, being in an inn by the sea during a rainfall, I became obsessed and irritated with
the patterns of grooves in the floor, accentuated by thousands of washings.

Ernsts text, which is influenced by Leonardo da Vincis Treatise on painting (c. 1500), in
which the author recommends that artists should stare at stains on walls until figures appear,
shares significant similarities with Magrittes text. The date, the place of the experience
(Brasserie/Inn), the experience of marveling at mundane features of domestic spaces (decorative
molding/floor) and its influential, revelatory effect on both artists seem to point towards more
than just an accidentally similar experience. Ernsts statement seems reworked and appropriated
by Magritte into his own autobiographical outline.

Force of habit (La force de lhabitude), 1960

Another incident which Allmer notes is the This is not a Magritte case: In Max Ernsts dining
room in Paris there was a painting by Magritte, entitled Force of habit, in which a heraldic
image of a large green apple is inscribed, in English, This is not an apple. Max and Magritte
had exchanged pictures, as artists often do. And Max, in the middle of the apple, had painted a
cage with a bird inside. Below this cage, Max had written, Ceci nest pas un Magritte, (This is
not a Magritte) signed Max Ernst.

Magrittes only comment on Ernsts joke was forced laughter, perhaps because he knew too
well what Ernst was aiming at. Ernsts signature appropriates, becomes a further item in the play
and multiplication of ceci, but also in the multiplication of names- Magritte as signature,
Magritte as label, Max Ernst as counter-signature. Ernsts inscription unearths the subversive
character of Magritte beneath his appearance as a commercial artist, revealing him as being like
a worm in the apple changing what is within, without touching the surface. Whilst Magritte
saw this painting and its title as another version of the problem of the pipe, of the problem of
the ceci, complying with the art market which wanted to see endless reproductions of the same
theme, Ernst teases out a different meaning, a different Magritte, allocating the problem of
ceci to its rightful, subversive place. Force of habit is exposed, not as the re-painting of the
same motif, but as the inability not to forge, to plagiarize, the inability to keep ones hands off
the others artworks.
df.pdf

Magrittes window, Nicole Caulfield
http://www.sharonarts.org/pr-jurors-choice2007-9.html

As far as the apple is concerned, it is one of the most frequent and recognizable of Magrittes
motifs, appearing in various guises such as a floating orb in the sky, a masked entity, and perhaps
most famously hiding the face of a man wearing a bowler hat. The ambiguity of its role in the
present scene invites the viewer to contemplate possible interpretations without ever offering a
definitive meaning, sustaining a sense of enigma that the painter prized above all else. For
Magritte, the apple came to symbolize this perpetual tension between the hidden and visible, and
he even used it to obscure his own visage in some of his self-portraits. The painter stated:

Those of my pictures that show very familiar objects, an apple, for example, pose questions. We
no longer understand when we look at an apple; its mysterious quality has thus been evoked. In a
recent painting, I have shown an apple in front of a person's face At least it partially hides the
face. Well then, here we have the apparent visible, the apple, hiding the hidden visible, the
persons face. This process occurs endlessly. Each thing we see hides another, we always want to
see what is being hidden by what we see. There is an interest in what is hidden and what the
visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a fairly intense feeling, a kind of
contest, I could say, between the hidden visible and apparent visible.

Suzi Gablik suggests that Magrittes paintings are a systematic attempt to disrupt any dogmatic
view of the physical world. By means of the interference of conceptual paradox, he causes
ordinary phenomena to inherit extraordinary and improbably conclusions. What happens in
Magritte's paintings is, roughly speaking, the opposite of what the trained mind is accustomed to
expect. His pictures disturb the elaborate compromise that exists between the mind and life. In
Magritte's paintings, the worlds haphazard state of consciousness is transformed into a single
will.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/rene-magritte-la-parole-donnee-5138356-
details.aspx#top

The Ouroboros (= Tail-eater), a dragon that continually consumes itself, is used as a symbol
for self-reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-reference

Regarding the incident with Max Ernst, the Ouroboros, uncunningly enough, reminds, at least
in shape, Magrittes apple. Theres certainly a self-referential aspect here: This is not an apple,
is in fact a cannibalistic statement- it is a sentence which eternally consumes (by referring to)
itself.

-This is not a sentence-

In philosophy and logic, the liar paradox is the statement this sentence is false. Trying to assign
to this statement a (classical binary) truth value, leads to a contradiction (paradox). If This
sentence is false is true, then the sentence is false, but then if This sentence is false is false,
then the sentence is true, and so on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox

Well, is This is not a sentence true or false? It certainly is a sentence. But its falsity doesnt
cancel its reality. Therefore a statement contains truth either it is valid or not. The same goes
for a liar; In fact he is a real person and perhaps a very successful one. But is it lies what we
finally prefer to listen to?

