Maghrib painter. Rene Magritte

01.04.2019

Here I posted paintings by Rene Magritte with titles. Also a few facts about the character and philosophy of this man. wishing to know closer biography I advise this artist to watch the film Monsignor Magritte.

I put off this post for a long time, not because I don't like Rene Magritte, but rather the opposite because of the significance of this phenomenon. Actually, in my understanding, the pillars of surrealism in painting are two people: Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte. They are like Tolkien and Lewis in fantasy. Magritte and Dali have had and continue to influence all surrealists.

However, these were two completely different person as different as their pictures differ. Rene Magritte, in contrast to Dali, and to all other surrealists, did not like to shock the public, did not put up fights, did not use fly agarics for inspiration, and spent his whole life with one woman - his wife Georgette, the main muse, kindred spirit and a sitter.

Philosophy of Rene Magritte

What is curious is that the man who, along with Dali, is considered a classic of surrealism, did not even recognize the philosophy of this trend, in which psychoanalysis occupied one of the main places. The Belgian believed that creativity could not be analyzed, that it was a riddle, a philosophical puzzle, but not the subject of Freudian analysis.

Given this philosophy, it is not surprising that many of his works often cause bewilderment and the feeling that the artist is making fun of you. Obviously, such ambiguity and symbolism contributed to the fact that many parodies and installations were created on his paintings. Especially popular in this regard is the painting “son of man”.

Quite a decent burgher :) This is not Dali for you with his space suit :)

In general, Magritte was a quiet, calm person, and the most interesting things happened in his head. Perhaps that is why so few films have been made about Rene Magritte, unlike Dali.

I will not dryly list the facts from his biography here, 100,500 other people have already done this for me. I don't think that's what people go to the blog for, after all, that's what pediwiki is for. If you want to get acquainted with the biography of this artist, I advise you to watch the film Monsieur Rene Magritte (Monsieur Rene Magritte) 1978. This is more interesting than reading a dry Wikipedia text (with all due respect to pediviki).

Paintings by Rene Magritte with titles

Everything that this man wanted to tell us - he said with his paintings. The paintings of Rene Magritte, in contrast to the stormy pressure of Dali's whimsical visions, are more calm and philosophical. In addition, Magritte's canvases are imbued with a very peculiar sense of humor. What is worth only his picture of a pipe, with a signature at the bottom - this is not a pipe.

La Philosophie dans le boudoir (Philosophy in the boudoir)

La Magie noire (Black Magic) It is said that all the female images in his paintings are images of his wife. Looking at this picture, you begin to understand why he lived his whole life with one woman. In my opinion, much prettier than Gala.

La Memoire (Memory).

Cosmogonie Elementaire (Elementary Cosmogony).

La Naissance de l'idole (Birth of an idol).

La Belle captive (The Beautiful Captive).

L'Invention collective (Collective invention), painting by Rene Magritte.

Les Amants (The Lovers), Rene Magritte, paintings, surrealism.

Le Therapeute II (Therapist II), Rene Magritte, artists, surrealism.

Le Fils de l'homme (Son of Man), Rene Magritte. One of the artist's most famous paintings.

Le Faux miroir (Fake mirror),

Le Coup au coeur (Strike to the heart)

Alogism, absurdity, a combination of the incongruous, paradoxical visual variability of images and figures - this is the basis of the foundations of surrealism. The founder of this trend is considered to be who, at the heart of surrealism, saw the embodiment of the theory of the subconscious of Sigmund Freud. It was on this basis that many representatives of the direction created masterpieces that did not reflect objective reality, but were just the embodiment of individual images inspired by the subconscious. The canvases painted by the surrealists could not be the product of either good or evil. All of them evoked different emotions. different people. Therefore, we can say with confidence that this direction of modernism is quite controversial, which contributed to its rapid spread in painting and literature.

Surrealism as illusory and literature of the XX century

Salvador Dali, Paul Delvaux, Rene Magritte, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, Yves Tanguy, Michael Parkes and Dorothy Tanning are the pillars of surrealism that emerged in France in the 1920s. This direction was not territorially limited to France, spreading to other countries and continents. Surrealism greatly facilitated the perception of cubism and abstract art.

One of the main postulates of the surrealists was the identification of the energy of creators with the subconscious of a person, which manifests itself in a dream, under hypnosis, in delirium during an illness, or random creative insights.

Distinctive characteristics of surrealism

Surrealism is difficult direction in painting, which many artists understood and understand in their own way. Therefore, it is not surprising that surrealism developed in two conceptual different directions. Miro, Max Ernst, Jean Arp and André Masson can be safely attributed to the first branch, in whose works the main place was occupied by images that smoothly turn into abstraction. The second branch takes as a basis the embodiment of an unreal image generated by the subconscious of a person, with illusory accuracy. Salvador Dali worked in this direction, who is an ideal representative academic painting. It is his works that are characterized by an accurate transmission of chiaroscuro and a careful manner of writing - dense objects have tangible transparency, while solid ones spread, massive and three-dimensional figures acquire lightness and weightlessness, and incompatible ones can unite together.

Biography of Rene Magritte

On a par with the works of Salvador Dali is the work of Rene Magritte, a famous Belgian artist who was born in the city of Lesin in 1898. In the family, except for Rene. there were two more children, and in 1912 a misfortune happened that affected the life and work of the future artist - his mother died. This was reflected in Rene Magritte's painting "In Memory of Mack Sennett", which was painted in 1936. The artist himself claimed that the circumstances did not affect his life and work.

In 1916, Rene Magritte entered the Brussels Academy of Arts, where he met his future muse and wife, Georgette Berger. After graduating from the Academy, Rene worked on the creation of promotional materials, and treated this rather dismissively. Futurism, cubism and Dadaism had a huge influence on the artist, but in 1923 Rene Magritte first saw the work of Giorgio de Chirico "Song of Love". It was this moment that became the starting point for the development of the surrealist Rene Magritte. At the same time, the formation of a current in Brussels began, and Rene Magritte became its representative along with Marcel Lekamte, André Suri, Paul Nouget and Camille Gemans.

The work of Rene Magritte.

The works of this artist have always been controversial and attracted a lot of attention.

At first glance, the painting by Rene Magritte is filled with in strange ways, which are not only mysterious, but also ambiguous. Rene Magritte did not touch upon the issue of form in surrealism, he put his vision into the meaning and meaning of the picture.

Many artists pay special attention to titles. Especially Rene Magritte. Pictures with the names "This is not a pipe" or "Son of man" awaken the thinker and philosopher in the viewer. In his opinion, not only the picture should encourage the viewer to show emotions, but the title should also surprise and make you think.
As for descriptions, many surrealists gave brief annotation to their canvases. Rene Magritte is no exception. Paintings with descriptions have always been present in the advertising activities of the artist.

The artist himself called himself a "magic realist". His goal was to create a paradox, and the public should draw its own conclusions. Rene Magritte in his works always clearly drew a line between the subjective image and the real reality.

Painting "Lovers"

Rene Magritte painted a series of paintings "Lovers" in 1927-1928 in Paris.

The first picture shows a man and a woman who have merged in a kiss. Their heads are wrapped in white cloth. The second canvas depicts the same man and woman in white cloth, who look from the picture to the public.

The white fabric in the artist's work causes and caused heated discussions. There are two versions. According to the first white fabric in the works of Rene Magritte appeared in connection with the death of his mother in early childhood. His mother jumped off the bridge into the river. When her body was removed from the water, a white cloth was found wrapped around her head. As for the second version, many knew that the artist was a fan of Fantômas, the hero of the popular movie. Therefore, it may be that the white fabric is a tribute to the passion for cinema.

What is this picture about? Many people think that the painting “Lovers” personifies blind love: falling in love, people stop noticing someone or something other than their soul mate. But people remain mysteries to themselves. On the other hand, looking at the kiss of lovers, one can say that they lost their heads from love and passion. The painting by Rene Magritte is filled with mutual feelings and experiences.

"Son of Man"

Rene Magritte's painting "The Son of Man" calling card"Magical Realism" and Rene Magritte's self-portrait. It is this work that is considered one of the most controversial works of the master.

The artist hid his face behind an apple, as if saying that everything is not as it seems, and that people constantly want to get into a person’s soul and understand true essence of things. The painting by Rene Magritte both hides and reveals the essence of the master himself.

Rene Magritte played important role in the development of surrealism, and his work continues to excite the consciousness of more and more new generations.

Created mysterious paintings Rene Magritte was born at the end of the 19th century in the small country of Belgium. In early childhood, he was frightened by chess and musical signs, according to his recollections. His mother drowned in a river by jumping from a bridge when Rene was 13 years old. Pulling out the corpse, they found that her head was wrapped in a gas cloth. From here, portraits without faces appeared in the work of the future artist.

