René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a
Belgian surrealist
Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and boundaries of reality and representation. His imagery has influenced
pop art,
minimalist art, and
conceptual art.
Early life
René Magritte was born in
Lessines
Lessines (; ; ; ) is a city and Municipalities of Belgium, municipality of Wallonia located in the Hainaut Province, province of Hainaut, Belgium. As of the 2014 census, The municipality's total population was 18,637. The total area is which gi ...
, in the province of
Hainaut in Belgium, in 1898. He was the oldest son of Léopold Magritte, a
tailor
A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century.
History
Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...
and textile merchant,
[Meuris 1991, p 216.] and Régina (
née
The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...
Bertinchamps), who was a
milliner before she got married. Little is known about Magritte's early life. He began lessons in drawing in 1910.
On 24 February 1912, his mother died by
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death.
Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...
by drowning herself in the
River Sambre at
Châtelet.
It was not her first suicide attempt. Her body was not discovered until 12 March.
[Abadie 2003, p. 274.] According to a legend, 13-year-old Magritte was present when her body was retrieved from the water, but recent research has discredited this story, which may have originated with the family nurse.
[Calvocoressi 1990, p. 9.] Supposedly, when his mother was found, her dress was covering her face, an image that has been suggested as the source of several of Magritte's paintings in 1927–1928 of people with cloth obscuring their faces, including ''Les Amants''.
Career
Magritte's earliest paintings, which date from about 1915, were
Impressionistic
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
in style.
During 1916–1918, he studied at the in
Brussels
Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
,
under
Constant Montald, but found the instruction uninspiring.
He also took classes at the Académie Royale from the painter and poster designer
Gisbert Combaz. The paintings he produced during 1918–1924 were influenced by
Futurism
Futurism ( ) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the ...
and by the figurative
Cubism
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture.
Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
of
Metzinger.
From December 1920 until September 1921, Magritte served in the Belgian infantry in the
Flemish town of
Beverlo
Beringen (; , ; ) is a municipality and city located in the Belgian province of Limburg. The Beringen municipality includes the town of Beringen proper and the old communes of Beverlo, Koersel, and Paal.
History
Origins
Beringen was already ...
near
Leopoldsburg
Leopoldsburg (; ; ) is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg. On January 1, 2006, Leopoldsburg had a total population of 14,403. The total area is which gives a population density
Population density (in agriculture: Stand ...
. In 1922, Magritte married Georgette Berger, whom he had met as a child in 1913.
Also during 1922, the poet
Marcel Lecomte
Marcel Lecomte (25 September 1900, Saint-Gilles (Brussels) – 19 November 1966, Brussels) was a Belgian writer, member of the Belgian surrealist movement. In 1918 he was introduced to dadaism and Eastern philosophy by Clément Pansaers. He a ...
showed Magritte a reproduction of
Giorgio de Chirico
Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( ; ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. His ...
's ''
The Song of Love'' (painted in 1914). The work brought Magritte to tears; he described this as "one of the most moving moments of my life: my eyes ''saw'' thought for the first time". The paintings of the Belgian symbolist painter
William Degouve de Nuncques have also been noted as an influence on Magritte, specifically the former's painting ''The Blind House'' (1892) and Magritte's variations or series on ''The Empire of Lights''.
[Cassou, Jean (1984) ''The Concise Encyclopaedia of Symbolism''. Chartwell Books, Inc. Secaucus, New Jersey. 292 pp. ]
In 1922–1923, Magritte worked as a
draughtsman in a
wallpaper
Wallpaper is used in interior decoration to cover the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" to help cover uneve ...
factory, and was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926, when a contract with Galerie Le Centaure in
Brussels
Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
made it possible for him to paint full-time. In 1926, Magritte produced his first surreal painting, ''The Lost Jockey'' (''Le jockey perdu''), and held his first solo exhibition in Brussels in 1927.
The exhibition was poorly reviewed.
Depressed by the failure, he moved to Paris where he became friends with
André Breton
André Robert Breton (; ; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...
and became involved in the
Surrealist
Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
group. An illusionistic, dream-like quality is characteristic of Magritte's version of Surrealism. He became a leading member of the movement, and remained in Paris for three years.
In 1929, he was put under contract at Goemans Gallery in Paris along with
Jean Arp
Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (; ; 16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist.
Early life
Arp was born Hans Peter Wilhelm Ar ...
and
Yves Tanguy
Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy (January 5, 1900 - January 15, 1955), known as just Yves Tanguy (; ), was a French Surrealist painter.
Biography
Tanguy was the son of a retired navy captain, and was born January 5, 1900, at the Ministry of Naval Aff ...
.
