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An intellectual provocateur, forcing to compare
the incomparable
the incomparable
Magritte was a rebel and did not want to subordinate his work to anyone and nothing
Click me
His paintings are riddles that explore the connection between objects. There is no correct answer to these riddles, and each viewer finds his own.
So Rene Magritte carefully concealed his personal life, palming off the public with spectacular multi-stage puzzles with mysterious names.
Most magicians hide their true face from the public: they distract attention from it with bright scarves, flying playing cards, pyrotechnic tricks, hide behind a layer of makeup or masks.
Few facts to get acquanted
Magritte often placed familiar, mundane objects (apples, flying doves, pipes, stones) in unusual contexts and juxtapositions to challenge the assumptions of human perception.
Magritte has met Georgette Berger, his future wife that played a key role in his life, at the age of 15. They married and were together until their respective deaths. They never were parted.
This small scandalous episode is perhaps the only thing that stands out from the biography of the respectable citizen Rene Magritte.
To some extent, each of these disembodied gentlemen is a self-portrait of Magritte, who all his life insisted with amazing tenacity that there was nothing special about himself.
He has worked as a wallpaper designer and advertising artist, so he knows exactly how to grab attention.
Magritte's portrait was featured on the 500 Belgian franc note.
Really see it, as if for the first time, honestly and vividly, not just indifferently «identify» it
His goal was to take the viewer out of the automaticity of perception, to make him see the object.
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The main character of many of Magritte’s paintings was a faceless man in a bowler hat.
Or almost never.
In 1936, Actually he began an affair with a young artist, Sheila Legge. Georgette, in revenge, began an affair with his friend, the artist Paul Colin. The couple finally reunited only in 1940.
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And, finally, it happened: Rene’s childhood tragedy was revealed.
This was a problem for those trying to unearth at least some «fried» fact in Magritte's biography.
Rene, in his own words, led an ordinary unremarkable life.
13 years old.
The boy was
Her search lasted for several days, after which Regina's body was found in the Sambre River. The water mercilessly exposed her body, winding the hem of her shirt around her head.
On the night of March 12, 1912, René's mother Regina Magritte left her home in Charleroi wearing only a nightgown and disappeared.
Admirers of psychoanalysis began to see a hint of this in almost every of his paintings.
For a long time even his wife did not know that Magritte's mother had committed suicide. He diligently avoided this sad fact in any conversation.
Otherwise, Magritte admitted, in his childhood there were enough other events that influenced his work. However, the artist was mysteriously silent about what these events were.
It is believed that this is why in some of Magritte's paintings people's faces are covered with cloth.
The Lovers II, 1928
The Invention of Life, 1928
The Lovers, 1928
The Heart of the Matter, 1928
The mystery must not be solved, otherwise what is the mystery?
Drag me
The task is to awaken surprise in the viewer upon contact with the «banal»
Magic for Magritte is not spectacular tricks, like swallowing daggers and sawing beautiful assistants, but tearing a person out of the zone of automatic perception into a state where even ordinary things seem to be endowed with meaning and significance.
1937
Meditation,
Magritte’s surrealistic works
Drawing our attention to the fact that this is really not a pipe, but an image, an image, two hundred grams of paint on canvas, reminiscent of a pipe in shape and color. We live in a world of images that create our reality, and Magritte encourages us to think about the nature of this world, about the difference between a thing, its name and its image, about truth and appearance, about reality and hallucination. And how hard it is to tell one from the other.
The public and other artists will show particular interest in Magritte's series of works «Treachery of Images». Magritte drew a pipe, and under it he wrote: «This is not a pipe»
In 1954, at one of the American exhibitions, he will exhibit his works, which will make a huge impression.
Rene Magritte, as it were, shows in this picture that each of us has false mirrors in our eyes, because they reflect the world around us not in a real context, but through personal perception.
«Fake Mirror»
René Magritte died on August 15, 1967 in Brussels from cancer at the age of 69.
His influence continues to resonate
through the art world today
Recurring in contemporary culture though Rene’s repeated experiments, visual motifs have developed into a signature homage to the artist – Magritte’s impact on the art world lives on principally in his fascination with endowing objects with new meanings by removing their from their ordinary contexts.
The paintings of Rene Magritte are like an advertising poster, the images he created have forever entered the mass culture. He is quoted by everyone: from fashion designers to Hollywood filmmakers, from musicians to bankers.
Magritte and fashion
The faces of the models are covered with iconic details reflected in the paintings of the Belgian artist: giant flowers, umbrellas or translucent fabric (shroud).
Magritte's work inspires Swedish fashion brand Opening Ceremony.
Magritte and music album covers
Considering Magritte’s visual flair and ability to catch the eye, it’s no surprise that Magritte’s influence was felt very strongly in rock music.
Magritte and movies
Just compare the Magrette’s painting Architecture Au Clair De Lune and The Truman Show by Peter Weir shot
Magritte and movies
William Friedkin was also inspired by Magritte’s Empire of Light and transfered the composition from the picture into The Exorcist