According to Wikipedia, the self-reference effect is a tendency for people to encode information
differently depending on the level on which the self is implicated in the information. When
people are asked to remember information when it is related in some way to the self, the recall
rate can be improved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-reference_effect

Therefore, not only our mind works by infinite repetitions of true or false statements, but also
it is often put aside by deeper desires, which make us follow dreams and lies, although deep
inside we know its wrong.

The game of mora (Le jeu de mourre), 1966

Popular interest in Magrittes work rose considerably in the 1960s, and his imagery has
influenced pop, minimalist and conceptual art. The Beatles Apple logo was directly inspired by
Magritte. In an interview with Johan Ral in 1993, Paul McCartney (who bought The game of
mora) remembers:

I really loved Magritte. We were discovering Magritte in the sixties, just through magazines and
things. And we just loved his sense of humor. And when we heard that he was a very ordinary
bloke who used to paint from nine to one oclock, and with his bowler hat, it became even more
intriguing. Robert used to look around for pictures for me, because he knew I liked him. It was
so cheap then, its terrible to think how cheap they were. But anyway, we just loved him... One
day he brought this painting to my house. We were out in the garden, it was a summers day.
And he didnt want to disturb us, I think we were filming or something. So he left this picture of
Magritte. It was an apple- and he just left it on the dining room table and he went. It just had
written across it Au revoir, on this beautiful green apple. And I thought that was like a great
thing to do. He knew Id love it and he knew Id want it and Id pay him later

So it was like wow! What a great conceptual thing to do, you know. And this big green apple,
which I still have now, became the inspiration for the logo. And then we decided to cut it in half
for the B-side!

Young love (Les jeunes amours), 1963

The paintings title was found by Magrittes friend Scutenaire, and is probably a play of words
on Les jeunes amours. The game of mora is played with one of the players rapidly displaying a
hand with some fingers raised, the others folded inwards, while his opponent calls out a number,
which, for him to win, has to correspond to the total of the raised fingers.

In 1961, Magritte was an internationally acclaimed artist. He was identified by his paintings of
bowler hated men, a persona of his hero Fantmas that he created when he was a young radical.
Magritte still considered himself to be a secret agent, a mysterious figure identified by his dark
attire and bowler hat. His hobbies were amateur cinematography and chess, and he enjoyed
taking walks with his wife and his dog, Lou-Lou. Now 63 he said, Im getting older; I get
toothaches and headaches, and theres nothing I can do about it. Magritte lived in a comfortable
unbohemian house near Brussels, quietly damning a good deal of what other artists were doing.
Although famous, his paintings did not command the high prices in the 1960s as some other
leading surrealist artists like Dali.

The mysterious barricades (Les barricades mysterieuses), 1961

In 1961 he continued doing murals and designed a mural for Palais de Crogress titled The
mysterious barricades. Around this time he began doing limited editions of lithographs. With
sales from his lithographs and paintings he was finally financially secure and he said, I have
everything I need. Magritte painted regularly until his death. Around 1963 he discovered he had
cancer and his health began to fail. Despite his health problems, he traveled with Georgette
spending some time in Ischia, Italy, in 1965, and in the same year the Magrittes took their first
trip to the U.S.A. on the occasion of the retrospective held at the Museum of Modern Art of New
York.

The last word (Le dernier cri), 1967

The last word was Magrittes last painting before his death in 1967. Of this work Jacque
Meuris states, The last word is a highly emblematic picture, particularly in view of the place it
occupies in the complete catalogue as the last finished work. Against a background of the kind of
rugged mountains seen in many of the artists best-known paintings, suspended in an aperture of
which we see only the right-hand edge, is an enormously magnified leaf. In the center of the leaf
is a tree (where the leaf came from?) with exposed roots. Again, these are retrospective
quotations, references back to other subjects that the artist had tackled, other problems of
advanced poetics that he sought to solve during his lifetime.

Mont Blanc, Alps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alps

The eagle and the hawk, John Denver
http://coyoteprime-
runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.gr/2013/06/m
usical-interlude-john-denver-eagle-and.html

The last word is a painting (also a statement) with a heart within a heart. Probably Magritte
loved the idea of a room with a view to the mountains. There are so many mountain tops in the
world which resemble an eagle. It is not just our imagination. It is the eagles themselves which
testify this truth. The mountains were created for the angels to occupy them in the form of
eagles. We can feel it deep in our soul. The harmony between humans and the divine, manifested
all around us, for those who can see it, is transported onto the canvas by the artist who can paint
it. It is this everlasting effort of the human spirit to capture majesty and eternity. But just for a
while; after that we move on, as demands the last word of our soul.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution- Share Alike 4.0 International License
05-Jul-14, Chris Tselentis, Athens, Greece
mailto: christselentis@gmail.com

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