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The Body in Painting
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Sitting from left to right: Irène Hamoir,
Marthe Beauvoisin, Georgette Magritte.
Standing from left to right: E.L.T. Mesens, René Magritte, Louis
Scutenaire, André Souris, Paul Nougé.
1934
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The picture The
Rape demonstrates all too obviously that painting is also
capable of taking hold of the anatomy of the human body, capturing it
in pictures and transforming it. The eyes become breasts, the nose -
the middle of the face - is now the navel, the mouth the genitals.
Nevertheless, the violence done to the face of the woman is not
arbitrary in nature. The anatomy of the picture, to take up an
expression from Paul Klee and Hans Bellmer, makes the observer aware
of his voyeuristic status; he circles the "eyes", the "nose", the
"mouth", and appreciates the sex-appeal of this navel display. If a
rape indeed takes place here, then it is that of painting itself,
which, not content with reproducing the world of visible appearances
on the canvas, seeks to transform it, to force it open. Painting
wishes to do as it wants with that which is visible by means of a
poetic, magical order, an order permitting the observer's gaze to
penetrate to the innermost centre, to the body, to the senses. The
principal concern here is not so much to copy reality, to glorify the
manifestations of objects in the world, but rather to create a picture
of the body such as will reveal its deeper, hidden nature, a nature
customarily hidden from the observer's gaze yet nonetheless existing
inside the head.
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The Rape
1934
"Love is approached via the face, and is fulfilled in the body.
Hence the wonderful love which one has of the entire woman, face and
body in one whole.
In contrast, however, this superimposing upon the face of the trunk
(the breasts look at you, the nose has atrophied into the navel, the
pubis/mouth seems distorted into a tormented grimace),
far from being the spiritualization of the corporeal,
signifies rather the degradation to an object of sexual desire:
blinded, deaf and dumb." Rene Passeron
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The work The White Race
presents a surprising vision of the human body and establishes a new
hierarchy of values. There is only one eye, one ear; eyes and ears are
unique, like the mouth, the organ of speech. The solitary, cyclops-like
eye, its dominant central position at the very top evoking a sense of
transcendence, is located above the ear, which in turn is borne by the
mouth. The eye (organ of pictures), the ear (organ of sounds) and the
mouth (organ of the word, of the logos) are supported by two
noses, which may be regarded as legs. They effectively constitute all
of the remaining body, the entire diversity of the other senses, which
are used as a block, as a pedestal. The Rape and
The White Race convey the impression of general discord among
the sensory organs, the impression of a quite fundamental "disorder".
This is the case not only with respect to each individual sensory
organ (the mouth eats, drinks, speaks, sucks, kisses; the eye sees,
reads, scrutinizes, reflects, can express desire or contempt, rage or
tenderness) but also regarding the relation between the different
senses (the eye can become the breast, just as the mouth can become
the genitals, or the nose the navel, and so forth). Such mobility
among the organs of the body - their ability to change function and
sense - basically implies a conception of the human body which has
nothing in common with the laws of anatomy and legal identity.
Magritte is presenting the body as a shattered multiplicity,
fragmentary and fragmented, like a puzzle made up of pieces which do
not fit together, as a field of possible variations, as the place
where forces that are most disparate in nature, sensations that are
heterogeneous and changing, encounter - and sometimes ignore - each
other. He is aiming not so much at the intimate harmony or the unity
of the body as rather at the possibility that art presents of
questioning the cohesion of the body.
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The White Race
1937
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The White Race
1967
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A fragile structure consisting of the facial senses. Does the order
reflect a hierarchy of the senses?
Or does it emphasize the separation of the senses from the bodily
element?
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Following the example of Fantomas,
who is constantly changing his identity, the painter now gives the
body the ability to escape from its sociocultural identity. He allows
it to contradict the picture which our civilization would make of it.
Western thinkers have been convinced since Sophocles and Plato that
sight constitutes a power which - godlike -dominates the other senses,
rules over the body, keeping all other sensory perceptions in check.
This pre-eminence of Theoria, of sight, has remained completely
unchallenged in the history of philosophy, with very few exceptions.
