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97-479: René François Ghislain Magritte ( French: [ʁəne fʁɑ̃swa ɡilɛ̃ maɡʁit] ; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and boundaries of reality and representation. His imagery has influenced pop art , minimalist art , and conceptual art . René Magritte

194-415: A Surrealist Manifesto . Each claimed to be successors of a revolution launched by Appolinaire. One group, led by Yvan Goll consisted of Pierre Albert-Birot , Paul Dermée , Céline Arnauld , Francis Picabia , Tristan Tzara , Giuseppe Ungaretti , Pierre Reverdy , Marcel Arland , Joseph Delteil , Jean Painlevé and Robert Delaunay , among others. The group led by André Breton claimed that automatism

291-463: A component in the visual arts (though it had been initially debated whether this was possible), and techniques from Dada, such as photomontage , were used. The following year, on March 26, 1926, Galerie Surréaliste opened with an exhibition by Man Ray. Breton published Surrealism and Painting in 1928 which summarized the movement to that point, though he continued to update the work until the 1960s. The first Surrealist work, according to leader Breton,

388-623: A contract with Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels made it possible for him to paint full-time. In 1926, Magritte produced his first surreal painting, The Lost Jockey ( Le jockey perdu ), and held his first solo exhibition in Brussels in 1927. The exhibition was poorly reviewed. Depressed by the failure, he moved to Paris where he became friends with André Breton and became involved in the Surrealist group. An illusionistic, dream-like quality

485-409: A few at a time on a rotating basis with other surrealist works in the collection. Surrealist Works of Surrealism feature the element of surprise , unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur . However, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost (for instance, of the "pure psychic automatism " Breton speaks of in

582-494: A kind of surrealism, which I consider to be the point of departure for a whole series of manifestations of the New Spirit that is making itself felt today and that will certainly appeal to our best minds. We may expect it to bring about profound changes in our arts and manners through universal joyfulness, for it is only natural, after all, that they keep pace with scientific and industrial progress. (Apollinaire, 1917) The term

679-475: A mythological, archetypal, allegorical vision, closely related to the world of dreams. The Spanish playwright and director Federico García Lorca , also experimented with surrealism, particularly in his plays The Public (1930), When Five Years Pass (1931), and Play Without a Title (1935). Other surrealist plays include Aragon's Backs to the Wall (1925). Gertrude Stein 's opera Doctor Faustus Lights

776-560: A nude portrait of Magritte's wife reportedly worth about US$ 1.1 million, was stolen from this museum on the morning of 24 September 2009 by two armed men. It was returned to the museum in January 2012, in exchange for a 50,000-Euro payment from the museum's insurer. The thieves reportedly agreed to the deal because they were unable to sell the painting on the black market due to its fame. The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas holds one of

873-826: A number of retrospective exhibitions, most recently at the Centre Georges Pompidou (2016–2017). In the United States his work has been featured in three retrospective exhibitions: at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992, and again at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013. An exhibition entitled "The Fifth Season" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2018 focused on

970-470: A number of surrealist versions of other famous paintings, such as Perspective I and Perspective II , which are copies of David 's Portrait of Madame Récamier and Manet 's The Balcony , respectively, but with the human subjects replaced by coffins. Elsewhere, Magritte challenges the difficulty of artwork to convey meaning with a recurring motif of an easel, as in his The Human Condition series (1933, 1935) or The Promenades of Euclid (1955), wherein

1067-524: A rather more strenuous set of approaches. Thus, such elements as collage were introduced, arising partly from an ideal of startling juxtapositions as revealed in Pierre Reverdy 's poetry. And—as in Magritte's case (where there is no obvious recourse to either automatic techniques or collage)—the very notion of convulsive joining became a tool for revelation in and of itself. Surrealism was meant to be always in flux—to be more modern than modern—and so it

