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Rene Magritte)
Ceci n'est pas une pipe (The Betrayal Of Images) (1928-1929)
René François Ghislain Magritte (November 21, 1898 - August 15, 1967) was a surrealist artist, born in Lessines, Belgium.
In 1912, Magritte's mother committed suicide by drowning herself in the river Sambre.
He studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels for two years until 1918. During this period he met Georgette Berger, whom he married in 1922.
In 1926, Magritte produced his first surrealist painting, Le jockey perdu, and held his first exhibition in Brussels in 1927. Critics heaped abuse on the exhibition. Depressed by the failure, he moved to Paris.
A consummate technician, his work frequently displays a juxtaposition of ordinary objects, or an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. The representational use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting Ceci n'est pas une pipe (The Betrayal Of Images) which shows a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. The title of the painting is written beneath it and seems a contradiction, but means that the "image" of the pipe is not itself a pipe. In his book, This Is Not a Pipe, French critic Michel Foucault discusses the painting and its paradox.
Magritte's art shows a more resprestational style of surrealism compared to the "automatic" style seen in works by artists like Joan Miró. In addition to fantastic elements, his work is often witty and amusing. He also created a number of surrealist versions of other famous paintings.
René Magritte described his paintings saying,
- My painting is 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.
Magritte's work showed in the United States in New York in 1936 and again in that city in two retrospectives, one at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965, and the other at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992.
René Magritte died of cancer on August 15, 1967 and was interred in Schaarbeek Cemetery, Brussels.
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Last updated: 09-12-2005 02:39:13
