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"My painting is 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."
Rene Magritte
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Rene Magritte (1898-1967)
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Rene
Francois Ghislain Magritte was a Belgian surrealist painter,
born in Lessines. He studied at the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts,
Brussels. His first one-man exhibition was in Brussels in 1927.
At that time Magritte had already begun to paint in the style,
closely akin to surrealism, that was predominant throughout
his long career. |
| A meticulous, skillful technician,
he is noted for works that contain an extraordinary juxtaposition
of ordinary objects or an unusual context that gives new meaning
to familiar things. This juxtaposition is frequently termed
magic realism, of which Magritte was the prime exponent. In
addition to fantastic elements, he displayed a mordant wit,
creating surrealist versions of famous paintings, as in Madame
Recamier de David (1949, private collection), in which an elaborate
coffin is substituted for the reclining woman in the famous
portrait by Jacques Louis David. Magritte's work was first shown
in the United States in New York City in 1936 and again in that
city in two retrospectives, one at the Museum of Modern Art
in 1965 (U.S. tour, 1966), and the other at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in 1992. |
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