After studying at the Royal Academy in Brussels for two years, Belgian artist Magritte Rene left there, becoming an advertising artist at a paper mill. In 1926 he went to work in the Sento Gallery, having signed a contract. From that moment on, he is. His first exhibition in 1927 was criticized. Then Rene, having terminated the contract, and his wife Georgette Berger leave for Paris, where the artist joins the circle of surrealists. In some ways, he does not agree with them, considering himself a "magic surrealist." Paris gets bored, and the couple return to their homeland, to Brussels. Again advertising work, Rene and his brother open an agency.

The Second World War, Belgium in occupation. Rene Magritte paints paintings similar to style. IN postwar period Magritte's canvases were incredibly popular in the United States, exhibition after exhibition, a lot of money, recognition and fame fell upon the artist. Magritte Rene himself lived modestly, lived all his life with one wife and died of cancer at the age of 68.

And now, almost 42 years later, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts opened a museum where there were only works by the mystic artist Magritte. The very view of the building in an unusual style, a sliding curtain on the wall, behind which there are trees, a blue sky and an entrance somewhere. So the Belgians honored the memory of Rene, who painted his paintings with a philosophical meaning.

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Artist Rene Magritte paintings

big family

human destiny

fake mirror

Empire of Light

Unknown

ignorant fairy

Nostalgia

Travel memory

Love song

Portrait with a pipe

beautiful world

Obstruction of the Void

Insight

Bella Adzeeva

The Belgian artist René Magritte, despite his undoubted belonging to surrealism, has always stood apart in the movement. Firstly, he was skeptical about perhaps the main hobby of the entire group of Andre Breton - Freud's psychoanalysis. Secondly, Magritte's paintings themselves do not look like either the crazy plots of Salvador Dali or the bizarre landscapes of Max Ernst. Magritte used mostly ordinary everyday images - trees, windows, doors, fruits, figures of people - but his paintings are no less absurd and mysterious than the work of his eccentric colleagues. Without creating fantastic objects and creatures from the depths of the subconscious, the Belgian artist did what Lautreamont called art - he arranged "a meeting of an umbrella and a typewriter on the operating table", combining banal things in an unbanal way. Art critics and connoisseurs still offer new interpretations of his paintings and their poetic titles, almost never associated with the image, which once again confirms that Magritte's simplicity is deceptive.

Rene Magritte himself called his art not even surrealism, but magical realism, and was very distrustful of any attempts at interpretation, and even more so the search for symbols, arguing that the only thing to do with paintings is to consider them.

From that moment on, Magritte periodically returned to the image of a mysterious stranger in a bowler hat, depicting him either on a sandy seashore, or on a city bridge, or in a green forest or facing mountain landscape. There could be two or three strangers, they stood with their backs to the viewer or half-sided, and sometimes - as, for example, in the painting High Society (1962) (can be translated as " high society"- ed.) - the artist only outlined the outline of a man in a bowler hat, filling it with clouds and foliage. The most famous paintings depicting a stranger are "Golconda" (1953) and, of course, "Son of Man" (1964) - the most replicated work Magritte, parodies and allusions to which are so common that the image already lives separately from its creator.Initially, Rene Magritte painted the picture as a self-portrait, where the figure of a man symbolized modern man who lost his individuality, but remained the son of Adam, who is unable to resist temptations - hence the apple that covers his face.

"Lovers"

Rene Magritte quite often commented on his paintings, but left one of the most mysterious - "Lovers" (1928) - without explanation, leaving room for interpretation by art critics and fans. The former again saw in the picture a reference to the artist’s childhood and the experiences associated with the mother’s suicide (when her body was taken out of the river, the woman’s head was covered by the hem of her nightgown - ed.). The simplest and most obvious of the existing versions - "love is blind" - does not inspire confidence among specialists, who often interpret the picture as an attempt to convey isolation between people who are unable to overcome alienation even in moments of passion. Others see here the impossibility of understanding and knowing to the end close people, others understand "The Lovers" as a realized metaphor for "losing one's head with love."

In the same year, Rene Magritte painted a second painting called "Lovers" - on it the faces of a man and a woman are also closed, but their poses and background have changed, and general mood changed from tense to relaxed.

Be that as it may, "Lovers" remains one of the most recognizable paintings by Magritte, the mysterious atmosphere of which is borrowed by today's artists - for example, the cover refers to it. debut album British group Funeral for a Friend Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation (2003).

"Treachery of images", or It's not ...

The names of paintings by Rene Magritte and their connection with the image is a topic for a separate study. "Glass Key", "Achieving the Impossible", "Human Destiny", "Obstacle of the Void", "Beautiful World", "Empire of Light" are poetic and mysterious, they almost never describe what the viewer sees on the canvas, but about , what meaning the artist wanted to put into the name, in each individual case one has only to guess. “The titles are chosen in such a way that they do not allow me to place my paintings in the area of the familiar, where the automatism of thought will certainly work to prevent anxiety,” Magritte explained.

