The blog today is about the surrealist, Rene Magritte (1898-1967). Even if you're not familiar with his body of work, I bet you've seen his famous "Son of Man" shown here on the left. It's been featured in ads as well as movies such as "The Thomas Crown Affair." In spite of the fame of this piece, most of us know almost nothing about him. Magritte's upbringing was a difficult one. He was a Belgian native whose father was often down on his luck. Finances caused the family to move frequently. Magritte's early trials were made emotionally harder by his mother's many suicide attempts. She finally drowned herself when Magritte was 13 years old. (Legend has it that when she was found her dress was covering her face and that it led to the many faceless or cloth-covered faces in Magritte's paintings.)
When Magritte was 18, he went to the Academy of Art and studied for two years. He found the classic
training boring and soon began to experiment with other techniques. Throughout his life, whenever he decided to investigate other styles, he'd always return to Surrealism.Magritte didn't like to have realistic definitions given to the objects in his paintings. However, since "surreal" is a dreamlike or subconscious state, what do you think he's portraying in his paintings?
"LOVERS"
"GOLCONDE" (Goldone=a once great city in India now in ruins)
"PERSONAL VALUES"
"BIG FAMILY"
"PRESENCE OF MIND"
