Face to Face with Magritte
©kMadisonMooreMkM2012
14 x 18 Interiors Painting
Painting with The Masters
Art within Art Series
Sold - Commission
I really enjoy every painting that I paint. However, there are some
that just really excite me and this is one of them. The more I painted
the more excited I got. This one was so much fun that I didn't want it
to end so it took me much longer than I expected.
I researched several paintings and elements from Magritte that
the collector informed me she liked of his. I was able to use my
impressions of the elements that she wanted from about 11 Magritte
paintings. I really never know what I will come up with.
He must have enjoyed what he painted so much. They are all so
much fun and always make me wonder...."What was he thinking?"
The main painting that she wanted to focus on was Magritte's
La Repoduction Interdite, or better known as The Man in The Mirror
which became the theme for this painting.
It is actually a portrait of Edward James who was a famous collector and
patron of the Surrealists. There is a denial of logic in the image, which raises
questions about how much Magritte knows (or wants us to believe he
knows) about the sitter’s identity.
Magritte plays a kind of game with reality. The image is evidently
refined yet seems to also be a void of some kind. It is very still and calm
yet threatening.
I thought it would be fun to add Magritte's Lounging Lady and have
her in the same juxtaposition basically looking back at him and then
in the foreground look at you!
Hence the title: "Face to Face with Magritte"
Confusing Perception: When you create an odd juxtaposition that causes the
viewer to question the reality of what they see.
Transparency is often used to achieve this.
Contact Me to design a special Art within Art Painting
just for you.
and my other Series
René François Ghislain Magritte (21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images that fell under the umbrella of surrealism. His work challenges observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality.
A Belgian surrealist painter, Rene Magritte’s witty and thought-provoking paintings sought to have viewers question their perceptions of reality, and become hypersensitive to the world around them. Magritte’s mother was a suicidal woman, which led her husband, Magritte’s father, to lock her up in her room. One day, she escaped, and was found down a nearby river dead, having drowned herself. According to legend, 13 year old Magritte was there when they retrieved the body from the river. As she was pulled from the water, her dress covered her face. This later became a theme in many of Magritte’s paintings in the 1920’s, portraying people with cloth covering their faces.
He began drawing lessons at age ten, and in 1916, went to study a the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, where he found the instruction uninspiring and unsuited to his tastes. He did not begin his actual painting career until after serving in the Belgian infantry for a short time, and working at a wallpaper company as a draftsman and producing advertising posters. He was able to paint full time due to a short-lived contract with Galerie le Centaure, allowing him to present in his first exhibition, which was poorly received.
Magritte made his living producing advertising posters in a business he ran with his brother, as well as creating forgeries of Picasso, Braque and Chirico paintings. His experience with forgeries also allowed him to create false bank notes during the German occupation of Belgium in World War II, helping him to survive the lean economic times.
Through creating common images and placing them in extreme contexts, Magritte sough to have his viewers question the ability of art to truly represent an object. In his paintings, he often played with the perception of an image and the fact that the painting of the image could never actually be the object. His artistic interpretations influenced many modern artists, including Andy Warhol, Jan Verdoodt and Jasper Johns. His art, which was especially popular during the 1960’s, has also influenced numerous songs, movies, and books.