On 15 December 1929, Magritte participated in the last publication, No. 12, of ''
La Révolution surréaliste
''La Révolution surréaliste'' (English: ''The Surrealist Revolution'') was a publication by the Surrealists in Paris. Twelve issues were published between 1924 and 1929.
Shortly after releasing the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'', André Bret ...
'', with his essay "Les mots et les images", where words play with images in sync with his work ''
The Treachery of Images
''The Treachery of Images'' () is a 1929 painting by Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. It is also known as ''This Is Not a Pipe'', ''Ceci n'est pas une pipe'' and ''The Wind and the Song''. It is on display at the Los Angeles County Muse ...
''.
Galerie Le Centaure closed at the end of 1929, ending Magritte's contract income. Having made little impact in Paris, Magritte returned to Brussels in 1930 and resumed working in advertising.
[Meuris 1991, p. 217.] He and his brother, Paul, formed an agency which earned him a living wage. In 1932, Magritte joined the
Communist Party, which he would periodically leave and rejoin for several years.
In 1936 he had his first solo exhibition in the United States at the Julien Levy Gallery in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
, followed by an exposition at the London Gallery in 1938.
Between 1934 and 1937, Magritte drew film posters under the pseudonym 'Emair' for the German sound film distributor
Tobis Klangfilm. The Leuven City Archive preserves seven posters designed by Magritte.
During the early stages of his career, the British surrealist patron
Edward James allowed Magritte to stay rent-free in his London home, where Magritte studied architecture and painted. James is featured in two of Magritte's works painted in 1937, ''Le Principe du Plaisir'' (''The Pleasure Principle'') and ''La Reproduction Interdite'', a painting also known as ''
Not to Be Reproduced''.
During the
German occupation of Belgium in World War II he remained in Brussels, which led to a break with Breton. He briefly adopted a colorful, painterly style in 1943–44, an interlude known as his "
Renoir period", as a reaction to his feelings of alienation and abandonment that came with living in German-occupied Belgium.
In 1946, renouncing the violence and
pessimism
Pessimism is a mental attitude in which an undesirable outcome is anticipated from a given situation. Pessimists tend to focus on the negatives of life in general. A common question asked to test for pessimism is "Is the glass half empty or half ...
of his earlier work, he joined several other Belgian artists in signing the manifesto ''Surrealism in Full Sunlight''. During 1947–48, Magritte's "Vache period", he painted in a provocative and crude
Fauve style. During this time, Magritte supported himself through the production of fake Picassos,
Braques, and de Chiricos—a fraudulent repertoire he was later to expand into the printing of forged banknotes during the lean postwar period. This venture was undertaken alongside his brother Paul and fellow Surrealist and "surrogate son"
Marcel Mariën, to whom had fallen the task of selling the forgeries. At the end of 1948, Magritte returned to the style and themes of his pre-war surrealistic art.
In France, Magritte's work has been showcased in a number of retrospective exhibitions, most recently at the
Centre Georges Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
(2016–2017). In the United States his work has been featured in three retrospective exhibitions: at the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
in 1965, at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
in 1992, and again at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013. An exhibition entitled "The Fifth Season" at the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...
in 2018 focused on the work of his later years.
Politically, Magritte stood to the left, and retained close ties to the Communist Party, even in the post-war years. However, he was critical of the functionalist cultural policy of the Communist left, stating that "Class consciousness is as necessary as bread; but that does not mean that workers must be condemned to bread and water and that wanting chicken and champagne would be harmful. (...) For the Communist painter, the justification of artistic activity is to create pictures that can represent mental luxury." While remaining committed to the political left, he thus advocated a certain autonomy of art. Spiritually, Magritte was an agnostic.
Popular interest in Magritte's work rose considerably in the 1960s, and his imagery has influenced
pop,
minimalist
In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...
, and
conceptual art.
[Calvocoressi 1990, p. 26.] In 2005 he was 9th in the
Walloon version of ''
De Grootste Belg'' (''The Greatest Belgian''); in the
Flemish version he was 18th.
Personal life
Magritte married Georgette Berger in June 1922. Georgette was the daughter of a butcher in Charleroi, and first met Magritte when she was 13 and he was 15. They met again seven years later in Brussels in 1920
and Georgette, who had also studied art, became Magritte's model, muse, and wife.
In 1936, Magritte's marriage became troubled when he met a young performance artist,
Sheila Legge
Sheila Legge (née Chetwynd Inglis; c. 1911 – 5 January 1949) was a Surrealist performance artist. Legge is best known for her 1936 Trafalgar Square performance for the opening of London International Surrealist Exhibition, posing in a costum ...
, and began an affair with her. Magritte arranged for his friend, Paul Colinet, to entertain and distract Georgette, but this led to an affair between Georgette and Colinet. Magritte and his wife did not reconcile until 1940.