It is unquestioned by those authors whom Magritte read with
enthusiasm, appearing in Aristotle's "Metaphysics", in Descartes' "Idees
claires et distinctes", in Kant - inasmuch as he conceives of
sensibility as derived from intuition - and also, finally, in
phenomenology, from Husserl to Heidegger. In short, the emphasis upon
the visual element has increased considerably in the meantime: we live
in a world of pictures, a world of spectacle. The audiovisual arts
ought to maintain the balance between the audible and the visible to a
greater extent than the others, or establish a harmonious connection
between these two areas; even they, however, attach an importance to
the visual element that is frankly foolish. The White Race
is accordingly characterized quite unambiguously by the selective
hierarchy of shades, as also suggested by Magritte himself - in
contrast to the native civilization, where sounds predominate. Through
this picture, and the sculpture created in the studios of Bonvincini
and Berrocal in Italy, Magritte is drawing attention to the imbalance
between the senses, indicating the possibility of establishing a form
of modifiable, revocable relationship between them.
The White Race
thus represents nothing other than a
hierarchy of the senses; yet an uncountable number of other
possibilities of organization also exist in addition to this one. It
is not via one single, self-contained realm that sensory perception
takes place, but rather via the entire, open diversity of what can be
seen and heard, of what can be felt, tasted, smelt, and so forth.
Accordingly, a work of art, inasmuch as it addresses sensory
perception, is by no means so isolated and self-contained as people
are traditionally prone to maintain. Berrocal understood this
precisely, following Picasso, presenting the public with series of
sculptures such as enable the owner himself to make literally endless
variations upon them. The owners, however, continue to prefer the old
custom, whereby they persist in maintaining their respectful distance
to the artist's work, regarding it as the finished product, as the
result. Yet life and our bodies undergo change; the senses enter into
different associations, and the preferential treatment accorded one of
them can condemn the others to a kind of shadowy existence, a hidden
presence.
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Threatening Weather
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Anunciacion
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The Lovers
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Magritte's
primary concern is always to reveal what is concealed by what we
can see. In The Lovers, he points to the blind
nature of love by doubling what is obvious and placing a veil over
the faces of the lovers, who are thus left to their sweet
blindness. Yet the task here is to utilize this game of
concealment through that which is visible, to compel the veil to
reveal what lies behind the view which is generally presented.
Georgette's piano encompassed by an engagement ring indicates the
double power which A Happy Touch has in music and in
love, without there being any visible sign in the work of this
touch - which is simultaneously a metaphor for silence: one can
hear the sound of rushing water in a basin, for example, or a car
driving past, children playing or a symphony by Mozart, but never
absolutely pure sounds.
The sole sound that is absolutely pure is that of silence. An
apple fills the entire pictorial space: The Listening-Room.
The observer's gaze is satiated, leaving only the appeal to
another wonderful ability, that of hearing. That which is visible
covers up and veils, but it can be overcome with its own weapons:
by painting it, the invisible can be exposed, can be compelled to
reveal the entire secret that is lying concealed within it, that
which it ultimately - in a deeper sense -
is.
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The
Lovers
1928
Magritte was to paint the classic motif of The Lovers in
1928 in several versions.
He transformed the cliche each time in such a way as to fulfil the
demands of Surrealist art,
namely to confuse through the apparently familiar - or, better still,
to use the apparently familiar to disturb.
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La historia central
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La invencion de la vida
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A
Happy Touch
1952
Georgette Magritte's favourite instrument, the piano, is
encompassed by a ring in the shape of a bass clef.
"I was looking at the
problem of the grand piano, and the solution showed me that the
mysterious object,
the one predestined to form an association with the grand piano, was
an engagement ring." Rene Magritte
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The Listening-Room
1958
"... My
pictures, while depicting objects which are so familiar, nonetheless
raise questions again and again.
Look at the one with an apple, for example: you no longer understand
what is so
mysterious about it, nor what it is illustrating..." Rene
Magritte
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Las bellas realidades
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The mystery of what is visible is to
be found in the body, in the powers of the body, a discovery conveyed
by The Acrobat's Exercises. The suppleness of the
acrobat, holding a death-dealing rifle in his right hand, a musical
instrument in his left; the head, depicted three times; the sexual
organs, totally excluded under these impossible athletic contortions -
Magritte makes use of all of these elements to render apparent in a
single picture those abilities and aspects of the body that are hidden
from the eye. The painting is able to portray the visible aspect in
such a refracted manner that the body nonetheless emerges in its true
nature, entire, monstrous, and fragmented, despite the completely
distorted dimensions. The actual body is not present in the depiction,
similar to the manner in which every picture can show merely one
section. Likewise, what is visible here may be compared to a piece of
clothing that veils, shrouds, protects, but also arouses the desire to
"dis-cover" that which is concealed; more, this piece of clothing
mutilates the body, in that it detaches it from the part of the body
that is visible. The body, whether clothed or painted, is cut up,
divided into veiled and unveiled fragments, clothed and naked flesh,
in openly displayed nakedness - for example, that of facial skin - and
concealed nakedness. Not until it is seen against the backdrop of the
theatre of the visible is this interplay itself rendered visible. The
mystery of the body, of its variety of powers, is also the mystery of
painting, the art of the disloyal, yet not deceitful, mirror: despite
the great risk, this art can indeed achieve that which also appears
the first task of the visible, namely to conceal, to turn away, to
suppress everything lying outside of its own sphere.
