Rene Magritte – The muscles of the sky (Les Muscles celestes) 1927
The muscles of the sky 1927 by René Magritte
René Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist. René became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers’ preconditioned perceptions of reality.
Magritte Rene Early works
Rene Magritte was born in Lessines, in the province of Hainaut, Belgium, in 1898. He was the oldest son of , . Thereafter, he and his two brothers were raised by his grandmother.Little is known about Magritte‘s early life. He began lessons in drawing in 1910
René François Ghislain Magritte was born in Lessines, Belgium, on November 21, 1898, the oldest of three boys. His parents , Léopold Magritte a tailor and textile merchant, and Régina , who was a milliner before she got married .His father’s manufacturing business at times allowed the family to live in relative comfort, but financial difficulties were a constant threat and forced them to move about the country with some regularity. Magritte’s young world was dealt a far more destructive blow in 1912.
The tragic death of his mother – 1912
On 12 March 1912, his mother committed suicide by drowning herself in the River Sambre. This was not her first attempt at taking her own life; she had made many over a number of years, driving her husband Léopold to lock her into her bedroom. One day she escaped, and was missing for days. Her body was later discovered a mile or so down the nearby river.
According to a legend, 13-year-old Magritte was present when her body was retrieved from the water, but recent research has discredited this story, which may have originated with the family nurse. Supposedly, when his mother was found, her dress was covering her face, an image that has been suggested as the source of several of Magritte’s paintings in 1927–1928 of people with cloth obscuring their faces, including Les Amants (The lovers) and The Invention of Life (L’Invention De-La-Vie) 1928 .Magritte found solace from the tragedy in films and novels and especially through painting.Magritte disagreed with such interpretations, denying any relation between his paintings and his mother’s death. “My painting is visible images which conceal nothing,” he wrote, “they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, ‘What does it mean?’ It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.”
Early works – Rene Magritte
Magritte’s earliest paintings, which date from about 1915, were Impressionistic in style. During 1916–1918, he studied at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels,under Constant Montald, but found the instruction uninspiring. He also took classes at the Académie Royale from the painter and poster designer Gisbert Combaz.Although he was ultimately unimpressed with the institution, he was nonetheless exposed to emerging styles such as cubism and futurism, which significantly altered the direction of his work. Indeed, many of Magritte’s paintings during 1918–1924 were influenced by Futurism and by the figurative Cubism of Metzinger and Pablo Picasso.
see also Rene Magritte full biography by ART.is.HARD
Magritte and Paris Surrealists 1926 – 1930
Depressed by the failure, he moved to Paris.There he met and befriended several of the Paris Surrealists, including poets André Breton and Paul Éluard, and he became familiar with the collages of Max Ernst and became involved in the Surrealist group. An illusionistic, dream-like quality is characteristic of Magritte’s version of Surrealism. Magritte began to integrate text into some of his works.During this time he painted one of his most famous pieces, The Treachery of Images 1929, in which a detailed representation of a pipe is combined with the cursive statement: Ceci n’est pas une pipe (“This is not a pipe”). The painting questioned the authority of both images and words.In 1929 he exhibited at Goemans Gallery in Paris with Salvador Dalí, Jean Arp, de Chirico, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Picabia, Picasso and Yves Tanguy.