Magritte died of
pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of ...
on 15 August 1967, aged 68, and was interred in
Schaerbeek Cemetery,
Evere
Evere (; ) is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium). , the municipality had a population of 43,608 inhabitants. The total area is , which gives a population density of . In common with all of Brussels' municipal ...
, Brussels.
Philosophical and artistic gestures
Magritte's work frequently displays a collection of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. The use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting, ''
The Treachery of Images
''The Treachery of Images'' () is a 1929 painting by Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. It is also known as ''This Is Not a Pipe'', ''Ceci n'est pas une pipe'' and ''The Wind and the Song''. It is on display at the Los Angeles County Muse ...
'' (''La trahison des images''), which shows a
pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe "''Ceci n'est pas une pipe''" ("This is not a pipe"), which seems a contradiction, but is actually true: the painting is not a pipe, it is an ''image'' of a pipe. It does not "satisfy emotionally"; when Magritte was once asked about this image, he replied that of course it was not a pipejust try to fill it with tobacco.
Magritte's work has been described by
Suzi Gablik as "a systematic attempt to disrupt any dogmatic view of the physical world". Therefore, when Magritte painted rockswhich are commonly understood to be heavy, inanimate objectshe often painted them floating cloud-like in the sky, or painted scenes of people and their environment turned to stone.
Among Magritte's works are a number of surrealist versions of other famous paintings, such as ''Perspective I'' and ''Perspective II'', which are copies of
David
David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament.
The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...
's ''
Portrait of Madame Récamier''
and
Manet's ''
The Balcony
''The Balcony'' () is a Play (theatre), play by the French people, French dramatist Jean Genet. It is set in an unnamed city that is experiencing a revolutionary uprising in the streets; most of the action takes place in an upmarket brothel that ...
'',
respectively, but with the human subjects replaced by coffins. Elsewhere, Magritte challenges the difficulty of artwork to convey meaning with a recurring motif of an easel, as in his ''The Human Condition'' series (1933, 1935) or ''The Promenades of Euclid'' (1955), wherein the spires of a castle are "painted" upon the ordinary streets which the canvas overlooks. In a letter to André Breton, he wrote of ''The Human Condition'' that it was irrelevant if the scene behind the easel differed from what was depicted upon it, "but the main thing was to eliminate the difference between a view seen from outside and from inside a room". The windows in some of these pictures are framed with heavy drapes, suggesting a theatrical motif.
Magritte's style of surrealism is more representational than the
"automatic" style of artists such as
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , ; ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan Spanish painter, sculptor and Ceramic art, ceramist. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona ...
. Magritte's use of ordinary objects in unfamiliar spaces is joined to his desire to create poetic imagery. He described the act of painting as "the art of putting colors side by side in such a way that their real aspect is effaced, so that familiar objectsthe sky, people, trees, mountains, furniture, the stars, solid structures, graffitibecome united in a single poetically disciplined image. The poetry of this image dispenses with any symbolic significance, old or new."
René Magritte described his paintings as "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."
Magritte's constant play with reality and illusion has been attributed to the early death of his mother. Psychoanalysts who have examined bereaved children have hypothesized that Magritte's back-and-forth play with reality and illusion reflects his "constant shifting back and forth from what he wishes'mother is alive'to what he knows'mother is dead'".
More recently, Patricia Allmer has demonstrated the influence of fairground attractions on Magritte's art from carousels and circuses to panoramas and stage magic.
Artists influenced by Magritte
Contemporary artists have been greatly influenced by René Magritte's stimulating examination of the fickleness of images. Some artists who have been influenced by Magritte's works include
John Baldessari
John Anthony Baldessari (June 17, 1931 – January 2, 2020) was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California.
Initially a paint ...
,
Ed Ruscha,
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...
,
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, draftsman, and printmaker. Considered a central figure in the development of American postwar art, he has been variously associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and ...
,
Jan Verdoodt,
Martin Kippenberger,
Duane Michals,
Storm Thorgerson
Storm Elvin Thorgerson (28 February 1944 – 18 April 2013) was an English art director and music video director. He is best known for closely working with the group Pink Floyd through most of their career, and also created album or other art f ...
, and
Luis Rey. Some of the artists' works integrate direct references and others offer contemporary viewpoints on his abstract fixations.
Magritte's use of simple graphic and everyday imagery has been compared to that of the
pop-artists. His influence in the development of pop art has been widely recognized,
[Meuris 1991, p. 202.] although Magritte himself discounted the connection. He considered the pop artists' representation of "the world as it is" as "their error", and contrasted their attention to the transitory with his concern for "the feeling for the real, insofar as it is permanent."