In 1948, he created the painting "Treachery of Images", which became one of the most famous works Magritte, thanks to the inscription on it: from inconsistency, the artist came to denial, under the image of a pipe, writing "This is not a pipe." "That famous pipe. How people reproached me with it! And yet, you can fill it with tobacco? No, it's just a picture, isn't it? So if I wrote under the picture "This is a pipe", I would be lying !" the artist said.

Sky Magritte

The sky with clouds floating across it is such an everyday and used image that it seems impossible to make it the "calling card" of a particular artist. However, Magritte's sky cannot be confused with someone else's - more often due to the fact that in his paintings it is reflected in fancy mirrors and huge eyes, fills the contours of birds and, together with the horizon line from the landscape, imperceptibly passes to the easel (series "Human Destiny "). The serene sky serves as a background for a stranger in a bowler hat ("Decalcomania", 1966), replaces the gray walls of the room ("Personal Values", 1952) and is refracted in three-dimensional mirrors ("Elementary Cosmogony", 1949).

The famous "Empire of Light" (1954), it would seem, is not at all like the work of Magritte - in the evening landscape, at first glance, there was no place for unusual objects and mysterious combinations. And yet there is such a combination, and it makes the picture "Magritte" - a clear daytime sky over a lake and a house plunged into darkness.

Rene Magritte is a Belgian surrealist painter. Known as the author of witty and at the same time poetically mysterious paintings.

Biography of Rene Magritte

Magritte was born on November 21, 1898 in the small Belgian town of Lessine. He spent his childhood and youth in the small industrial city of Charleroi. Life was hard.

In 1912, his mother drowned herself in the Sambre River, which apparently had a great influence on the then-teenager future artist, however, contrary to popular belief, one should not overestimate the impact of this event on the author's work. Magritte brought back from childhood a number of other, not so tragic, but no less mysterious memories, about which he himself said that they were reflected in his work (lecture of 1938).

Magritte studied for two years at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, which he left in 1918. During this time, he met Georgette Berger, whom he married in 1922 and lived with until his death in 1967.

In 1926, Magritte created the surrealistic painting "The Lost Jockey", which he considered his first good picture of such kind. In 1927 he arranges his first exhibition. Critics recognize it as unsuccessful, and Magritte and Georgette leave for Paris, where they meet Andre Breton and join his circle of surrealists. In this circle, Magritte did not lose his individuality, but joining it helped Magritte to acquire that signature original style by which his paintings are recognized. The artist was not afraid to argue with other surrealists: for example, Magritte was negative about psychoanalysis and especially its manifestations in art. Indeed, the nature of his work is not so much psychological as philosophical and poetic, sometimes based on the paradoxes of logic.

From 1932 to 1945, the artist joined the Communist Party of Belgium three times and also left its ranks three times.

After the termination of the contract with the Sainteaux Gallery, Magritte returns to Brussels and works again with advertising, and then, together with his brother, opens an agency that gives them a steady income. During the German occupation of Belgium during World War II, Magritte succeeds color scheme and the style of his paintings, approaching the style of Renoir: the artist considered it important to cheer up people and instill hope in them.

However, after the war, Magritte stopped writing in such a "sunny" style and returned to the images of his pre-war paintings. Processing and improving them, he finally forms his strange style and achieves wide recognition.

Magritte died of pancreatic cancer on August 15, 1967, leaving unfinished new version his own, perhaps famous painting"Empire of Light" He was buried at the Scharbek Cemetery.

Creativity of the artist

“Surrealism is reality freed from banal meaning,” Magritte once said.

The artist's paintings create a feeling of mysterious tension and fear; this feeling is achieved by depicting an environment that has nothing to do with the normal, familiar to a person. The secret of Magritte's works lies in the contrast between beautifully painted "hyper-real" objects and their strange combinations and unnatural surroundings.

Surrealism Magritte» - intellectual game, which reveals the problematic properties visual perception and an illusory image on a plane. The artist called his paintings theorems, believing that the displacements and transformations of reality that occur in them have internal logic, similar to the logic of mathematical transformations. Already a series of works of the late 1920s - early 1930s, where an elementary picture is accompanied by an inscription that contradicts it, demonstrates the symbolic nature of the visual image ("The Empty Mask", 1928, Düsseldorf, Art Collection of North Rhine-Westphalia; "The Betrayal of Images ", 1928-1929, Los Angeles, Museum of Art; "Key to Dreams", 1930, Paris, private collection). In a number of paintings, surreal absurdity arises as a result of the literal translation of verbal metaphors into a visible image (“Lovers”, 1926, Brussels, private collection; “The Art of Conversation”, 1950, private collection).

