Rene Magritte
Birth
René
François-Ghislain Magritte was born on November 21 1898, in Lessines,
Hainaut (Belgium).
Death of
his mother and his life
One
image which appears in many of Magritte’s paintings is that of his mother. He
saw her fished from the river Sambre at the age of fourteen, she had committed
suicide. The body was found naked apart from a nightgown which obscured only
the face as it was tangled around her. This somewhat indelible image can be
seen in many of Magritte’s paintings, including The Rape (see below) and The
Lovers I and II. Soon after the tragic death of his mother, the Magritte
family moved to Charleroi this is where he also meets his future wife, Georgette Berger. Magritte
enrolled at Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels in 1914 and , after a short
period of military service in 1921, joins the surrealist movement. His first
surrealist work was in 1926.
Defying
common sense
Rene
Magritte considered his paintings to be a ‘defiance of common sense’, in the
same way as he thinks the world as we know it is.Magritte wanted to show objects as they aren’t , to provide a mystery, not
a symbol, and to frighten the viewer into not understanding
his images.He produced many of his paintings as a combination of two things-
A reflection of his real life and its events.
A chance to create a weird and wonderful set of imagery that doesn’t occur in real life.
The artists style is summed up by Andre Breton when he says:
"Magritte... taking
his cue from the visual arts as I did from poetry, glimpsed what could result
from juxtaposing words with great resonance... with forms that negated them or
at the very least, did not rationally match them”. Essentially what Magritte
was famous for, at least during his time with the surrealist movement, was the
juxtaposition of objects. Some examples are a rock floating like a cloud, an
umbrella supporting a glass of water, a pair of boots with real toes and some
paintings playing with the idea of light and dark.
The Rape
One
of the best examples of Magritte's life in his work is in ‘The Rape’
Magritte's mother was drowned when he was very young. She was discovered with
her face veiled by her gown with her naked body showing. ’The Rape’, therefore
has three main attributes:
The woman's facial features
are replaced by the torso and pelvis of a naked woman is suggestive firstly of
the way males see the woman. The idea is to create a sexual image out of the
woman's face, the first thing one would usually see. This is also indicated by
the name of the piece ‘The Rape’.
Secondly, it is an obvious
reference to his mothers death and the way in which she died, with her face
covered and her body naked.
Thirdly, a different idea is
that one might notice that the neck and head are quite flat, almost phallic.
The hair also has an unnatural appearance, perhaps that of pubic hair. This is
the most striking vision and is perhaps in line with the way Magritte
suggested he wanted to frighten with his paintings, to provoke. It is the rape
in progress, the phallus of the face or torso, penetrating the pubic mound.
Juxtaposition
Essentially what
Magritte was famous for, at least during his time with the surrealist
movement, was the juxtaposition of objects. Some examples are a rock floating
like a cloud, an umbrella supporting a glass of water, a pair of boots with
real toes and some paintings playing with the idea of light and dark. It was
his customary style to place objects where they aren’t usually found or to
combine two or more contradictory images together. Magritte also displayed a
sort of morbid wit, creating surreal copies of famous paintings including
Madame Recaimer de David (1949), where he replaces a coffin for the reclining
woman in the famous portrait by Jacques Louis David.
Death
Magritte
died on 15
th August 1967