Rene Magritteu best paintings
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List of Paintings by Rene Magritte
- 1920 Landscape
- 1921 The bathers
- 1922 The Station and L’Écuyère
- 1923 Self-portrait, Sixth Nocturne, Georgette at the Piano and Donna
- 1925 The Bather and The Window
- 1926 The Lost Jockey, The Mind of the Traveler, Sensational News, The Difficult Crossing, The Vestal’s Agony, The Midnight Marriage, The Musings of a Solitary Walker, After the Water my Butts, Popular Panorama, Landscape and The Encounter
- 1927 The Enchanted Pose
- 1927 Young Girl Eating a Bird, The Oasis (started in 1925), Le Double Secret, The Meaning of Night, Let Out of School, The Man from the Sea, The Tiredness of Life, The Light-breaker, A Passion for Light, The Menaced Assassin, Reckless Sleeper, La Voleuse – The robber , The Fast Hope, L’Atlantide and The Muscles of the Sky
- 1928 The Lining of Sleep (started in 1927), Intermission (started in 1927), The Adulation of Space (started in 1927), The Flowers of the Abyss, Discovery, The Lovers I & II, The Voice of Space, The False Mirror, The Daring Sleeper, The Acrobat’s Ideas, The Automaton, The Empty Mask, Reckless Sleeper, The Secret Lifeand Attempting the Impossible
- 1929 The Treachery of Images (started in 1928), Threatening Weather and On the Threshold of Liberty
- 1930 Pink Belles, Tattered Skies, The Eternally Obvious, The Lifeline, The Annunciation and Celestial Perfections
- 1931 The Voice of the Air, Summer and The Giantess
- 1932 The Universe Unmasked
- 1933 Elective Affinities, The Human Condition and The Unexpected Answer
- 1934 The Rape
- 1935 The Discovery of Fire, The Human Condition, Revolution, Perpetual Motion, Collective Invention and The Portrait
- 1936 Surprise Answer, Clairvoyance, The Healer, The Philosopher’s Lamp, The Heart Revealed a portrait of Tita Thirifays, Spiritual Exercises, Portrait of Irène Hamoir, La Méditation and Forbidden Literature
- 1937 The Future of Statues, The Black Flag, Not to be Reproduced, Portrait of Edward James and Portrait of Rena Schitz, On the Threshold of Liberty
- 1938 Time Transfixed, The Domain of Arnheim, Steps of Summer and Stimulation Objective
- 1939 Victory, The Palace of Memories
- 1940 The Return, The Wedding Breakfast and Les Grandes Espérances
- 1941 The Break in the Clouds
- 1942 Misses de L’Isle Adam, L’Ile au Tréson, Memory, Black Magic, Les compagnons de la peur and The Misanthropes
- 1943 The Return of the Flame, Universal Gravitation and Monsieur Ingres’s Good Days
- 1944 The Good Omens
- 1945 Treasure Island, Les Rencontres Naturelles and Black Magic
- 1946 L’Intelligence and Les Mille et une Nuits
- 1947 La Philosophie dans le boudoir, The Cicerone, The Liberator, The Fair Captive, La Part du Feu and The Red Model
- 1948 Blood Will Tell, Memory, The Mountain Dweller, The Art of Life, The Pebble, The Lost Jockey, God’s Solon, Shéhérazade, L’Ellipse and Famine and The Taste of Sorrow
- 1949 Megalomania, Elementary Cosmogony, and Perspective, the Balcony
- 1950 Making an Entrance, The Legend of the Centuries, Towards Pleasure, The Labors of Alexander, The Empire of Light II, The Fair Captive and The Art of Conversation, The Survivor
- 1951 David’s Madame Récamier (parodying the Portrait of Madame Récamier), Pandora’s Box, The Song of the Violet, The Spring Tide and The Smile
- 1952 Personal Values and Le Sens de la Pudeur and The Explanation
- 1953 Golconda, The Listening Room and a fresco, The Enchanted Domain, for the Knokke Casino, Le chant des sirènes
- 1954 The Invisible World and The EmpiRene Magritte – The Definition of light 1954 – the empire of light series analysis
- 1955 Memory of a Journey and The Mysteries of the Horizon
- 1956 The Sixteenth of September; The Ready-made Bouquet
- 1957 The Fountain of Youth; The Enchanted Domain
- 1958 The Golden Legend, Hegel’s Holiday, The Banquet and The Familiar World
- 1959 The Castle in the Pyrenees, The Battle of the Argonne, The Anniversary, The Month of the Grape Harvest and La clef de verre (The Glass Key)
- 1960 The Memoirs of a Saint
- 1962 The Great Table, The Healer, Waste of Effort, Mona Lisa(circa 1962) and L’embeillie (circa 1962)
- 1963 The Great Family, The Open Air, The Beautiful Season, Princes of the Autumn, Young Love, La Recherche de la Véritéand The Telescope and ” The Art of Conversation”
- 1964 Le soir qui tombe (Evening Falls), The Great War, The Great War on Facades, The Son of Man and Song of Love
- 1965 Le Blanc-Seing,Carte Blanche, The Thought Which Sees, Ages Ago and The Beautiful Walk (circa 1965), Good Faith
- 1966 The Shades, The Happy Donor, The Gold Ring, The Pleasant Truth, The Two Mysteries, The Pilgrim and The Mysteries of the Horizon
- 1967 Les Grâces Naturelles, La Géante, The Blank Page, Good Connections, The Art of Living, L’Art de Vivre and several bronze sculptures based on Magritte’s previous works