The artist's special interest in psychological and epistemological problems manifested itself in the game of reflections inherent in his painting, in the juxtaposition of explicit and hidden images, in the symbolism of a mirror, an eye, a window, a stage and a curtain, a picture in a picture (“Human Destiny”, 1933, Washington, National Gallery; "Unacceptable Reproduction", 1937, Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen; "Euclid's Walk", 1955, Minneapolis, Art Institute). In the 1940s, Magritte made two attempts to change his style. However, the so-called "captive salt style" (or "Renoir", 1945-1947) and the "vulgar style" that followed it (1947-1948) did not lead to fruitful results, and the artist returned to the previous method. In sculpture, Magritte duplicated the images of his painting, continuing to develop the theme of the relationship between physical and mental realities.

Magritte, sometimes arranging optical puzzles, chuckles at the public and makes fun of the naive belief of realists that they reliably reflect the world. According to Magritte, no virtuosity of the brush and precision of observation are capable of “catching” a real physical object on the canvas. The picture is a fictional space, which, however, does not deny that the essence of objects and phenomena can be expressed in it much more fully and deeper than with the most good and conscientious copying of reality. Therefore, in the famous self-portrait “Divination”, Magritte programmatically captures his method, which consists in visualizing the invisible, treating painting as witchcraft. On the table in front of the artist there is an egg, and on the canvas on the easel there is already a bird.

The irrational and mysterious that surrounds us, he managed to reveal simply and strongly, while fundamentally remaining in line with figurative painting. He forced us to abandon the dogma and primitivism of the perception of life, discovering new meanings in seemingly truisms.

Magritte despised artists who became prisoners of their talent and virtuosity, hated abilities if they were reduced to techniques and focused on materials. His constant preoccupation was thought in pictures, without any preconceived thoughts, without any concepts - thought exclusively in the visual sphere, which is nevertheless stimulated by the intellect and metaphysics:

"... and I make thoughts visible with the help of painting."

Acquaintance with metaphysical painting George de Chirico and Dadaistic poetry was an important turning point for Magritte's work. In 1925, Magritte was a member of the Dadaist group, collaborating in the journals Aesophage and Marie, together with Jean Arp, Picabia, Tzara and other Dadaists. In 1925–1926 Magritte wrote Oasis and The Lost Jockey, his first surreal paintings. In 1927–1930, Magritte lived in France, participated in the activities of the Surrealist group, became close friends with Max Ernst, Dali, Andre Breton, Louis Buñuel, and especially with Paul Eluard.

It is enough just to peer into his work to feel that the Belgian bourgeois, neat and balanced, alien to eccentricity and scandalousness, was indeed one of the magical artists of this century.

The strength and power of Magritte lies in his ability to support not meaning, but the need for meaning in a world that has ceased to be aware of this need. His work is a mystery that is unlikely to be completely solved.

Magritte hated humility, patience, the past (both his own and others'), folklore, advertising and advertising voices, boy scouts, drunken people. And arts and crafts. The latter is understandable: Magritte painted wallpapers, posters, advertising decorations and other decorative and creative things for eight years before he was recognized as an artist.
He lived an amazingly boring life. Maybe even more boring than Kafka. He didn’t smear his pants with goat excrement, he didn’t make a fuss, he didn’t go crazy. He loved one woman, painted pictures in the dining room, dressed modestly. The only bright event in his whole life was tragic death mother. The mother of the future artist drowned herself in the river when he was 14 years old. About this family tragedy Magritte preferred not to tell, and even the artist's wife, who lived with him for almost fifty years, learned about her mother's suicide only from Magritte's biographer. However, experts believe that the echo terrible death pursued Rene. When the body of the drowned woman was found, her face was wrapped in a nightgown. Maybe that's why Magritte so often paints women whose faces are covered with a veil?
Despite close ties to the surreal, Magritte did not like to be called a surrealist. For his work, he came up with the name "magical realism", because his work is not so much addressed to the subconscious as it encourages active reflection and the search for answers to eternal questions.
He built the plot of his canvases on the play of contrasts. The most main idea of all the paintings of Rene Magritte is that only the proximity of incongruous things allows you to clearly understand the essence and nature of each of them