A Surreal Piece Of History
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A Surreal Piece of History
The Surrealism movement was a movement that was geared toward mind liberation in which visual imagery is used with no intention of making the work logically understandable. Surrealism was mainly centered in Europe between the years 1924 and 1950. This movement inspired a lot of artists, but probably one of the most famous Surrealists was the Belgian artist Rene Magritte. Magrittes works of art contain both philosophical and poetic content that revolved around boredom, fatigue, and disgust but, ironically, always appeared to be witty and amusing. At first glance, most of his paintings seem mysterious and full of captivating ambiguities, but the explanation of them is really quite simple. Magritte once said of his paintings, “My paintings are 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 either, it is unknowable.” (Baraga High Times, 2005) In most cases, it is the title of the paintings that complicate the interpretation of the images and understandings of the objects. Usually, the title is supposed to give way to the meaning of the painting, but in Magrittes case, the title mystifies the audience. He felt that most people did not see the meaning of his paintings because they were unwilling to open their eyes. Magrittes pieces are meant to wake up the audience and incite their most disturbing secrets. The underlying meanings of Magrittes paintings were influenced by everything from bizarre childhood events to family vacations to a family tragedy. He had a plethora of techniques that he used to create surreal effects that would direct the audiences attention to the nature and relationships of the images on the painting. The result of this technique causes the viewer to observe reality in a whole new perspective. (Meuris, 2004, p33) As time moved on, Magritte began to introduce words into his painted images. This caused viewers to take into account what Magrittes purpose was of putting words in his work and of the value he attached to them. He began to replicate his previous paintings over and over again hoping to “resolve the expression of a particular idea through the introduction of subtle compositional changes.” (Gagnon, 2006) Rene Magritte, who was extremely productive during his fifty years of painting, created over 1000 canvases that caused viewers to open their eyes and dig down deep for a meaning that has underlying significance. (Hale, 2005, p38)
Rene Magritte was born on November 21, 1898, in Lessines, Belgium to Leopold and Regina Bertinchamp. Baptized under the name Rene-Francois-Ghislain, he was the eldest of three brothers. His birth date puts him under the astrological sign Scorpio. Scorpios are neither talkative nor demonstrative and “tend to be secretive, strange and disquieting, full of unusual premonitions and intuitions. They often have a special taste for the bizarre, the subversive, the mysterious and the scabrous, and show a special affinity for the grotesque. Secretly, they are haunted, and have easy commerce with phantoms.” (Gablik, 1985, p17) Many people who were close to Magritte would agree with the fact that he displayed all of these personalities.
There were many unusual events that were played out in Magrittes childhood and were the subject of meaning in his paintings. He barely remembered anything from his early childhood, but the occurrences that he could remember were strange. He remembered a big wooden chest that was mysteriously placed by his cradle. After his family had moved from Lessines to Gilly, two hot-air balloonists, clad in leather and helmets, came to his house. They were pulling their deflated balloon down the stairs after it had gotten stuck on the roof of his house. He thought that the fact that these two memories were the only ones he remembered from his early childhood meant something special, so a few of his works are centered on these events. (American School of Dubai, 2004) The religious scene completely enthralled a young Magritte. The dark atmosphere, the smell of burning incense, organ music, relics, and the confessional made an impact on him, and he would often be found dressed up as a priest and in front of an altar giving a pretend mass with complete seriousness. (Gablik, 1985, p18) After the family moved again from Gilly to Chatelet, he began drawing and painting at the age of 12 and began to take art classes. (Baraga High Times, 2005) His vacations were usually spent in Soignies with his grandmother and Aunt Flora. It was in Soignies that he would play with a little girl in the local cemetery. He remembered one day when he was in the cemetery, there was an artist who had come from the city and was painting. From that very day, Magritte realized how magical painting was, and it sparked a deep desire within him. (Gablik, 1985, p18) His cemetery experience is evident in his later works with images of wooden caskets and tombstones. (Brain-juice, 2002) On March 12, 1912, when Magritte was just 14 years old, a horrible tragedy struck the Magritte family. Magrittes mother, in an apparent suicide, was found drowned. Magritte described the situation, “I shared a room with my mother. I awoke to find myself alone in the middle of the night, so I roused the rest of the family. We searched the house in vain; then, noticing footprints outside the front door, and on the sidewalk, we followed them as far as the bridge over the Sambre, the river which ran through the town. My mother had thrown herself into the water and, when they recovered the body, they found her nightgown wrapped around her face. It was never known whether she had covered her eyes with it so as not to see the death she had chosen, or whether she had been veiled in that way by the swirling currents.” Magritte, after his mothers death, somehow enjoyed the sense of pride he felt when he was referred to as “the son of the dead woman.” The death of Regina Bertinchamp proved to be too much to handle for the family, so they once again moved. This time, Leopold took Magritte and his two brothers, Paul and Raymond, to Charleroi. Magrittes fondness of religion became nonexistent as he no longer said mass, but he would, instead, mumble his prayers in an excited tone. He enrolled at the high school in Charleroi called AthД©nД©e after his primary studies. At AthД©nД©e, he studied humanitites. (Gablik, 1985, pp18-19)
In 1916, Rene Magritte became bored with his studies at AthД©nД©e, so he received his fathers permission to study at the AcadД©mie des Beaux-Arts