Editing René Magritte (section)

==Philosophical and artistic gestures==
[[File:The Empire of Light MOMA.jpg|thumb|left|300px|''[[The Empire of Light]]'', c. 1950–1954, [[Museum of Modern Art]]]]
{{Quote box |quote = It is a union that suggests the essential mystery of the world. Art for me is not an end in itself, but a means of evoking that mystery.
 |source = René Magritte on putting seemingly unrelated objects together in juxtaposition<ref>Glueck, Grace, [https://www.nytimes.com/1965/12/19/archives/a-bottle-is-a-bottle.html "A Bottle Is a Bottle"]; ''[[The New York Times]]'', 19 December 1965.</ref>
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Magritte's work frequently displays a collection of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. The use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting,<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://photographemarocain.com/rene-magritte-maitre-surrealiste/|title=René Magritte le maître surréaliste {{!}} PM|date=2016-11-18|newspaper=PM|language=fr-FR|access-date=2016-11-18|archive-date=11 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180711234803/https://photographemarocain.com/rene-magritte-maitre-surrealiste/|url-status=dead}}</ref> ''[[The Treachery of Images]]'' (''La trahison des images''), which shows a [[smoking pipe (tobacco)|pipe]] that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe "''Ceci n'est pas une pipe''" ("This is not a pipe"),<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.surreal-artists.com/rene-magritte-the-surrealist-master/|title=René Magritte the Surrealist Master {{!}} Surreal Artists|date=2017-05-24|work=Surreal Artists|access-date=2017-05-27|language=en-US|archive-date=4 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171004190927/https://www.surreal-artists.com/rene-magritte-the-surrealist-master/|url-status=dead}}</ref> which seems a contradiction, but is actually true: the painting is not a pipe, it is an ''image'' of a pipe. It does not "satisfy emotionally";  when Magritte was once asked about this image, he replied that of course it was not a pipe{{mdash}}just try to fill it with tobacco.<ref>Spitz 1994, p.47</ref>

{{listen |filename=Fr-Ceci-n-est-pas-une-pipe.ogg |title=Ceci n'est pas une pipe |description=A man saying the phrase ''Ceci n'est pas une pipe'' }}
Magritte's work has been described by [[Suzi Gablik]] as "a systematic attempt to disrupt any dogmatic view of the physical world".<ref>Gablik 1970, p. 98.</ref> Therefore, when Magritte painted rocks{{mdash}}which are commonly understood to be heavy, inanimate objects{{mdash}}he often painted them floating cloud-like in the sky, or painted scenes of people and their environment turned to stone.<ref>Gablik 1970, pp. 98–99.</ref>

Among Magritte's works are a number of surrealist versions of other famous paintings, such as ''Perspective I'' and ''Perspective II'', which are copies of [[Jacques-Louis David|David]]'s ''[[Portrait of Madame Récamier]]''<ref name="NGCPerspectiveIAndMadameRecamier">{{cite web |title=Proud Coffin: René Magritte's Perspective: Madame Récamier by David |url=https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/artists/proud-coffin-rene-magrittes-perspective-madame-recamier-by-david |website=National Gallery of Canada |access-date=20 April 2021}}</ref> and [[Manet]]'s ''[[The Balcony (Manet)|The Balcony]]'',<ref name="MSKGentPerspectiveIIAndBalcony">{{cite web |title=René Magritte: Perspective II, Manet's Balcony |url=https://www.mskgent.be/en/featured-item/perspective-ii-manets-balcony |website=Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent |access-date=20 April 2021}}</ref> respectively, but with the human subjects replaced by coffins.<ref>Meuris 1991, p. 195.</ref>  Elsewhere, Magritte challenges the difficulty of artwork to convey meaning with a recurring motif of an easel, as in his ''The Human Condition'' series (1933, 1935) or ''The Promenades of Euclid'' (1955), wherein the spires of a castle are "painted" upon the ordinary streets which the canvas overlooks. In a letter to André Breton, he wrote of ''The Human Condition'' that it was irrelevant if the scene behind the easel differed from what was depicted upon it, "but the main thing was to eliminate the difference between a view seen from outside and from inside a room".<ref>Sylvester 1992, p.298</ref> The windows in some of these pictures are framed with heavy drapes, suggesting a theatrical motif.<ref>Spitz 1994, p.50</ref>

Magritte's style of surrealism is more representational than the [[Surrealist automatism|"automatic"]] style of artists such as [[Joan Miró]]. Magritte's use of ordinary objects in unfamiliar spaces is joined to his desire to create poetic imagery. He described the act of painting as "the art of putting colors side by side in such a way that their real aspect is effaced, so that familiar objects{{mdash}}the sky, people, trees, mountains, furniture, the stars, solid structures, graffiti{{mdash}}become united in a single poetically disciplined image. The poetry of this image dispenses with any symbolic significance, old or new."<ref>Frasnay, Daniel. ''The Artist's World''. New York: The Viking Press, 1969. pp. 99-107</ref>

René Magritte described his paintings as "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."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.visitflanders.us/index.php?page=NewMagritteMuseumBrussels|title=Flanders - New Magritte Museum Brussels |publisher=visitflanders.us |access-date=2009-03-29}}</ref>

Magritte's constant play with reality and illusion has been attributed to the early death of his mother. Psychoanalysts who have examined bereaved children have hypothesized that Magritte's back-and-forth play with reality and illusion reflects his "constant shifting back and forth from what he wishes{{mdash}}'mother is alive'{{mdash}}to what he knows{{mdash}}'mother is dead'".<ref>Collins, Bradley I. Jr. "Psychoanalysis and Art History". ''Art Journal'', Vol. 49, No. 2, College Art Association, pp. 182-186.</ref>

More recently, Patricia Allmer has demonstrated the influence of fairground attractions on Magritte's art{{mdash}}from carousels and circuses to panoramas and stage magic.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Allmer |first=Patricia |title=René Magritte |publisher=Reakton Press |year=2019 |location=London}}</ref>