René Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist. René became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers’ preconditioned perceptions of reality.
Rene Magritte - The treachery of images 1929 (This is not a pipe) Meanings and analysis HD
#Rene #Magritte - The treachery of images 1929 (This is not a pipe) Meanings and analysis #this_is_not_a_tweet
(This is not a paintings blog ) 2021
When Magritte painted the Treachery of Images
In 1929 Magritte was 30 years old and depressed by the failure of his first exhibition in Belgium . Rene Magritte left his homeland and moved to Paris .There he met and befriended several of the Paris Surrealists, including poets André Breton and Paul Éluard, and he became familiar with the collages of Max Ernst…
Rene Magritte - The Poison / Good Fortune (Le poison / La Bonne Aventure ) 1939 analysis
Rene Magritte – The Poison / Good Fortune (Le poison / La Bonne Aventure ) 1939 analysis
The first in the series The Empire of Light The Poison / Good Fortune (Le poison / La Bonne Aventure ) 1939 by Rene Magritte
An early example of Magritte playing with the idea of the simultaneous appearance of night and day is a gouache painted in 1939 that is now in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. In this gouache, the horizon of a twilight sky is sharply lit by a sunset casting a…
Rene Magritte - The Definition of light 1954 - the empire of light series analysis
Rene Magritte – The Definition of light 1954 – the empire of light series analysis
Rene Magritte – the definition of light – the empire of light (L’empire des lumières) 1954 http://www.artishard.gr
Rene Magritte – (L’empire des lumières) The Empire of Light II 1950
The Empire of Light (French: L’Empire des lumières) is the title of a succession of paintings by René Magritte. They depict the paradoxical image of a nocturnal landscape beneath a sunlit sky. He explored the theme…
Rene Magritte - The Empire of Light II 1950 series analysis
#magritte #renemagritte - The Empire of Light II 1950 series analysis
Rene Magritte – The Empire of Light II 1950
Rene Magritte – The Empire of Light II 1950
The Empire of Light (French: L’Empire des lumières) is the title of a succession of paintings by René Magritte. They depict the paradoxical image of a nocturnal landscape beneath a sunlit sky. He explored the theme in 27 paintings (17 oil paintings and 10 gouaches) from the 1940s to the 1960s. The paintings…
Rene Magritte - The Invention of Life (L'Invention De-La-Vie) 1928
Rene Magritte – The Invention of Life (L’Invention De-La-Vie) 1928
The Invention of Life (L’Invention De-La-Vie) 1928
On 12 March 1912, his mother committed suicide by drowning herself in the River Sambre. This was not her first attempt at taking her own life; she had made many over a number of years, driving her husband Léopold to lock her into her bedroom. One day she escaped, and was missing for days. Her body was later discovered a mile or so down the…
In 1922–1923, Magritte worked as a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory, and was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926, when a contract with Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels made it possible for him to paint full-time. Placing familiar, mundane objects such as bowler hats, pipes and rocks in unusual contexts and juxtapositions, Magritte evoked themes…
I came across this painting and couldn’t look away from it. Rene Magritte’s Not to Be Reproduced encourages us to look longer for a very important reason. It shows a man with his back to the viewer, standing in front of a mirror. On the ledge we see a copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s(my inspiration for Poetry) only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordan Pimm of Nantucket. We cant help ourselves but to see a rather odd visual. Instead of man’s face being reflected as we would expect, the mirror shows the back of his head, while the book is reflected back in the mirror correctly. This obscurity strikes on the main theme of our ever changing perception. We assume what the mirror will reflect but we are denied the answer we expect. This theme becomes more prominent in today’s world where misinformation mends our perception by appealing to emotions and other storytelling measures. We take things at their face value(first impression is not the last impression for f**k sake) without ever questioning and interrogating things in the first place. The significance of Edgar’s book is that most of his work also deals with the perception of reality. Without getting too philosophical about nature of truth and falsehood, we like to think that our viewpoints about the world are backed up by the facts which we acquire through our timelines and newsfeed. Another major theme present in the painting maybe that of our own identity. The man looks with care into the mirror and wonders who he really might be. We lose our identity in this world where regulation of behaviour and pseudo interaction has become quite the norm. We are always hungry for praise, attention and worried about opposition and in this way lose much of our originality in thinking. We don’t have a secure hold on our values and judgements. This technique of hiding faces, is used by Magritte in many of his paintings like The Lovers, Son of Man and the Great War. This technique evokes confusion, unease and curiosity. Therefor i think, we should use these ordinary moments in our ordinary lives by cleaning up our conflicting inner selves.
This painting took a hidden feeling of mine and brought it to light. Reńe Magritte’s Time transfixed talks to you like your imaginary friend(lets be honest guys) who knows you inside out and tells you harsh truths without ever judging you. Looking at the painting, our attention goes straight to the locomotive charging out of fireplace. It disturbs the mundanity of the scene and took us by surprise. The painting also emphasizes the clock placed over the fireplace in front of a mirror and in between two candles. Through the combonation of these odd objects, Magritte captures our vacillated and lost selves. The one which yearns to be a part of the crowd, to get emotional fulfilment socially. But at a certain point, wants to be left alone with his/her gloomy thoughts. The picture seems like a real motion event in which the locomotive may charge through the fireplace at any moment and disturbs the placidity of the room. But at the time It is stopped. It enters our consciousness and urges us to think about our banal but hidden feeling. It tries to redeem those moments when you are unwelcome and do not want any intrusion of any kind even after having many friends. It also depicts our desire to capture and eternalise delightful moments with someone before they become memories. This is the level of contradiction this picture tries to capture. The reflection of left candlestick is visible, but it’s not the same for right one. This represents our two contrasting feelings. We carry this dilemma our whole lives and in the way we get misunderstood by people. Its quite interesting how Magritte uses locomotive and clock to bring these feelings to the surface, but only through these candles we see their faces. The mirror does not reflect the rest of the room and tries to focus our attention to these candles. Every object carries a sense of purpose, it only depends on the viewer to extract these purposes. This painting assures us about the normality of our feelings and tells us its not our fault.
My latest creation – Homer Simpson, ala Magritte!!!
There are a number of easter eggs in this particular painting, many of which I owe inspiration to because my friends are such hard core fans of the series haha. This one was difficult in a number of ways, most notably was finding a way to make Homer fit similar dimensions to the original (shifty eyes).
I really hope you guys like it and I hope you aren’t tired of my little passion project. Much love for all of your support <3
And of course, you can find me on my socials – I’m also active on IG and FB! I also have a YouTube channel with video tutorials as well.
(The Son of Man was painted by Rene Magritte circa 1946 and is an example of surrealism).
Else Thoresen (May 1, 1906 - 1994) was a Norwegian-American artist, who studied in Oslo at the Academy and in Brussels. While in Norway she met Danish artist Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen and married him in 1935. As a result she lived and worked in Denmark for a decade, until she had to flee the Nazi occupation in 1944 and go to Sweden. After the war, she returned to the US and remained there.
The Danish National Gallery has one of her symbolic, Surrealist canvases:
