EXPOSITION

AND THE SEA

21/10 - 14/01/2018Culture Centre in Knokke-Heist

Maxim Willemspad 1, 8300 Knokke-Heist

EXPOSITION

AND THE SEA

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Magritte

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Magritte 1898 - 1967

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MagritteRené Gislain Magritte was born on 21 November 1898 in Lessines in Belgium (Hainaut). His family was fairly well-off. His mother’s suicide was a pivotal event in his childhood. At the age of fifteen, he met Georgette Berger, his muse, whom he married in 1922. Magritte studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels. Although he was initially influenced by cubism, he eventually turned to surrealism.

At the end of the 1920s, he spent a few years in Paris. Upon his return to Belgium, he became the leader of the Belgian surrealist movement. In 1951, he spent two years working on the magnificent and unique fresco in the Casino of Knokke, which was commissioned by the Nellens family. During this period, Magritte’s work also garnered plenty of attention from New York collectors. In 1960, he was awarded the Belgian state prize for his entire body of work.

Magritte died, aged 69, on 15 August 1967. He created over 1,000 paintings, gouaches and collages. His wife bequeathed several of his works to various Belgian public collections.

Magritte’s mysterious and challenging work continues to fascinate and influence generation after generation, making him one of the most fantastic surrealists.

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Index

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No.01: The EmergenceL’entrée en scène

No.02: The Castle of the PyreneesLe château des Pyrénées

No.03: Collective Invention L’invention collective

No.04: The ImprovementL’embellie

No.05: Threatening WeatherLe temps menaçant

No.06: The Wonders of NatureLes merveilles de la nature

No.07: DecalcomaniaLa décalcomanie

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No.08: The Human ConditionLa condition humaine

No.09: Memory of a JourneySouvenir de voyage

No.10: Man of the Open SeaL’homme du large

No.11: Composition on the BeachComposition sur la plage

No.12: When the Hour StrikesQuand l’heure sonnera

No.13: Treasure IslandIle au trésors

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No.01

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The EmergenceL’entrée en scène Magritte used this type of ‘cloud bird’ for the first time in ‘Le retour’ (The Return) in 1940. In the latter painting, the animal flew over a ‘real’ nest of eggs, but in this work, The Emergence, a monumental bird rises above a turbulent sea, which is clearly the North Sea.

The two pieces do have the composition of the bird in common: Magritte filled the bird’s silhouette with blue sky and white cumulus clouds, as though the animal is a window to a beautiful, sunny sky. This is the type of ‘impossibility’ Magritte loved. Depicting the bird in this way turned it into a bearer of happiness and peace.

Magritte underlined the contrast even more by using a nightly starry sky as a backdrop. This makes the piece seem more like a collage than a painting.

The Emergency is a Magritte painting that has been reproduced countless times. ‘L’oiseau de ciel’ (The Sky Bird) is equally famous: a ‘cloud bird’ Magritte painted in 1966 for Belgium’s national airline at the time, Sabena.

The Emergence / L’entrée en scène1953 / oil on canvas / 35 x 25,5 cm / Private collection

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No.02

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The Castle of the Pyrenees Le château des Pyrénées

An impressive, granite rock floats above a turbulent, grey North Sea, defying the laws of gravity in the blue sky. Magritte loved this type of absurd, ‘impossible’ visual representations.

In this painting, the impenetrable, hard rock contrasts with the light clouds and the ever-moving sea.

The rock with its equally sturdy castle on top seems threatening, but Harry Torczyner, a good friend of Magritte’s, felt its meaning was more positive: “This rock of hope rises above the dark ocean”.

Torczyner was a lawyer born in Antwerp who managed to escape Nazi persecution and who settled in New York after the World War II. He wanted a work of art for his office that was part of ‘Magritte’s truth and nothing else’. Because the painting was to cover a window, Torczyner wanted a vista: “A rock floating above a dark and stormy sea, just like the North Sea of my youth”. Magritte gave him what he wanted.

The Castle of the Pyrenees / Le château des Pyrénées1959 / oil on canvas / 200,3 x 130,3 cm / The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

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No.03

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Collective Invention L’invention collective

In this painting, Magritte turns a very well-known concept on its head: we see a beached mermaid, but in Magritte’s version she has a fish head rather than a fish tail. Her tail has been replaced by human legs. Magritte painted a parody: he used a simple reversal to create a mermaid who is the complete opposite of the beautiful, seductive figure we all know: the mermaid of Copenhagen or Ariel in Walt Disney’s version of ‘The Little Mermaid’.

Magritte’s mermaid does not only seem helpless without any arms; she is also positioned quite inelegantly on the beach, out of her element – the water – and completely lost. It is an awkward and disturbing image.

It is remarkable that Magritte can make the mermaid so unattractive, simply by reversing the concept, but no matter how cold the fish seems, Magritte still surrounds the strange creature with a beautiful, silky light originating from above the sea.