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1164-562: A reaction to his feelings of alienation and abandonment that came with living in German-occupied Belgium. In 1946, renouncing the violence and pessimism of his earlier work, he joined several other Belgian artists in signing the manifesto Surrealism in Full Sunlight . During 1947–48, Magritte's "Vache period", he painted in a provocative and crude Fauve style. During this time, Magritte supported himself through

1261-473: A revolution launched by Apollinaire. One group, led by Yvan Goll , consisted of Pierre Albert-Birot , Paul Dermée , Céline Arnauld , Francis Picabia , Tristan Tzara , Giuseppe Ungaretti , Pierre Reverdy , Marcel Arland , Joseph Delteil , Jean Painlevé and Robert Delaunay , among others. The other group, led by Breton, included Aragon, Desnos, Éluard, Baron, Crevel, Malkine, Jacques-André Boiffard and Jean Carrive, among others. Yvan Goll published

1358-591: A schism between art and politics through his counter-surrealist art-magazine DYN and so prepared the ground for the abstract expressionists. Dalí supported capitalism and the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco but cannot be said to represent a trend in Surrealism in this respect; in fact, he was considered, by Breton and his associates, to have betrayed and left Surrealism. Benjamin Péret, Mary Low, Juan Breá, and Spanish-native Eugenio Fernández Granell joined

1455-404: A tee shirt with Magritte's, The Treachery of Images , (This is not a pipe.) Just prior to leaving her mother to visit her favorite author, Hazel explains the drawing to her confused mother and states that the author's novel has "several Magritte references", clearly hoping the author will be pleased with the reference. The official music video of Markus Schulz 's "Koolhaus" under his Dakota guise

1552-440: A theatrical motif. Magritte's style of surrealism is more representational than the "automatic" style of artists such as Joan Miró . Magritte's use of ordinary objects in unfamiliar spaces is joined to his desire to create poetic imagery. He described the act of painting as "the art of putting colors side by side in such a way that their real aspect is effaced, so that familiar objects—the sky, people, trees, mountains, furniture,

1649-471: A young performance artist, Sheila Legge , and began an affair with her. Magritte arranged for his friend, Paul Colinet, to entertain and distract Georgette, but this led to an affair between Georgette and Colinet. Magritte and his wife did not reconcile until 1940. Magritte died of pancreatic cancer on 15 August 1967, aged 68, and was interred in Schaerbeek Cemetery , Evere , Brussels. It

1746-434: Is Golden , later Surrealists, such as Paul Garon , have been interested in—and found parallels to—Surrealism in the improvisation of jazz and the blues . Jazz and blues musicians have occasionally reciprocated this interest. For example, the 1976 World Surrealist Exhibition included performances by David "Honeyboy" Edwards . Surrealism as a political force developed unevenly around the world: in some places more emphasis

1843-400: Is a union that suggests the essential mystery of the world. Art for me is not an end in itself, but a means of evoking that mystery. René Magritte on putting seemingly unrelated objects together in juxtaposition Magritte's work frequently displays a collection of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. The use of objects as other than what they seem

1940-507: Is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life. The movement in the mid-1920s was characterized by meetings in cafes where the Surrealists played collaborative drawing games, discussed

2037-558: Is characteristic of Magritte's version of Surrealism. He became a leading member of the movement, and remained in Paris for three years. In 1929, he was put under contract at Goemans Gallery in Paris along with Jean Arp and Yves Tanguy . On 15 December 1929, Magritte participated in the last publication, No. 12, of La Révolution surréaliste , with his essay "Les mots et les images", where words play with images in sync with his work The Treachery of Images . Galerie Le Centaure closed at

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2134-530: Is featured in two of Magritte's works painted in 1937, Le Principe du Plaisir ( The Pleasure Principle ) and La Reproduction Interdite , a painting also known as Not to Be Reproduced . During the German occupation of Belgium in World War II he remained in Brussels, which led to a break with Breton. He briefly adopted a colorful, painterly style in 1943–44, an interlude known as his " Renoir period", as

