Rene Magritte

Rene Magritte is perhaps my all time favorite Modern surrealist artist. One of the main reasons I really enjoy his artwork is the fact Magritte makes the viewer think. I know that's really the point of Surreal art, but his work is not so surreal that it's chaotic or demented like Dali. In many of Magritte's paintings, he creates the theme of "hidden identity". If we look at the below images, not one single painting provides us with the true identity of anything.


The first image, which is probably the most hilarious, but well-known, image of Rene Magritte. People know it as simply The Pipe, but it should go without question that the image is actually known as Images of Treachery. There are a couple images with the same theme, but this one is more well-known. The image is simple, a pipe with a French caption underneath it: Ceci n'est une pipe. For those who need a quick lesson in French, the statement reads, This is not a pipe. Most people would argue until they are blue in the face knowing that the image is indeed a pipe. Yes, the image is of a pipe, but it is not a physical pipe you can hold or smoke from. It is a painting of a pipe. In the hit TV show Family Guy, they always make a quick reference to this image. The characters would go out to a stereotypical restaurant, might it be French or Italian, but if you look closely at the name of the restaurants they go into, the sign reads Ceci N'est une Restaurante. It's quite silly, but I enjoy it every time I see it.



In the next image, Son of Man depicts a man, self-portrait, in a suit and a bowler hat standing in front of a floating green apple. Perhaps a reference to Adam and Eve, the apple hides the true identity of the man. We see the outer portion of his face, but yet, his identity is concealed, if referenced to Adam and Eve, it may be concealed by a sinful nature.
Here is a clip from the movie The Thomas Crown Affair starring Pierce Brosnan as an art thief, who in the movie, stole a Monet, but now, as shown in this clip, he is returning it back to the museum... and he's doing so in a familiar looking style.

The image Human Condition, is not necessarily hiding the identity of a person, but of a place. In the painting is a picture of a painting, a paradox so to speak. In the foreground we see the painted canvas on an easel, and in the background we see the landscape that the artist has painted. However, what we don't see, and what Magritte is trying to convey, is the mystery of what is really behind the canvas. If the artist decided to pick up the easel and put it somewhere else, what would be hiding behind it in the landscape?



Moving to the next image, Not to be Reproduced, depicts a man looking into a mirror, but instead of his own reflection staring back at him, he is faced with the back of his own head. Again, we are forced to not know the true identity of a figure, although in reality the figure is Edward James, an acquaintance of Magritte. To the right of the man on the fireplace mantel is a small book of Edgar Allan Poe poems and stories. This may be due to the fact that Poe was Magritte's favorite author and, oddly enough, is also mine.



The next image is a painting of The Lovers, a enigmatic and quite disturbing image of a man and a woman kissing with a cloth wrapped around their heads, again, concealing their identity. The reason Magritte may have done this may be due to the death of his mother. When Magritte was a child, his mother drowned, and when his father brought her onto land little Magritte could not see her face because her dress was covering it.




Time Transfixed is the bottom center image. It is a very simple, but mysterious painting. The room is clearly empty, including the fireplace, but the only things seen are two unlit candlesticks, a clock that reads about 12:40, and the obvious protruding locomotive train flaring out of the fireplace. Originally, the title was meant to be called Ongoing Time Stabbed by a Dagger, the dagger being the locomotive as people walk across the painting as it hangs on the wall.



The final image on the bottom right corner, Golconda is a clever and somewhat funny image. Everytime I look at this image the first thing that pops into my head is the song It's Raining Men. However, that is actually the point Magritte was trying to make. I think it's every girls dream to have hundreds upon hundreds of men falling from the sky, but the men are in raincoats and bowler hats, so the seductive nature that wants to be present is not. I actually have a video here that is in perfect reference to this painting. One of my favorite musical artists Rufus Wainwright sings a cover of the Beatles Across the Universe.  In the video, a little girl in red is walking around the city streets and well... I think it's just best if you watch it and see for yourself.