René François Ghislain Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and boundaries of reality and representation. His imagery has influenced pop art, minimalist art, and conceptual art.
Paintings by René Magritte
Golconda (Magritte) (1953)
Golconda (French: Golconde) is an oil painting on canvas by Belgian surrealist René Magritte, painted in 1953. It is housed at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas.
The piece depicts a scene of red-roofed buildings and a mostly blue partly cloudy sky, with the air filled by dozens of nearly identical men dressed in dark overcoats and bowler hats, generally facing the viewer. The men are positioned as if standing, and may be falling, rising, or stationary in mid-air; no movement or motion is implied. They are equally spaced in a three-dimensional lattice, and receding back in rhombus grid layers.
The Son of Man (1964)
The Son of Man (French: Le fils de l'homme) is a 1964 painting by the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. It is perhaps his best-known artwork.
Magritte painted it as a self-portrait. The painting consists of a man in an overcoat and a bowler hat standing in front of a low wall, beyond which are 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.
The Empire of Light (1939)
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 were not planned as a formal series. They have never all been exhibited together and are rarely exhibited in smaller groups. The original French title, L'Empire des lumières is sometimes translated as singular, The Empire of Light,and sometimes as plural The Empire of Lights. Other translations include The Dominion of Light: making the distinction: "an empire exists in relation to a ruler, a dominion does not necessarily require this.”
One source states the artist was inspired by the works of John Atkinson Grimshaw, an English painter from the Victorian era, who had delighted in his time to paint urban views at sunset. More perceptively, other sources identify the nocturnal paintings by the Belgian symbolist William Degouve de Nuncques (1867–1935) as an influence on Magritte's series, specifically his painting The Blind House. The art historian and former director of the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands, A. M . Hammacher also observed that Magritte was "highly interested" in the landscapes of the great German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich. William Rubin made comparisons between some of Max Ernst's frottage paintings, specifically Forest [(1927), oil on canvas 114 x 146 cm. in Joseph Slifka collection, New York at that time], commenting of Ernst's painting "the night landscape enigmatically includes a bright daylight sky (Magritte was to explore this same conjunction later in The Empire of Light II)." Comparisons with Salvador Dalí's gouache Night and Day Clothes (1936) and Max Ernst's Day and Night (1941–42) in the Menil Collection are also intriguing.
The Treachery of Images (1929)
The Treachery of Images (French: La Trahison des images) is a 1929 painting by Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. It is also known as This Is Not a Pipe, Ceci n'est pas une pipe and The Wind and the Song. It is on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The painting shows an image of a pipe. Below it, Magritte painted, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (pronounced [sə.si ne paz‿yn pip], French for "This is not a pipe".)
Not to Be Reproduced (1937)
Not to Be Reproduced (La reproduction interdite) is an oil on canvas painting by the Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte, from 1937. It is held by the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, in Rotterdam.
This painting was commissioned by poet and Magritte patron Edward James and is considered a portrait of James although James's face is not depicted. This painting was one of three produced by Magritte for the ballroom of James's London home. The other two were The Red Model (1937) and Time Transfixed (1938).
The Lovers (Magritte) (1930)
The Lovers (French: Les Amants (French pronunciation: [lez‿amɑ̃])) is a surrealist painting by René Magritte, made in Paris in 1928. It is the first in a series of four variations, and in the painting two people can be seen kissing passionately with their faces covered in a white cloth hiding their identities. The barrier of fabric transforms an act of passion, such as a kiss, into an act of frustration, representing the lovers who cannot be together. Currently, it is located in the MoMA of New York City, as a part of Richard S. Zeisler's collection.
This work is part of a series of four similar paintings, all painted by Magritte in the same year. It consists of The Lovers II, which can be found in the National Gallery of Australia, The Lovers III and The Lovers IV. These paintings are characterized by sinister and mysterious landscapes and by couples with their faces covered by white cloth. The combination of these effects fits within Magritte's later analysis of his works from this period, given during a lecture in 1938. He said that his works from this time were "the result of a systematic search for an overwhelming poetic effect through the arrangement of objects borrowed from reality, which would give the real world from which those objects had been borrowed an overwhelming poetic meaning by a natural process of exchange"
The Castle of the Pyrenees (1959)
The Castle of the Pyrenees (French: Le Château des Pyrénées) is an oil on canvas painting by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte, completed in 1959. It is held at the Israel Museum, in Jerusalem.
The painting depicts a large rock floating above a sea and topped by a stone castle. Magritte's friend Harry Torczyner, a lawyer and author, commissioned the painting and chose its theme. The painting is displayed in the Israel Museum, in Jerusalem, along with Magritte's correspondence with Torczyner.
The Mysteries of the Horizon (1955)
The Masterpiece or The Mysteries of the Horizon (French: Le Chef-d'Oeuvre ou Les mystères de l'horizon) is a 1955 Surrealist oil painting by René Magritte. It is held in a private collection.
The painting depicts three seemingly identical men in bowler hats. They are in an outdoor setting at twilight. Though they appear to be sharing the same space each one also seems to exist in a separate reality. Each is facing a different direction. In the sky above each figure is a separate waxing crescent moon.
The Portrait (Magritte) (1935)
The Portrait is an oil on canvas painting by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte, from 1935.
It depicts an almost photo-realistic table setting with a slice of ham in the center, with an eye staring back at the viewer from the center of the ham.
The Menaced Assassin (1927)
The Menaced Assassin (French: L'Assassin menacé) is an oil on canvas painting by Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte, from 1927. It is held at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York .
The main subject of the painting is a blood-smeared nude woman, seen lying on a couch. The assassin of the painting's title, a well-dressed man, stands ready to leave, his coat and hat on a chair next to his bag. He is however delayed by the sound of music, and in an unhurriedly relaxed manner, listens to a gramophone. In the meantime, two men armed with club and net wait in the foyer to ensnare him, as three more men also watch from over the balcony. Outside, we can see snowy mountains. It is an enigmatic and macabre painting at first glance, typical of Magritte style.
16th September (painting) (1956)
16th September (Dutch: Zestien september) is a 1956 painting by Belgian Surrealist painter René Magritte. It is now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, which bought it directly from the artist.
16th September is an oil painting on canvas, measuring 115 by 88 centimetres (45.28 by 34.65 in). It depicts a tree surrounded by an empty field with rocks. A waxing crescent moon appears in the foreground, in front of the tree.
The Human Condition (Magritte) (1933)
The Human Condition (La condition humaine) is the title of four paintings by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte. One was completed in 1933 and is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Another one was completed in 1935 and is part of the Simon Spierer Collection in Geneva, Switzerland. A drawing with the same name is kept at the Cleveland Museum of Art and another picture is part of the Norfolk Museum Collections.
One of Magritte's most common artistic devices was the use of objects to hide what lies behind them. For example, in The Son of Man (1964) an apple hides the face of a man wearing a bowler hat, and in The Pleasure Principle (1937) a bright flash likewise obscures a face. In The Human Condition, the cover-up appears in the form of a painting within a painting.