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Art Life and Lives-Rene Magritte
🕑 Added 2024-01-31 01:33:06 +0000 UTCRené Magritte was born in 1898 in Belgium. His early life was marked by familial turmoil, and mischief. Magritte's early years were characterized by domestic upheaval. His father was an unhealthy combination of strict and absent. He raised his three sons to be anarchic animals, who terrorized the town. Rene's Mother, Regina, sought to instill Christian virtues in her sons and live a nice quiet life, but between her abusive husband and her three demonic children, she was outnumbered . Regina's mysterious disappearance and subsequent tragic end in the River Sambre cast a lasting shadow on Magritte's life.
Despite the chaos and tragedy of his childhood, Magritte discovered painting. his He navigated through various styles before finding his distinctive surrealistic voice, which was influenced significantly by Giorgio de Chirico.
Magritte's most prolific years were 1925-30 when he started the Surrealist group in Brussels, connected with the Surrealist group in Paris, got his first contracts with art dealers, and produced nearly a quarter of his life's work.
Despite making culturally significant and iconic works in this time, it wasn't until after World War II that he gained international acclaim and financial success.
He married his high school sweetheart Georgette, they always had a Pomeranian dog named either Jackie or Loulou. They were married until Magritte died in 1967. When he died there was an unfinished painting on his easel in their kitchen, where Magritte liked to paint. Georgette left the unfinished work there until she died in 1986.
In this Art Life and Lives I explore the life and artistic evolution of one of the 20th century's most renowned surrealist painters and the complex intersections of his personal experiences and artistic and philosophical expressions.
An early Magritte trying to find his voice. He dabbled in the many different abstract art movements of the day, such as cubism and Italian Futurism.
The Uncertainty of the Poet by Georgio de Chirico. The discovery of de Chirico by Magritte was a transformative experience. It put him on the path to Surrealism. Magritte called de Chirico his "one and only master."
The musings of a solitary walker. This is one of Magritte's early surrealist works from the mid 1920's. It depicts area where Magritte's mother was laid after her body was discovered in the River.
The Lovers. Concealment is a major element in Magritte's work. Faces covered by cloth are widely believed to be based on how his mother was laid on the shore after her body was found. But Magritte rejected that type of analysis of his work. He was interested in poetics and mystery not symbolism or allegory.
The Treachery of Images. The text reads "this is not a pipe." Magritte's word paintings were very popular with the surrealists and with contemporary philosophers of his time. Magritte's insights about the relationship between language, representation, and reality, are some of the most enduring insights to come out of his work and the surrealist movement.
Elective Affinities. In the 1930's Magritte stumbled upon a new method for generating ideas for his paintings. He called it "Elective Affinities." It was a problem solving technique, related to his word paintings. The problem was an ordinary object. The solution was turning it into a Magritte, but combining it with an associated object. The bird in the cage becomes an egg. A knife grows out of a rose. The ship becomes the ocean.
Lighting. During World War II, Magritte attempted to come up with paintings that were more "Joyful and hopeful" for the dark times. He came up with "Sun Lit Surrealism" which was short lived, and which combined his Magritte imagery with the loose brushworks and colorful pallet of impressionist painting.
Perspective: Madame Récamier de David. This is one of my favorite Magritte's that I found while doing this deep dive. It's funny, dark, metaphorical, well painted. All attributes that characterize Magritte's best work.
Fantomas. Magritte was a big fan of movies and books. Especially crime stories. Fantomas was called "The genius criminal" in one of the early novels. Magritte was a lifelong fan.
References:
Magritte: A Life by Alex Danchev
