Rene Magritte
1898-1967
René François Ghislain Magritte was famous and respected Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of fantastic elements in his witty and amusing images.
He was born on the 21st November, 1898 in Hainaut, Belgium. His father was a tailor and a merchant. As his business did not go well, the family had to move often. René lost his mother early and tragically. She committed suicide for unclear reasons. René was only 14 years old at the time.
Magritte studied in the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts for two years and became a wallpaper designer and commercial artist. His early painting works were executed under the influence of the Cubism and Futurism (1918-20). He was inspired also by the Purists and Fernand Léger. In 1922 Magritte married Georgette Berger.
The cognizance with Giorgio de Chirico's Metaphysical Painting and Dadaistic poetry constituted an important artistic turning-point for Magritte. In 1925 he came close with a group of Dadaists and co-operated in the magazines Aesophage and Marie, together with E.L.T. Mesens, Jean Arp, Francis Picabia, Schwitters, Tzara and Man Ray. In 1926, Magritte produced his first surreal painting, "The Lost Jockey", and held his first exhibition in Brussels in 1927. Critics heaped abuse on the exhibition. He moved to Paris where he became friends with Paul Eluard, André Breton, Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, and Jean Arp. There he became involved in the surrealist group.
In Paris, Magritte's system of conceptual painting was formed and it remained almost unchanged until the end of his life. His painting manner was intentionally dry and academic, "polished in the technical sense". Magritte's work frequently displays a paradoxical ability to depict ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things.
Magritte painted the fruit realistically and then used an internal caption or framing device to deny that the item was an apple. In these "Ceci n'est pas" works, Magritte points out that no matter how closely we come to depicting an item accurately, we never do catch the item itself, per se, but capture only an image on the canvas. His art is a more "representational" surrealism, than the "automatic", seen in works by artists like Joan Miró.
Popular interest in Magritte's work rose considerably in the 1960s, and his imagery has influenced Pop, Minimalist, and Conceptual art.
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