Who was René Magritte?
René François Ghislain Magritte (born November 21, 1898, Lessines, Belgium — died August 15, 1967, Brussels) was a Belgian artist, one of the most prominent Surrealist painters, whose bizarre flights of fancy blended horror, peril, comedy, and mystery. His works were characterized by particular symbols: the female torso, the “little man,” the bowler hat, the apple, the castle, the rock, the window, and other ordinary objects, which were often set in unusual or unsettling situations.
In 1922, Magritte saw a reproduction of Giorgio de Chirico’s painting The Song of Love (1914), an evocative and haunting juxtaposition of odd elements in a dreamlike architectural space. The work had a great influence on Magritte’s artistic approach. For the next few years, he developed a singular style that comprised carefully rendered everyday objects often placed in enigmatic juxtapositions.
Two museums in Brussels celebrate Magritte: the Magritte Museum House, located in the house occupied by the artist and his wife between 1930 and 1954; and the Musée Magritte Museum, featuring some 250 of the artist’s works, opened in 2009 at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium. The biography and portrait are from Encyclopedia Britannica and the images are from Christie's and Sotheby's.
Magritte.be
Reflections of TimeOil on canvas laid down on board, 1928
The False MirrorOil on canvas, 1928
The LoversOil on canvas, 1928
The Palace of CurtainsOil on canvas, 1928-1929
The Treachery of Images (This is Not a Pipe)Oil on canvas, 1929
Time TransfixedOil on canvas, 1938
The FortuneGouache on paper, 1939
The ParadeOil on canvas, 1940
The Beauty of the NightOil on canvas, 1940
The ReturnOil on canvas, 1940
The Search for the AbsoluteOil on canvas, 1940
The Search for the AbsoluteOil on canvas, 1941
Deep WatersOil on canvas, 1941
The Young Ladies of L'Isle-AdamOil on canvas, 1942
The Daydream of Mr. JamesGouache on paper, 1943
In Praise of DialecticsOil on canvas, 1945
The MemoryGouache on paper, 1948
The Empire of LightOil on canvas, 1949
The World of ImagesOil on canvas, 1950
The Art of ConversationOil on canvas, 1950
The Empire of LightOil on canvas, 1954
The Evening GownOil on canvas, 1954
The Other WordGouache on paper, 1955
The SchoolmasterGouache on paper, 1955
The BanquetOil on canvas, 1955-1957
The Empire of LightOil on canvas, 1956
The GuestGouache on paper, 1956
The KissGouache on paper, 1957
The State of AlertnessGouache on paper, 1958
The State of WatchGouache on paper, 1958
The SabbathOil on canvas, 1958
The Search for the AbsoluteGouache on paper, 1960
The Room of Madame SundheimGouache on paper, 1960
The Court of LoveOil on canvas, 1960
The KnowledgeGouache on paper, 1961
The Mysterious BarricadesGouache on paper, 1961
The Triumphal ArchOil on canvas, 1962
ClairvoyanceGouache, watercolour and coloured pencil on paper, 1962
The HealerGouache on paper, 1962
The Search for the AbsoluteGouache and brush and India ink on paper, 1963
The Unexpected AnswerGouache on paper, 1963-1964
The Choir of the SphinxesGouache on paper, 1964
The Beautiful WalkGouache on paper, 1965
Untitled (Woman's Face Covered by a Rose)
Gouache on paper, 1965
According to Phillips:
Commissioned for the June 1965 cover of the prestigious modern art publication XXe Siècle, Untitled (Woman’s Face Covered by a Rose) is exemplary of René Magritte’s iconic dreamlike lexicon which deconstructed and decontextualized the everyday objects of modern existence. This evocative gouache depicts the bust of a single female figure whose face is obfuscated by one of the artist’s favorite pictorial motifs, a rose.
Reminiscent of the artist’s The Son of Man from 1964, it employs Magritte’s signature visual device of an object concealing what is immediately behind it, as in The Human Condition (1933). Reflective of the dislocated and distorted realities of Giorgio de Chirico — whose work had a profound effect on Magritte’s aesthetic language — Untitled and the Surrealist’s other images forever altered art history through its ruthless interrogation of the very act of representation.
“My present research is concerned with the rose. I must find something precious and worthy to say about it.”
— René Magritte
Magritte continued, “After completion of the research, it can be ‘easily’ explained that the rose is scented air, but it is also cruel, and reminds me of your ‘parricidal rose,’” in reference to Paul Éluard’s poem Blason des fleurs et des fruits. “I also recall a passage from Paul Nougé's Forbidden Images: ‘It is because of searing memory that we become aware of this faint scent of roses...'" Magritte’s myriad associations with the rose only lend Untitled even more ambiguity; its indecipherable message continues to mysteify viewers today just as it did the readers of XXe Siècle in the 1960s.