Collective Invention / L’invention collective1935 / oil on canvas / 73 x 116 cm / Private collection

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No.04

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The Improvement L’embellie

Magritte paints this pastel work during the war as an ode to the feminine beauty. Presumably his wife Georgette was the model.

Magritte was inspired by a story in classical Greek mythology: the judgment of Paris, son of the Trojan king. Paris is asked to choose the most beautiful goddess. His choice between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite is not an easy one. The latter – the goddess of love – will eventually win first prize: a golden apple.

Magritte turns this into a very particular painting: we see the same woman three times from the back. All three reveal their nakedness only to the sea. Their faces remain hidden. Paris is nowhere to be seen and Magritte does not paint the golden apple either.

The attributes of the three women are common in Magritte’s work: a robe coming down, a dove and an egg (also featured in ‘The Enchanted Empire’ at the casino of Knokke-Heist) and a rose, a symbol of love.

The Improvement / L’embellie1941 / oil on canvas / 65 x 100 cm / Private collection

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No.05

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Threatening Weather Le temps menaçant

This is the Mediterranean rather than the North Sea. Magritte painted ‘Threatening Weather’ in 1929, when he and Georgette were staying in Cadaqués, where surrealist painter Salvador Dalí had a summer house. Magritte had previously met Dalí in Paris.

Magritte has three objects floating over the bay of this Catalan coastal town like clouds or mirages. He brings together three very ordinary objects in an unusual, surprising way: a female torso, a tuba and a chair, painted as evaporating images from a dream.

There is certainly eroticism in those images. There is the naked female torso. The many curves of the tuba are also often associated with the female body. At the same time, the painting has a menacing undercurrent: the three giant objects almost seem to be coming towards the spectator like a nightmare in broad daylight...

Threatening Weather / Le temps menaçant1929 / oil on canvas / 54 x 73 cm / Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

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No.06

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The Wonders of Nature Les merveilles de la nature

‘The Wonders of Nature’ contains quite a few metamorphoses and reversals. In the background, a sailing ship made entirely of water and waves travels as if it has taken on the form of the element on which it floats. Magritte depicts birds made of clouds and vessels made of water.

In the foreground we see two mermaids or mermen, who are completely fossilised like the rock they are sitting on. Magritte used the same type of reversal here as in the Collective Invention, showing creatures with human legs and fish heads.

The two unappealing, fossilised, even mossy mermaids seem to be singing a song like the sirens in Greek mythology, but in Magritte’s case, the mermaids will not be seducing any sailors with their songs.

Many of Magritte’s elements collide with each other in ‘The Wonders of Nature’. The mermaids are singing a song, but this is immaterial as they are made of granite. The hard stone contrasts with the flowing water, which even the ship is made of.

The Wonders of Nature / Les merveilles de la nature1953 / oil on canvas / 80 x 100 cm / Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

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No.07

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Decalcomania La décalcomanie

Magritte often used complete or partial doppelgängers in his work. The title of this painting refers to the process of identical prints: you can place a sheet of paper on a newly painted image to create a printed mirror image. Magritte does not paint two identical or mirrored men in bowler hats, though: they are completely different. One of them is transparent: a cut-out figure that shows us the beach and the sea. It seems Magritte uses this technique to reveal to us, the spectators, what the man on the left is seeing. The man on the left is actually in our way: he blocks the spectator’s view of the beach, the sea and the clouds.

Magritte also treats his men in bowler hats as stick-on shapes: it looks as though he removed the figure on the right and stuck it back on the painting on the left.

The joke is also that Magritte allows us, the spectators, to look straight through a curtain. The red curtain turns the whole picture into a theatre scene: painting is like theatre, a game of illusions, where almost anything is possible.

Decalcomania / La décalcomanie1966 / oil on canvas / 81 x 100 cm / Private collection

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No.08

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The Human Condition La condition humaine

Ever since the Renaissance, paintings were seen as windows to reality: the spectator should look at the world in the painting as if looking through a window. Magritte challenged that convention. He placed a painting on an easel in front of a wall in front of the sea.

It is as though Magritte used the painting inside the painting to ‘pierce’ through the wall and show us what is hidden behind the wall. However, the painting could also be hiding a lot of things: we will never really know what is hidden behind that wall. Magritte wants to tell us that paintings can both reveal and hide things.

At the same time, Magritte plays with his favourite theme: what is reality and what is illusion? The spectator is inclined to assume that the seascape in the distance is real and the seascape on the easel is an illusion, but both of them are painted, illusory realities.

And what is that heavy cannon ball doing there? It is as if its black hue actually makes it heavy. Is it a representation of the weight of the human condition, our existence on earth? After all, that is the painting’s title...

The Human Condition / La condition humaine1935 / oil on canvas / 100 x 81cm / Private collection

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No.09

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Memory of a Journey Souvenir de voyage

Magritte had a thing about apples. Here he painted a giant-sized apple on a deserted beach. The apple is disguised by a Venetian mask. It seems as though it just returned from the famous carnival of Venice.