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The
Acrobat's Exercises
1928
An important characteristic of the acrobat is his ability to free
himself from the normal conditions offered by the body.
Magritte describes this as the "spirit which - analogous to the bodv -
walks, goes away, or remains".
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Intermission
1927-28
The show has been interrupted.
All those bodily fragments left in the background,
everything living in the wings of visibility, suddenly appears in the
foreground.
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La astucia simetrica
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Georgette
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Painting is thus no passive mirror
of reality; rather than doubling the visible manifestation of the
object, it changes and transforms it. Accordingly, painting does not
reproduce the body of a woman; instead, it does quite the opposite,
creating a new manifestation, a picture that is partial, congealed,
framed, dead. As far as Magritte's work is concerned, the new painted
manifestation of the object would seem to be quite conscious of the
contribution made by art. Magritte's painting modifies appearances,
rendering them fictitious; at the same time, however, the painter is
reflecting upon the sense of such a modification. The nature of his
painting must thus be contemplative. The picture Dangerous
Liaisons, which has been strikingly interpreted by Max Loreau,
depicts a naked woman. The mirror which she is holding in her hands is
turned towards the observer. It covers her body from shoulders to
thighs; simultaneously, however, it reflects precisely that part of
her body which it is covering, seen reduced and from a different
perspective. Magritte has thus painted two different views of the
female body, one its direct appearance, the other the imaginary one of
the reflection. He confronts the observer with two incompatible
aspects, compelling him to reflect upon the discrepancy, upon this
enigma which is characteristic of this painter's entire work. We see
the female body, not as a cohesive whole but fragmented and fractured.
Through the painting experience, the body loses its integrity,
relinquishing its inner cohesion and taking on a fragmentary
appearance. In this particular case, Magritte is further demonstrating
that liaisons are always dangerous in painting, since the perspective
of the artist, the covetous gaze with which he looks at the body of
his model, also plays a role for the work. The woman's body thus
develops into the area of conflict between two incompatible
manifestations. Where does this conflict come from? This is precisely
the point, that it can only stem from the viewpoint and the work of
the artist, who has introduced the pulsations of his own body into the
work in such a way that it would seem possible to feel them with one's
hands. Magritte's art is never passive. On the contrary, it acts, and
always with the intention of creating disquiet, of being subversive.
There is room between the two views of the female body - their
proportions and the positioning of the hands such that they cannot be
reconciled with each other (it is impossible for the right hand,
holding the frame, to be the same as the one which the woman is
holding to her breast) - for the tilted edge of the glass pane and the
frame of the mirror. The displacement between the two views of the
body would thus seem to have been caused by a further displacement,
namely that of painting itself. Magritte is demonstrating that
painting fills a space between visible reality and imaginary picture.
How should this space come about, if not from the body of the painter?
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Dangerous Liaisons
1926
On the basis of the mirror image, perceived certainties are once
again called into question.
The relationship between the mirror and that which it reflects,
a relationship commonly regarded as indissoluble, appears broken.
A naked young woman may be seen in altered perspective in the mirror
behind which she is standing,
yet the observer, who is located in front of the mirror, would
expect to see himself reflected in it.
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La gota de agua
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Descubrimiento
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Magritte's magic consists in his having ready a stunningly simple and
absolutely overwhelming answer to a very classic problem within
painting, one occurring in the works of Alberti, Leonardo, Velazquez,
Picasso, and many others, namely the question of the faithfulness of
the mirror image, or, put another way, the question of the image of
the image. Magritte's solution is that what is visible cannot be
separated from the body, from sensory perception, whereby sensory
perception is regarded here as an active, even voyeuristic desire,
rather than one that is passive, merely observing - a desire
concentrating more upon detail than upon the whole. The mystery at the
source of all contemplation and all painting is the mystery of the
body itself, that of perception, which is not only torn between the
different senses but also captures a multitude of impressions via each
individual sense. A similarly confusing effect is produced by the
fundamental difference between the picture and the object it portrays.
