A retrospective show of works by Belgium artist René Magritte
(1898-1967) will run at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing
until July 5. Acclaimed as a master of Surrealism, Magritte's
creations are constructed using a variety of media, and her show
features paintings, sculptures, music and film.
Sponsored by the National Art Museum of China and Brussels Fine
Arts Center of Belgium, the exhibition displays more than 230
pieces that occupy three halls, including 35 oil-on-canvas works,
two sculptures, 57 photographs, 22 archival letters, 33 musical
creations and 69 watercolor paintings, sketches, frescos and
posters.
Magritte was an artist who expressed his philosophical ideas
through imagery. With the vision of a poet and the thought patterns
of a philosopher, he combined ordinary scenes and subject matter in
a magical way, and presented the reality of life against an
imaginative background. The purpose of his creation was, in his
words, to present the subject matter from an angle that would never
otherwise be noticed.
In the exhibition, geometric figures accompanied by discrete
color blocks are used to convey a plane among the foreground
imagery and the background architecture. Pale-colored ceramics are
draped with scarlet robes to form shapes reminiscent of human
beings. And a painting of a nude woman conveys classical elegance,
but her upper half is dyed a similar shade of blue as the
background.
Without any distortion, Magritte reproduced daily events and
details in unexpected ways, creating moments that seem to come from
waking after a dream or experiencing illusions stemming from an
unclear state of mind.
The Freudian theories of psychoanalysis that serve as the
doctrine of Surrealist artists expounds that the truest thoughts of
human beings dwell in these seemingly absurd and confused collages.
Magritte visualized the unconscious and subconscious minds and
raised questions with each of his creations. Equipped with his
extraordinary imagination, he formed the style unique among
surrealists.
Magritte's surrealist style influenced many of his peers,
including Dali and many young British and American artists. He
reached his peak in the 1920s-30s, when most of his representative
works were completed.
Magritte called himself a meditator rather than an artist. Like
an explorer, he always asked himself: "What I have seen? Is it true
in my eyes? What does it mean? Is it what I want to see?"
Magritte tried to answer these questions in his mind, using his
paintbrush. And through this process, he gained true spiritual
freedom.
(China Daily June 14, 2007)