Because Magritte gave the apple a mask, it seems to look us straight in the eye, even though it has no eyes or face. It seems like a paradox, but the mask makes the apple human, even though masks are actually supposed to be a disguise and hide any personal, individual features.

The apple’s odd skin is remarkable: its texture is more like the surface of the purple mask than like a ‘real’ apple.

The apple is rich in symbolism. In many cultures, it is a symbol of fertility. It caused the fall of man in Adam and Eve’s story in paradise. Still, Magritte did not really like symbols. He once said: “People always look for symbols in my work. There are none.”Perhaps Magritte used the mask to say that the apple will never reveal its true meaning.

Memory of a Journey / Souvenir de voyage1961 / gouache on paper / 35,9 x 27 cm / Private collection

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Man of the Open Sea L’homme du large

The figure dressed in black poses like a classical god, but was inspired by Fantômas, an elusive criminal who was the main character in popular French novels and silent movies of the early 20th century. Magritte was fascinated by the many metamorphoses of Fantômas: here his disguise is a type of diving suit.

The whole composition refers to the closing scene of the second Fantômas film from 1913, in which the ‘man in black’ blows up a house. As in the film, the male figure is pulling a lever. It seems as though the fragments of the house are scattered in the sand like “impossible” jigsaw pieces, in contrast with the vast beach and the endless sea.

The man’s head is hidden by a piece of wood: the wood grain reminds us of branches, antlers or the sound holes in a string instrument. Magritte often hides faces in his work, as if faces do not tell us anything about identity, personality or character.

Man of the Open Sea / L’homme du large1927 / oil on canvas / 139 x 105 cm / Magritte Museum, Brussels

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No.11

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Composition on the Beach Composition sur la plage

This work is about what is hidden. Magritte was fascinated by this. “Everything we see hides something else,” he said. The objects on the beach block our view of the sea: a somewhat shapeless, stretched figure, a metal frame with Magritte’s characteristic jingle bells on it and a painting showing the sea as though it is on fire. We do not know whether this is because of a blazing sunset. We do not know, as we cannot see. It is ‘hidden’. The painting inside the painting shows a completely different sea than the calm, light blue water of the ‘big painting’. What is real and what is illusion?

The long, stretched figure reminds us of Magritte’s typical mannequin-like characters used in other paintings and is also reminiscent of a cup-and-ball – a traditional children’s toy – although in Magritte’s world it also looks like a chess piece or a pillar.

The jingle bells refer to tomfoolery. Magritte gets them from the fool’s cap of the court jester or the Gilles’ white suits at the Carnival of Binche in Belgium.

Composition on the Beach / Composition sur la plage1935 / Composition on the Beach / 54 x 73 cm / Private collection

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No.12

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When the Hour Strikes Quand l’heure sonnera

Magritte used this female torso – a ‘helpless’ creature without a head, arms or legs – several times in his work. Here it is part of a simple, clean and refined composition. The torso looks monumentally large on a vast, deserted beach with the sea in the distance. A much smaller air balloon floats in the equally vast sky.

The torso and hot air balloon are both painted in grey, but have very little else in common: the torso is heavy and refers to the ancient world and classical art, whereas the light, manoeuvrable air balloon refers to the era of inventions and discoveries and has a certain Jules Verne quality to it. Is Magritte showing us the weight of history and civilisation? We see the endless waves of the sea in the background: nature is eternal and unfathomable.

Magritte created this work for Gustave Nellens (1907-1971), an arts patron, Magritte collector and the manager of the casino of Knokke-Heist.

When the Hour Strikes / Quand l’heure sonnera1964-’65 / oil on canvas / Private collection

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No.13

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Treasure Island Ile au trésors

Magritte discovered the process of metamorphosis – skin that changes into wood, for example – quite soon in 1927. In 1942, he started to create works showing a leaf or a plant changing into a bird.

Many paintings from that series are entitled ‘Treasure Island’ in reference to the 1883 adventurous novel by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). It was one of Magritte’s favourite books.

In some way, the title ‘Treasure Island’ seems to entail hope of a great discovery, but the painting’s cold, chilly colours also convey something sad and threatening.

In Magritte’s works, birds often symbolise hope, but on this isolated island they are stuck to the ground with stalks and roots like plants. One of the birds wants to spread its wings and take off, but that is impossible. It is certainly an ambiguous painting, typical of the war situation from 1940 to 1945 when Magritte’s life veered between hope and fear.

Treasure Island / Ile au trésors1942 / oil on canvas / 60 x 80 cm / Magritte Museum, Brussels

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34The Enchanted Empire / Le domaine enchanté

1951- ‘53 / Fresco / Casino Knokke

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This book has been compiled for of the exhibition Magritte and the sea at the Culture Centre in Knokke-Heist.

© Text: Eric Rinckhout© C.H./ADAGP Paris, 2017

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