Wednesday 29th July 2015One of the most enduringly popular genres among both art students and the general public is the exquisite bizarreness that is surrealism. While there are a number of major figures within the movement that capture the popular imagination - think of the wild popularity of Salvador Dali, for instance - today we're going to look at another titan of surrealism: Rene Magritte. Both consummately skilled artist and clever visual joker, Magritte was a Belgian-born surrealist who helped oversee the founding of the movement as a whole. Many of his images are iconic and can be found today, still being taught in art classes and adorning many a wall, both in galleries and in private hands.
Magritte's surrealism was an evolving practice, as he originally started out as a more mundane painter and eventually grew to adopt and embrace the surrealist methodology. Apples, bowler hats and umbrellas are recurring images in his work, but this pattern in and of itself is something of an illusion, and arguably is more about the apparent banality of the middle-class reality he lived in than something more deeply symbolic (though no doubt at least someone has made that argument successfully). Regardless, they are undoubtedly deeply associated with his work and life, especially in the artistic world, and appear frequently in his paintings.
Magritte originally worked as a commercial artist, unlike many of his more flamboyant surrealist peers, and it can be argued that this is partly responsible for the way that he deviated from most other surrealists (think again of the extravagant Dali, and his grand gestures). Once he finally moved on to the surrealist genre, his popularity began to take off and he began to become the legend we know today, arguably the most important Belgian painter of the 20th century.
One of the most powerful things about his work is how it drives us to question; both to question what is in the image in front of us, and our own reactions to it, and by extension, to reality itself.
In his own immortal words: "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, it is unknowable." Sometimes, it still seems like he's playing jokes on us - thank goodness for that!
Posted on July 29th 2015 on 05:27pm