Rene Magritte
 René Magritte was born on the 21st
November, 1898 in Hainaut, Belgium. His
father was a tailor and a merchant. As his
business did not go well the family had to
move often. René lost his mother early and
tragically – she committed suicide for
unclear reasons. René was only 14 years old
at the time.
Rene Magritte
 From 1916 through 1918 Magritte studied in the Royal
Academy of Arts in Brussels (Académie Royale des
Beaux-Arts). He became a wallpaper designer and
commercial artist. His early painting works were
executed under the influence of the Cubism and
Futurism (1918-20), then he was inspired by the Purists
and Fernand Léger. In 1922 Magritte married Georgette
Berger, with whom he first became acquainted when
fifteen years old. After meeting again in 1920, she
became his model and then wife.
Rene Magritte
 The acquaintance with Giorgio de Chirico's Pittura Metafisica
(Metaphysical Painting) and Dadaistic poetry constituted an
important artistic turning-point for Magritte. In 1925 he
came close with a group of Dadaists and co-operated in the
magazines Aesophage and Marie, together with E.L.T. Mesens,
Jean Arp, Francis Picabia, Schwitters, Tzara and Man Ray.
Rene Magritte
 In 1926 Magritte painted The Lost Jockey, it is his first
painting that he allowed to be labeled as "Surrealist". After
his first, badly-received, one-man show in Brussels in 1927,
he left for Paris. In 1927-30 Magritte lived in France, where
he participated in the activities of the Surrealists, establishing
a close friendship in particular with Max Ernst, Dali, André
Breton and especially with Paul Eluard.
The Lost Jockey 1926
Rene Magritte
 In Paris, Magritte's system of conceptual painting was
formed, it remained almost unchanged until the end of his
life. His painting manner, intentionally dry and academic,
"polished in the technical sense" with precise and clean
draftsmanship demonstrated a paradoxical ability to depict
trustworthy an unreal, unthinkable reality.
Rene Magritte
 In Magritte’s works the morphologically similar objects
belonging to different classes, exchange some qualities or
unite as hybrids (Companions of Fear. 1942, The
Explanation, 1954, The Flavour of Tears, 1948); a night
landscape gleams under daylit skies (The Empire of Lights
1954).
Companions of Fear 1942
 The Explanation
 1954
 The Flavour of Tears
 1948
 The Key to the Fields
 1936
 Beautiful World
 1962
 Hegel’s Holiday
 1958
Rene Magritte
 Demonstrating the problems of visual perception and
illusionary of images, Magritte used the symbols of mirrors,
eyes, windows, stages and curtains and pictures within
pictures (The False Mirror, 1935, The Key to the Fields.
1936, Beautiful World. 1962.)
Rene Magritte
 Magritte was fond of philosophy and literature. Many of his
paintings reflect his impressions of literature works, illusions
and philosophical metaphors, e.g. The Giantess (after
Baudelair) 1929-30; The Domain of Arnheim (after Edgar
Poe) 1938; Hegel's Holiday. 1958 (homage to Hegel's
dialectics).
Rene Magritte
 In the 1940s Magritte made two attempts to
change his painting style. But the so-called
“vie-heureuse” or “plein-soleil” period of
1945-47, when he painted in the style of
Renoir, and the “époque vache” (Cow
Period) that followed in 1947-48 did not
prove to be effective and the artist returned
to his previous manner.
Rene Magritte
 In the 1950s Magritte executed two fresco cycles: The
Enchanted Realm for a casino in Knokke-le-Zut (1953)
and The Ignorant Fairy (1957) for the Palais des
Beaux-Arts in Charleroi. These monumental
compositions repeat the motifs of his previous paintings.
In his last year Magritte began to make sculptures of his
painted images, developing the theme of correlation of
mental and material realities.
 Magritte died of cancer at the age of 69, August 15, 1967
in Brussels.
The Enchanted Realm 1953
Personal Values 1958
Personal Values 1958
 The artist presents a room filled with familiar things, but
he gives human proportions to these formerly
unassuming props of everyday life, creating a sense of
disorientation and incongruity. Inside and out are
inverted by his rendering of a skyscape on the interior
walls of the room. The familiar becomes unfamiliar, the
normal, strange; Magritte creates a paradoxical world
that is, in his own words, "a defiance of common sense."
Son of Man 1964
 Magritte painted it as a self-portrait. The painting consists of a man in a suit
and a bowler hat standing in front of a small wall, beyond which is the sea
and a cloudy sky. The man’s face is largely obscured by a hovering green
apple. However, the man’s eyes can be seen peeking over the edge of the
apple. Another subtle feature is that the man’s left arm appears to bend
backwards at the elbow.
 About the painting Magritte said,
 At least it hides the face partly.Well, so you have the apparent face,
the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It’s
something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides
another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.
There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible
does not show us.This interest can take the form of a quite intense
feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is
hidden and the visible that is present.
Golconda 1953
 In Golconda , Magritte brilliantly unites different motifs
from his repertory: small men in overcoats and bowler hats
float weightlessly in a blue sky in front of facades of houses.
Present since 1927, this bowler-hatted figure finally finds his
true dimension. He becomes Magritte's emblem par
excellence. He is present in many works after the 1950's.
Time Transfixed 1938
Time Transfixed
 In explaining Time Transfixed, Magritte said: "I decided to paint the
image of a locomotive . . . In order for its mystery to be evoked,
another immediately familiar image without mystery — the image
of a dining room fireplace — was joined." It is in the surprising
juxtaposition and scale shift of these common and unrelated
images that their mystery and magic arises. The artist transformed
the pipe of a coal-burning stove into a charging locomotive,
situating the train in a fireplace vent so that it appears to be
emerging from a railway tunnel. The tiny engine races out into the
stillness of a sparsely furnished dining room, its smoke neatly
floating up the chimney, suggesting in turn the smoke of coal in
the stove.
Treachery of Images 1939
 The Treachery of Images , the famous 'pipe' picture. But this is
not a pipe since we can not smoke it. It is only a representation of
one. Magritte also first uses another technique around this time:
that of representing a familiar object and given it a name other
than its conventional one. Through this gallery of word-paintings,
Magritte plays on the discrepancies, paradox, clarity and obscurity
of common sense. The question remains as to whether the words
actually represent what we think. As a result, the painting becomes
a type of language.