The 2006–2007
LACMA exhibition "Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images" examined the relationship between Magritte and contemporary art.
Legacy
The 1960s brought a great increase in public awareness of Magritte's work.
Thanks to his "sound knowledge of how to present objects in a manner both suggestive and questioning", his works have been frequently adapted or plagiarized in advertisements, posters, book covers and the like. Examples include album covers such as ''
Beck-Ola'' by
The Jeff Beck Group
The Jeff Beck Group was a British rock band formed in London in January 1967 by former Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck. Their innovative approach to heavy-sounding blues, rhythm and blues and rock was a major influence on popular music.
Histo ...
(reproducing Magritte's ''
The Listening Room''),
Alan Hull's 1973 album
''Pipedream'' which used ''The Philosopher's Lamp'',
Jackson Browne
Clyde Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948) is an American rock musician, singer, songwriter, and political activist who has sold over 30 million albums in the United States.
Emerging as a teenage songwriter in mid-1960s Los Angeles, he had his ...
's 1974 album ''
Late for the Sky'', with artwork inspired by ''
The Empire of Light'',
Oregon
Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...
's album ''
Oregon
Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...
'' referring to ''Carte Blanche'', the
Firesign Theatre
The Firesign Theatre (also known as the Firesigns) was an American surreal humour, surreal comedy troupe who first appeared on November 17, 1966, in a live performance on the Los Angeles radio program ''Radio Free Oz'' on station KPFK FM broad ...
's album ''
Just Folks... A Firesign Chat'' based on ''
The Mysteries of the Horizon'', and
Styx
In Greek mythology, Styx (; ; lit. "Shuddering"), also called the River Styx, is a goddess and one of the rivers of the Greek Underworld. Her parents were the Titans Oceanus and Tethys, and she was the wife of the Titan Pallas and the moth ...
's album ''
The Grand Illusion'' incorporating an adaptation of the painting ''The Blank Signature (Le Blanc Seing)''. The Nigerian rapper Jesse Jagz's 2014 album ''
Jagz Nation Vol. 2: Royal Niger Company'' has cover art inspired by Magritte's works. In 2015 the band
Punch Brothers used ''The Lovers'' as the cover of their album ''
The Phosphorescent Blues''.
The logo of
Apple Corps
Apple Corps Limited is a British multimedia company that was established in London by the members of the Beatles in the 1960s to form a Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. The company's name, pronounced "apple core", is a pun. Its chief div ...
,
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...
' company, is inspired by Magritte's ''Le Jeu de Mourre'', a 1966 painting.
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter known for his solo work and his collaborations with Art Garfunkel. He and Garfunkel, whom he met in elementary school in 1953, came to prominence in the 1960s as Sim ...
's song "
Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War", inspired by a photograph of Magritte by
Lothar Wolleh
Lothar Wolleh (January 20, 1930 – September 28, 1979) was a well-known German photographer.
Until the end of the sixties, Lothar Wolleh worked as a commercial photographer. He made portraits of international contemporary painters, sculptors ...
, appears on the 1983 album ''
Hearts and Bones''.
John Cale
John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles across rock, dr ...
wrote a song titled "Magritte". The song appears on the 2003 album ''
HoboSapiens
''HoboSapiens'' is a solo studio album by John Cale, his first album since 1996's ''Walking on Locusts''. ''HoboSapiens'' was released by EMI Records, EMI in October 2003, and was preceded by the EP ''5 Tracks'' in May 2003. A single was released ...
''.
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard (; born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...
wrote a 1970 Surrealist play called ''
After Magritte''.
John Berger
John Peter Berger ( ; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism '' Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to t ...
scripted the book ''
Ways of Seeing'' using images and ideologies regarding Magritte.
Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945) is an American cognitive and computer scientist whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, analogy-making, Strange loop, strange ...
's 1979 book ''
Gödel, Escher, Bach
''Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid'' (abbreviated as ''GEB'') is a 1979 nonfiction book by American cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter.
By exploring common themes in the lives and works of logician Kurt Gödel, artist M. C. Esc ...
'' uses Magritte works for many of its illustrations. ''The Treachery of Images'' was used in a major plot in
L. J. Smith's 1994 novel ''The Forbidden Game''. Magritte's imagery has inspired
filmmaker
Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...
s ranging from the surrealist
Marcel Mariën to mainstream directors such as
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French and Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as ...
,
Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet (; 18 August 1922 – 18 February 2008) was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the ''Nouveau Roman'' () trend of the 1960s, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simo ...
,
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci ( ; ; 16 March 1941 – 26 November 2018) was an Italian film director and screenwriter with a career that spanned 50 years. Considered one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema, Bertolucci's work achieved inte ...