The body in painting may be seen in the picture The Red Model
at the point where the naked toes protrude from the leather of the
footwear, indicating a completely different world. They do not
resemble the shoes of a farmer, a mountaineer, a salesman, a dancer;
what all shoes basically have in common, however - whatever the
current fashion might be - is the fact that they cover the feet and
come into contact with the ground or the floor on which the body is
standing upright or adopting some other position. Thanks to its
ability to walk upright, does the body not constantly demand that what
is visible be given preference at the expense of the other senses,
that it be taken up for the art of painting, that its links with the
neglected, missing diversity of the other senses be re-established?
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The Well of Truth
1967
A simple trouser leg with a shoe - the rest of the body is
absent, outside that which can be seen, outside the work. The
never-ending search can begin, comparable with the search for
truth.
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The Red Model
1937
"The problem of the shoes demonstrates how easily the most
frightful things can
be made to appear completely harmless through the power of
thoughtlessness.
Thanks to the 'modele rouge' (Red Model), one senses that the
union
of the human foot and a shoe is in fact based upon a monstrous
custom."
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The characteristic feature of the
erotic in Magritte's art is the fact that the artist, while getting as
far as the body, nonetheless remains a prisoner of distance, a
prisoner of the space in which the light is playing, light necessary
if the eye is to see at all. Eroticism harbours, for painting, the
possibility of duplicating the abilities of the body, as may be seen
in The Magician, or of selecting as one thinks fit, as
in Eternal Evidence. Such eroticism can be amusing, as
in Homage to Mack Sennett, the director of Charlie
Chaplin and Buster Keaton: the breasts are apparent through the
nightdress hanging in the wardrobe - yet the nightdress's very
function is to cover them up. Eroticism is equally capable of
manifesting itself in an extremely crude fashion, for example placing
the emphasis in an all too obvious manne rupon
pubic hair and full, well-rounded breasts. The title of the picture
Philosophy in the Bedroom
is a reference to Marquis de Sade, who paid a very high pricefor his
free imagination and the fantasms of his erotic art.
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The
Magician
1952
Magritte wrote to a friend in 1953 that The Magician was a
self-portrait, adding:
"Anyone crazy about movement or its opposite will not enjoy this
picture."
The work, one of Magritte's few self-portraits, shows him in a kind of
simultaneous role play in which,
thanks to his four arms and hands, he is able to carry out various
actions at one and the same time.
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Megalomania
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Eternal Evidence
1930
Each picture records only a fragmentary view of the body, each view
selected from an endless number of possible visual approaches.
Here we see five sections, which do not completely fit together,
demonstrating the problems inherent in the act of painting.
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The Six Elements
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Homage to Mack Sennett
1937
Mack Sennett, the American director and
producer, made over 500 films up to the 1930s,
the most successful of which were slapstick comedies;
Magritte, the passionate cinemagoer, was ever enthusiastic about them.
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Philosophy in the Bedroom
1966
Humour recedes before the intensity of the erotic element.
The nightdress reveals quite undisguisedly that which it is usually
its function to conceal.
This portrayal of the look of desire is a homage to de Sade.
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Philosophy in the Boudoir
1947
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The Harvest
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A Courtesan's Palace
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The March of Summer
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The painting Attempting the
Impossible, together with the corresponding photograph, may be
regarded as the most beautiful homage paid by Magritte to his wife,
who was also his model. The painter's desire to immortalize the object
of his desire, to capture it on canvas, to create it for himself once
again, is tangible - yet, in so doing, he is attempting the
impossible, and his intention is doomed to failure. It is this
sobering knowledge of the broken spell, this deep, protective
melancholy, which runs through Magritte's entire work whenever body
and desire are involved.
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Georgette and Rene
Magritte
in Perreux-sur-Marne, 1928
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Attempting the Impossible
1928
A variation upon the legend of the sculptor Pygmalion, who
himself created his dream woman.
Pygmalion required divine assistance to bring his sculpture to
life;
here, the artist succeeds simply through his powers of imagination
and his belief in the impossible.
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The Sea of Flames
1945
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The Forbidden Universe
1943
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La calma
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Les Jours Gigantesques
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The Pebble
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