Share This Article
My admiration for René Magritte blossomed through the artistic lens of my creative grandfather, who replicated his paintings while infusing his unique style into the mix. As I observed these anonymous men with their bowl hats, I too found myself captivated by the surrealistic world they displayed.
Everyone has once in their life encounter a Magritte, either consciously or unconsciously. His famous blue skies filled with clouds or the memorable pipe which isn’t a pipe are images we can find today all around the world.
Becoming René Magritte
René Magritte, in his youthful days, immersed himself in the world of comics, cinema, and photography, a clear lover of images. His formal education at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels from 1916 to 1921 introduced him to the realms of Art Nouveau and Impressionism. However, these encounters, while intriguing, failed to satisfy the hunger for his own thoughts. The turning point came when he encountered Giorgio de Chirico’s painting, “Song of Love,” during his academic journey, a moment so profound it nearly brought him to tears. This image left an indelible mark, shaping the trajectory of Magritte’s entire body of work.
Magritte faced a challenging path on his way to becoming the iconic figure we recognize today. In 1924, he landed in Brussels, he worked as a freelance commercial art in the Art Deco style. He also designed some 40 sheet music covers, most of them in the same style.
The pivotal moment arrived in 1927 with his first exhibition at the gallery founded by Paul-Gustave van Hecke. The gallery’s mission was to promote expressionist and surrealist paintings and the catalog lists 61 works including texts by Van Hecke and Nougé. Paul Nougé himself was the founder and theoretician of surrealism in Belgium. Yet Magritte’s debut encountered essentially a hostile reception from the press. The early struggles set the stage for Magritte’s evolution into the surrealist luminary he would ultimately become.
Venturing into the Parisian surrealist group and mingling with luminaries like André Breton, Salvador Dalí, and Joan Miró, Magritte spent three years in the Paris suburbs. However, complications in his relationship with Breton led him to return to Brussels.
The year 1935 witnessed a significant surge in Magritte’s artistic production, culminating in a personal exhibition in New York. In 1937, he spent three transformative weeks in the eccentric home of British collector Edward James, resulting in iconic works like ‘Reproduction Interdite,’ ‘La jeunesse illustre,’ and ‘Le Model Rouge’—pieces that would become synonymous with his oeuvre.
Magritte remains an outsider – in every way
In the painting “Reproduction interdite,” Magritte offers a fascinating commentary on the nature of mirrors and the portrayal of faces. Here, he depicts Edward James looking into a mirror, but instead of capturing the reflected face, he paints the back of James’s head alongside the mirrored image. The title “reproduction” suggests Magritte’s exploration of the unreliability of mirrors. In a way Magritte tells us that a face is certainly not the mirror of the soul. He thinks that a painted portrait altogether reveals nothing about the person portrayed. With that Magritte also undermines the view that a painting would be a window on reality.
In essence, Magritte wants to highlight our difficulty in differentiating between reality and the image recorded by our brain. Magritte’s art has a profound philosophical dimension, inviting contemplation about reality and the meanings inherent in everyday objects. He loved to represent everyday objects in completely new contexts, aiming to make us think about what we take for granted in the common life. The mysterious imagery raises more questions than it answers.
Thinking of images
Exploring Magritte’s artistic world unveils a complexity that sets him apart from full-fledged surrealists like Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst. Unlike them, Magritte diverges from two fundamental surrealism principles—he didn’t paint dream images and does not follow the ‘peinture automatique’ method of working in a trance-like state. Magritte does the opposite and boldly declares, “L’art de peindre est un art de penser” or “The art of painting is an art of thinking.”
Magritte’s creative process revolves around thinking in images, confronting viewers with the mysteries inherent in everyday life. His exploration of painting as an illusion delves into the distinctions between the invisible and the hidden, object and image, often severing the connection between an object and its name. In this, Magritte shares a common thread with Parisian surrealists, disrupting logical connections and challenging our acceptance of the norm. At the same time, his artistic universe is intricately detailed, hyper-realistic, and almost photographic—brushstrokes barely visible, rendering the world both recognizable and inherently ‘impossible.’
Magritte’s world is bizarre, disorienting, full of reversals and metamorphoses: a woman made of wood, floating bowler hat men, a giant apple fills an entire room, and a train coming out of an open fireplace. His creations defy the boundaries of reality.
Where to see
If you want to experience the philosophical world of this brilliant Belgian artist, the Musée Magritte Museum in the heart of Brussels is the place to be. With 230 works and archives on display, it houses the world’s largest collection of René Magritte. The museum, which has garnered 8 nominations and prizes, attracts over 300,000 visitors annually from around the globe, offering a profound exploration of Magritte’s life and works.
