Magritte, Rene (1898-1967) - 1958 The Banquet (Art Institute of Chicago)
Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for often witty and thought-provoking images. His goal for his was to challenge observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality and force viewers to become hypersensitive to their surroundings. Magritte's earliest paintings were Impressionistic in style. From 1916 to 1918 he studied at the Académie in Brussels, but found the instruction uninspiring. The paintings he produced during the years 1918–1924 were influenced by Futurism and by the offshoot of Cubism practiced by Metzinger. Most of his works of this period are female nudes. In 1926, Magritte produced his first surreal painting, The Lost Jockey, and held his first exhibition in Brussels in 1927. Critics heaped abuse on the exhibition. Depressed, he moved to Paris where he became friends with André Breton, and became involved in the surrealist group.
He briefly adopted a colorful, painterly style in 1943–44, an interlude known as his "Renoir Period". In 1946, renouncing the violence and pessimism of his earlier work, he joined several other Belgian artists in signing the manifesto Surrealism in Full Sunlight. During 1947–48 he painted in a provocative and crude Fauve style. During this time, Magritte supported himself through the production of fake Picassos, Braques and Chiricos. At the end of 1948, he returned to the style and themes of his prewar surrealistic art. His work was exhibited in the United States in New York in 1936 and again in that city in two retrospective exhibitions, one at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965, and the other at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992.
Magritte's style of surrealism is more representational than the "automatic" style of artists such as Joan Miró. His 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 objects—the sky, people, trees, mountains, furniture, the stars, solid structures, graffiti—become united in a single poetically disciplined image. The poetry of this image dispenses with any symbolic significance, old or new.” Magritte's use of simple graphic and everyday imagery has been compared to that of the Pop artists 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."
Magritte, Rene (1898-1967) - 1958 The Banquet (Art Institute of Chicago)
Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for often witty and thought-provoking images. His goal for his was to challenge observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality and force viewers to become hypersensitive to their surroundings. Magritte's earliest paintings were Impressionistic in style. From 1916 to 1918 he studied at the Académie in Brussels, but found the instruction uninspiring. The paintings he produced during the years 1918–1924 were influenced by Futurism and by the offshoot of Cubism practiced by Metzinger. Most of his works of this period are female nudes. In 1926, Magritte produced his first surreal painting, The Lost Jockey, and held his first exhibition in Brussels in 1927. Critics heaped abuse on the exhibition. Depressed, he moved to Paris where he became friends with André Breton, and became involved in the surrealist group.
He briefly adopted a colorful, painterly style in 1943–44, an interlude known as his "Renoir Period". In 1946, renouncing the violence and pessimism of his earlier work, he joined several other Belgian artists in signing the manifesto Surrealism in Full Sunlight. During 1947–48 he painted in a provocative and crude Fauve style. During this time, Magritte supported himself through the production of fake Picassos, Braques and Chiricos. At the end of 1948, he returned to the style and themes of his prewar surrealistic art. His work was exhibited in the United States in New York in 1936 and again in that city in two retrospective exhibitions, one at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965, and the other at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992.
Magritte's style of surrealism is more representational than the "automatic" style of artists such as Joan Miró. His 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 objects—the sky, people, trees, mountains, furniture, the stars, solid structures, graffiti—become united in a single poetically disciplined image. The poetry of this image dispenses with any symbolic significance, old or new.” Magritte's use of simple graphic and everyday imagery has been compared to that of the Pop artists 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."