,
Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Jack Roeg ( ; 15 August 1928 – 23 November 2018) was an English film director and cinematographer, best known for directing ''Performance (film), Performance'' (1970), ''Walkabout (film), Walkabout'' (1971), ''Don't Look Now'' (1973) ...
,
John Boorman and
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance Gilliam ( ; born 22 November 1940) is an American-British filmmaker, comedian, collage film, collage animator, and actor. He gained stardom as a member of the Monty Python comedy troupe alongside John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Pa ...
.
According to the 1998 documentary ''The Fear of God: 25 Years of "The Exorcist"'', the iconic poster shot for the film ''
The Exorcist
''The Exorcist'' is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin from a screenplay by William Peter Blatty, based on The Exorcist (novel), his 1971 novel. The film stars Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller (play ...
'' was inspired by Magritte's ''The Empire of Light''.
In the 1992 movie ''
Toys
A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include toy blocks, board games, and dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and ...
'', Magritte's work was influential in the entire movie but specifically in a break-in scene, featuring Robin Williams and Joan Cusack in a music video hoax. Many of Magritte's works were used directly in that scene. In the 1999 movie ''
The Thomas Crown Affair'' starring
Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brendan Brosnan (born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor and film producer. He was the fifth actor to play the fictional secret agent Portrayal of James Bond in film, James Bond in the List of James Bond films, James Bond film series, starri ...
,
Rene Russo
Rene Marie Russo (born February 17, 1954) is an American actress and model. She began her career as a fashion model in the 1970s, appearing on magazine covers such as '' Vogue'' and ''Cosmopolitan''. She made her film debut in the 1989 comedy '' ...
and
Denis Leary
Denis Colin Leary (born August 18, 1957) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Born in Massachusetts, he first came to prominence as a stand-up comedian, especially through appearances on MTV (including the comedic song " Asshole") and th ...
, the Magritte painting ''
The Son of Man'' was prominently featured as part of the plot line.
Gary Numan
Gary Anthony James Webb (born 8 March 1958), known professionally as Gary Numan, is an English singer, songwriter and musician. He entered the music industry as frontman of the New wave music, new wave band Tubeway Army. After releasing two st ...
's 1979 album ''
The Pleasure Principle'' was a reference to Magritte's painting of the same name.
In the early 2000s, two LPs were released that had album cover art referencing ''The Lovers'': ''
Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation
''Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation'' is the debut studio album by Welsh rock band Funeral for a Friend. It was released on 13 October 2003 through Atlantic Records and was produced by Colin Richardson with co-production by the band thems ...
'' by
Funeral for a Friend
Funeral for a Friend are a Welsh post-hardcore band from Bridgend, Wales, Bridgend, formed in 2001. The band's members are Kris Roberts (guitar, backing vocals), Gavin Burrough (guitar, vocals), Darran Smith (guitar), Richard Boucher (bass), an ...
and ''
Frances the Mute'' by
The Mars Volta
The Mars Volta is an American Rock music, rock band formed in 2001. The band's only constant members are Omar Rodríguez-López (guitar, producer, direction) and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocals, lyrics), whose partnership forms the core of the ban ...
.
In John Green's novel (2012) and movie (2014), ''
The Fault in Our Stars
''The Fault in Our Stars'' is a novel by John Green. It is his fourth solo novel, and sixth novel overall. It was published on January 10, 2012. The title is inspired by Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's play ''Julius Caesar (play), Julius Caesar ...
'', the main character Hazel Grace Lancaster wears a tee shirt with Magritte's, ''The Treachery of Images'', (This is not a pipe.) Just prior to leaving her mother to visit her favorite author, Hazel explains the drawing to her confused mother and states that the author's novel has "several Magritte references", clearly hoping the author will be pleased with the reference.
The official music video of
Markus Schulz's "Koolhaus" under his Dakota guise was inspired from Magritte's works.
A location in Brussels has been named ''Ceci n'est pas une rue'' (This is not a street).
Belgian actor Pierre Gervais is set to play René Magritte in the 2025 television series
This Is Not A Murder Mystery.
Magritte Museum and other collections
The Magritte Museum opened to the public on 30 May 2009 in
Brussels
Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
. Housed in the five-level neo-classical Hotel Altenloh, on the Place Royale, it displays some 200 original Magritte paintings, drawings and sculptures including ''The Return'', ''Scheherazade'' and ''
The Empire of Light''. This multidisciplinary permanent installation is the biggest Magritte archive anywhere and most of the work is directly from the collection of the artist's widow,
Georgette Magritte, and from
Irene Hamoir Scutenaire, who was his primary collector.
Additionally, the museum includes Magritte's experiments with photography from 1920 on and the short Surrealist films he made from 1956 on.
Another museum is located at 135 Rue Esseghem in Brussels in Magritte's former home, where he lived with his wife from 1930 to 1954. ''Olympia'' (1948), a nude portrait of Magritte's wife reportedly worth about US$1.1 million, was stolen from this museum on the morning of 24 September 2009 by two armed men. It was returned to the museum in January 2012, in exchange for a 50,000-Euro payment from the museum's insurer. The thieves reportedly agreed to the deal because they were unable to sell the painting on the
black market
A black market is a Secrecy, clandestine Market (economics), market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality, or is not compliant with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the set of goods and services who ...
due to its fame.
The
Menil Collection
The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs a ...
in Houston, Texas holds one of the most significant collections of dada and surrealist work in the United States, including dozens of oil paintings, gouaches, drawings, and bronzes by René Magritte.
John de Menil and
Dominique de Menil initiated and funded the
catalogue raisonné
A (or critical catalogue) is an annotated listing of the works of an artist or group of artists and can contain all works or a selection of works categorised by different parameters such as medium or period.
A ''catalogue raisonné'' is normal ...
of Magritte's oeuvre, published between 1992 and 1997 in five volumes, with an addendum in 2012. Major oil paintings in the Menil Collection include: ''
The Meaning of Night'' (1927), ''The Eternally Obvious'' (1930), ''The Rape'' (1934), ''
The Listening Room'' (1952), and ''
Golconda
Golconda is a fortified citadel and ruined city located on the western outskirts of Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The fort was originally built by Kakatiya ruler Pratāparudra in the 11th century out of mud walls. It was ceded to the Bahmani ...
'' (1953) which are typically exhibited a few at a time on a rotating basis with other surrealist works in the collection.
[The Menil Collection]
Surrealism
(accessed 17 December 2020)
Selected list of works
*1920 ''Landscape''
*1922 ''The Station'' and ''L'Écuyère''
*1923 ''Self-portrait'', ''Sixth Nocturne'', ''Georgette at the Piano'' and ''Donna''
*1925 ''The Bather'' and ''The Window''
*1926 ''The Lost Jockey'', ''The Mind of the Traveler'', ''Sensational News'', ''
The Difficult Crossing'', ''The Vestal's Agony'', ''The Midnight Marriage'', ''The Musings of a Solitary Walker'', ''After the Water my Butts'', ''Popular Panorama'', ''Landscape'' and ''The Encounter''
* 1927 ''
The Enchanted Pose''
*1927 ''Young Girl Eating a Bird'', ''The Oasis'' (started in 1925), ''Le Double Secret'', ''The Meaning of Night'', ''Let Out of School'', ''The Man from the Sea'', ''The Tiredness of Life'', ''The Light-breaker'', ''A Passion for Light'', ''
The Menaced Assassin'', ''Reckless Sleeper'', ''La Voleuse'', ''The Fast Hope'', ''L'Atlantide'' and ''The Muscles of the Sky''
*1928 ''The Lining of Sleep'' (started in 1927), ''Intermission'' (started in 1927), ''
The Adulation of Space'' (started in 1927), ''The Flowers of the Abyss'', ''Discovery'', ''The Lovers I & II'',
''The Voice of Space'', ''
The False Mirror'', ''The Daring Sleeper'', ''The Acrobat's Ideas'', ''The Automaton'', ''
The Empty Mask'', ''Reckless Sleeper'', ''The Secret Life'' and ''Attempting the Impossible''
*1929 ''
The Treachery of Images
''The Treachery of Images'' () is a 1929 painting by Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. It is also known as ''This Is Not a Pipe'', ''Ceci n'est pas une pipe'' and ''The Wind and the Song''. It is on display at the Los Angeles County Muse ...
'' (started in 1928), ''Threatening Weather'' and ''
On the Threshold of Liberty''
*1930 ''Pink Belles, Tattered Skies'', ''The Eternally Obvious'', ''The Lifeline'', ''The Annunciation'' and ''Celestial Perfections''
*1931 ''The Voice of the Air'', ''Summer'' and ''The Giantess''
*1932 ''The Universe Unmasked''
*1933 ''
Elective Affinities'', ''The Human Condition'' and ''The Unexpected Answer''
*1934 ''The Rape''
*1935 ''The Discovery of Fire'', ''
The Human Condition'', ''Revolution'', ''Perpetual Motion'', ''Collective Invention'' and ''
The Portrait''
*1936 ''Surprise Answer'', ''Clairvoyance'', ''The Healer'', ''The Philosopher's Lamp'', ''The Heart Revealed a portrait of Tita Thirifays'', ''Spiritual Exercises'', ''Portrait of Irène Hamoir'', ''La Méditation'' and ''Forbidden Literature''
*1937 ''The Future of Statues'', ''The Black Flag'', ''
Not to be Reproduced'', ''Portrait of Edward James'' and ''Portrait of Rena Schitz'', ''
On the Threshold of Liberty''
*1938 ''
Time Transfixed'', ''The Domain of Arnheim'', ''Steps of Summer'' and ''Stimulation Objective''
*1939 ''Victory'', ''
The Palace of Memories''
*1940 ''The Return'', ''The Wedding Breakfast'' and ''Les Grandes Espérances''
*1941 ''The Break in the Clouds''
*1942 ''Misses de L'Isle Adam'', ''L'Ile au Tréson'', ''Memory'', ''Black Magic'', ''Les compagnons de la peur'' and ''The Misanthropes''
*1943 ''The Return of the Flame'', ''Universal Gravitation'' and ''Monsieur Ingres's Good Days''
*1944 ''The Good Omens''
*1945 ''Treasure Island'', ''Les Rencontres Naturelles'' and ''Black Magic''
*1946 ''L'Intelligence'' and ''Les Mille et une Nuits''
*1947 ''La Philosophie dans le boudoir'', ''The Cicerone'', ''The Liberator'', ''The Fair Captive'', ''La Part du Feu'' and ''The Red Model''
*1948 ''Blood Will Tell'', ''Memory'', ''The Mountain Dweller'', ''The Art of Life'', ''The Pebble'', '' The Lost Jockey'', ''God's Solon'', ''Shéhérazade'', ''L'Ellipse'' and ''Famine'' and ''The Taste of Sorrow''
*1949 ''Megalomania'', ''Elementary Cosmogony'', and ''Perspective, the Balcony''
*1950 ''Making an Entrance'', ''The Legend of the Centuries'', ''Towards Pleasure'', ''The Labors of Alexander'', ''
The Empire of Light II'', ''The Fair Captive'' and ''The Art of Conversation'', ''The Survivor''
*1951 ''David's Madame Récamier'' (parodying the ''
Portrait of Madame Récamier''), ''Pandora's Box'', ''The Song of the Violet'', ''The Spring Tide'' and ''The Smile''
*1952 ''Personal Values'' and ''Le Sens de la Pudeur'' and ''The Explanation''
*1953 ''
Golconda
Golconda is a fortified citadel and ruined city located on the western outskirts of Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The fort was originally built by Kakatiya ruler Pratāparudra in the 11th century out of mud walls. It was ceded to the Bahmani ...
'', ''
The Listening Room'' and a fresco, ''The Enchanted Domain'', for the
Knokke Casino, ''Le chant des sirènes''
*1954 ''The Invisible World'' and ''
The Empire of Light''
*1955 ''Memory of a Journey'' and ''
The Mysteries of the Horizon''
*1956 ''The Sixteenth of September''; ''The Ready-made Bouquet''
*1957 ''The Fountain of Youth''; ''The Enchanted Domain''
*1958 ''The Golden Legend'', ''Hegel's Holiday'', ''The Banquet'' and ''The Familiar World''
*1959 ''The Castle in the Pyrenees'', ''The Battle of the Argonne'', ''The Anniversary'', ''The Month of the Grape Harvest'' and ''La clef de verre'' (''The Glass Key'')
*1960 ''The Memoirs of a Saint''
*1962 ''The Great Table'', ''The Healer'', ''Waste of Effort'', ''Mona Lisa'' (circa 1962) and ''L'embeillie'' (circa 1962)
*1963 ''The Great Family'', ''The Open Air'', ''The Beautiful Season'', ''Princes of the Autumn'', ''Young Love'', ''La Recherche de la Vérité'' and ''
The Telescope'' and " The Art of Conversation"
*1964 ''Le soir qui tombe'' (''Evening Falls''), ''The Great War'', ''The Great War on Facades'', ''
The Son of Man'' and ''Song of Love''
*1965 ''Le Blanc-Seing'', ''Carte Blanche'', ''The Thought Which Sees'', ''Ages Ago'' and ''The Beautiful Walk'' (circa 1965), ''Good Faith''
*1966 ''The Shades'', ''The Happy Donor'', ''The Gold Ring'', ''The Pleasant Truth'', ''The Two Mysteries'', ''The Pilgrim'' and ''The Mysteries of the Horizon''
*1967 ''Les Grâces Naturelles'', ''La Géante'', ''The Blank Page'', ''Good Connections'', ''The Art of Living'', ''L'Art de Vivre'' and several bronze sculptures based on Magritte's previous works
See also
*
Magritte Museum
The Magritte Museum (; ) is an art museum in the Royal Quarter of Brussels, Belgium, dedicated to the work of the Belgian Surrealism, surrealist artist René Magritte. It is one of the constituent museums of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of B ...
, part of the
Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium
Royal may refer to:
People
* Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name
* A member of a royal family or royalty
Places United States
* Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Royal, Illinois, a village
* Royal ...
.
*
René Magritte Museum
The René Magritte Museum (; ) is a museum in Jette, a municipality in Brussels, Belgium, devoted to the Belgian Surrealism, surrealist artist René Magritte. The museum is located at 135, /, in the house where Magritte lived and worked for tw ...
, a museum in
Jette
Jette (; ) is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the north-western part of the region, it is bordered by the City of Brussels, Ganshoren, Koekelberg, and Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, as well as the Fl ...
in Brussels, in the house where Magritte lived and worked for 24 years, between 1930 and 1954.
*
List of Belgian painters
*
List of paintings by Rene Magritte
References
Citations
Sources
*Abadie, Daniel and Galerie nationale du jeu de paume (2003). ''Magritte''. New York: Distributed Art Publishers. .
*
*
*Allmer, Patricia (2017) ''This Is Magritte'' London: Laurence King.
*
* Allmer, Patricia (2007). 'Dial M for Magritte' in "Johan Grimonprez - Looking for Alfred", eds. Steven Bode and Thomas Elsaesser, London: Film and Video Umbrella.
* Allmer, Patricia (2007). 'René Magritte and the Postcard' in "Collective Inventions: Surrealism in Belgium Reconsidered", eds. Patricia Allmer and Hilde van Gelder, Leuven: Leuven University Press.
* Allmer, Patricia (2007). 'Failing to Create - Magritte, Artistry, Art History' in ''From Self to Shelf: The Artist Under Construction'', ed. William May, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
* Allmer, Patricia (2006). 'Framing the Real: Frames and the Process of Framing in René Magritte's Œuvre', in ''Framing Borders in Literature and Other Media'', eds. Walter Bernhart and Werner Wolf, Amsterdam: Rodopi.
*
*
*
*
*
*Gablik, Suzi (1970). ''Magritte''. London: Thames & Hudson. .
*
*
*
*
*Levy, Silvano (1996). 'René Magritte: Representational Iconoclasm', in ''Surrealist Visuality'', ed. S. Levy, Keele University Press. .
*Levy, Silvano (2012). 'Magritte et le refus de l'authentique', ''Cycnos'', Vol. 28, No. 1 (July 2012), pp. 53–62. .
*Levy, Silvano (2005). 'Magritte at the Edge of Codes', ''Image & Narrative'', No. 13 (November 2005)
Magritte at the Edge of Codes by Silvano Levy .
*Levy, Silvano (1993). 'Magritte, Mesens and Dada', ''Aura'', No. 1, 11 pp. 31 41. .
*Levy, Silvano (1993). 'Magritte: The Uncanny and the Image', ''French Studies Bulletin'', No. 46, 3 pp. 15 17. .
*Levy, Silvano (1992). 'Magritte and Words', ''Journal of European Studies'', Vol. 22, Part 4, No. 88, 19 pp. 313 321. .
*Levy, Silvano (1992). 'Magritte and the Surrealist Image', ''Apollo'', Vol. CXXXVI, No. 366, 3 pp 117 119. .
*Levy, Silvano (1990). 'Foucault on Magritte on Resemblance', ''Modern Language Review'', Vol. 85, No.1, 7 pp. 50 56. .
*Levy, Silvano (1981). 'René Magritte and Window Display', ''Artscribe International'', No. 28, 5 pp. 24 28. .
*Levy, Silvano (1992). 'This is a Magritte', ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'', No. 1,028, 17 July 1992, 1 p. 18. .
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External links
Foundation MagritteRené Magritte Museumin
Brussels
Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
*
Magritte at ArtcyclopediaRené Magritte: The Pleasure Principle – Exhibition at Tate Liverpool, UK 2011Musée Magritte Museumat
Brussels
Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
A visit to the Musée Magritte Museum*[http://www.cinemaleuven.be/collectie?title=&items_per_page=15&theater=All&year=&director=&distributor=&actor_actress=&printer=&designer=emair Cinema Leuven - Film posters designed by Emair/René Magritte]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Magritte, Rene
René Magritte,
1898 births
1967 deaths
People from Lessines
Deaths from pancreatic cancer in Belgium
Belgian agnostics
Belgian communists
Modern painters
Belgian surrealist artists
Walloon people
20th-century Belgian painters
Burials at Schaerbeek Cemetery
Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Brussels alumni
Belgian Army personnel