To find his paintings’ titles, Magritte asked to his friends to guess which mental process he used to create his piece of art.
Master of the surrealism movement, René Magritte’s art can be defined by several personal interpretations. Indeed, even the paintings’ titles do not give us a hint about what could express each Magritte’s work.
For instance, let’s take “Le modèle rouge” (“the red model”), a painting which depicts feet that morph into lace-up shoes. It could be easy to think that the painting’s title would give us explanations about these shoes. And yet, Magritte decided to not help us to interpret his art. He believed that titles were not important. To find them, he asked to all his friends to come over and showed them his new paintings. Each friend had to explain which title he would give to the Belgium artist’s work. That’s why a painting which depicts black and grey shoes could end up with a title that describes a red atmosphere.
When he was young, Magritte’s mother committed suicide by jumping off a bridge into a dreary river. Since then, she has always been present in the Belgium artist’s work.
Magritte was only 13 years old when her mother died. When her body was pulled from the water a couple of weeks later, the artist’s mother was found nude because the currents had pulled up her nightdress and knotted it around her face. British critic Waldemar Janusczak believes this traumatizing event is depicted by Magritte in several paintings such as “The Lovers” (1928) in which two shrouded heads attempt a lipless kiss.
Magritte led a practical and simple life, he once worked as a wallpaper designer and illustrated some advertisements.
Married for 45 years old to the same woman and without children, Magritte did not embody the artistic bohemian lifestyle. Challenging the assumptions of human perception, Magritte was interesting by placing familiar and mundane objects in unusual contexts. Far from leading an ostentatious life, the Belgium artist preferred a quiet anonymity of middle-class existence.
“To be a surrealist means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and being always on the lookout for what has never been”
One day, Magritte went into a grocery store and asked for some Dutch cheese. When the shopkeeper grabbed the round in the window, he protested and said he wanted his piece cut from another of the same kind. Since the cheese was identical, she asked why. He answered “No Madame, this one has been looked at all day by people passing by”. Magritte was right, he knew that perception was essential when it came to interpretations.
Le Modèle Rouge Magritte - D'Art D'Art - 12/18/2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFQVtmMmPBU Magritte - Histoire pour tous - 10/12/2010 http://www.histoire-pour-tous.fr/biographies/3274-magritte-1898-1967-biographie.html René Magritte : beyond surreal - The Guardian - Adrian Searle 06/21/2011 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jun/21/rene-magritte-tate-liverpool-surrealism The Absolut Magritte - Newsweek - Peter Plagens - 7/6/1992 http://europe.newsweek.com/absolut-magritte-200350?rm=eu
Did you know ? 