2231-488: Is inspired by Magritte's Le Jeu de Mourre , a 1966 painting. Paul Simon 's song " Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War ", inspired by a photograph of Magritte by Lothar Wolleh , appears on the 1983 album Hearts and Bones . John Cale wrote a song titled "Magritte". The song appears on the 2003 album HoboSapiens . Tom Stoppard wrote a 1970 Surrealist play called After Magritte . John Berger scripted

2328-498: Is the biggest Magritte archive anywhere and most of the work is directly from the collection of the artist's widow, Georgette Magritte , and from Irene Hamoir Scutenaire , who was his primary collector. Additionally, the museum includes Magritte's experiments with photography from 1920 on and the short Surrealist films he made from 1956 on. Another museum is located at 135 Rue Esseghem in Brussels in Magritte's former home, where he lived with his wife from 1930 to 1954. Olympia (1948),

2425-416: Is typified in his painting, The Treachery of Images ( La trahison des images ), which shows a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe " Ceci n'est pas une pipe " ("This is not a pipe"), which seems a contradiction, but is actually true: the painting is not a pipe, it is an image of a pipe. It does not "satisfy emotionally"; when Magritte

2522-424: Is unknowable." Magritte's constant play with reality and illusion has been attributed to the early death of his mother. Psychoanalysts who have examined bereaved children have hypothesized that Magritte's back-and-forth play with reality and illusion reflects his "constant shifting back and forth from what he wishes—'mother is alive'—to what he knows—'mother is dead'". More recently, Patricia Allmer has demonstrated

2619-528: The Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels , under Constant Montald , but found the instruction uninspiring. He also took classes at the Académie Royale from the painter and poster designer Gisbert Combaz . The paintings he produced during 1918–1924 were influenced by Futurism and by the figurative Cubism of Metzinger . From December 1920 until September 1921, Magritte served in

2716-664: The Ballets Russes , would create a decorative form of Surrealism, and he would be an influence on the two artists who would be even more closely associated with Surrealism in the public mind: Dalí and Magritte. He would, however, leave the Surrealist group in 1928. In 1924, Miró and Masson applied Surrealism to painting. The first Surrealist exhibition, La Peinture Surrealiste , was held at Galerie Pierre in Paris in 1925. It displayed works by Masson, Man Ray , Paul Klee , Miró, and others. The show confirmed that Surrealism had

2813-559: The Manifeste du surréalisme , 1 October 1924, in his first and only issue of Surréalisme two weeks prior to the release of Breton's Manifeste du surréalisme , published by Éditions du Sagittaire, 15 October 1924. Goll and Breton clashed openly, at one point literally fighting, at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, over the rights to the term Surrealism. In the end, Breton won the battle through tactical and numerical superiority. Though

2910-664: The POUM during the Spanish Civil War . Breton's followers, along with the Communist Party , were working for the "liberation of man". However, Breton's group refused to prioritize the proletarian struggle over radical creation such that their struggles with the Party made the late 1920s a turbulent time for both. Many individuals closely associated with Breton, notably Aragon, left his group to work more closely with

3007-408: The second World War , Enrico Donati , Vinicius Pradella and Denis Fabbri became involved as well. Though Breton admired Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp and courted them to join the movement, they remained peripheral. More writers also joined, including former Dadaist Tristan Tzara , René Char , and Georges Sadoul . In 1925 an autonomous Surrealist group formed in Brussels. The group included

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3104-460: The 1930s many Surrealists had strongly identified themselves with communism. The foremost document of this tendency within Surrealism is the Manifesto for a Free Revolutionary Art , published under the names of Breton and Diego Rivera , but actually co-authored by Breton and Leon Trotsky . However, in 1933 the Surrealists' assertion that a " proletarian literature " within a capitalist society

3201-413: The 1948 ballet Paris-Magie (scenario by Lise Deharme ), the operas La Petite Sirène (book by Philippe Soupault) and Le Maître (book by Eugène Ionesco). Tailleferre also wrote popular songs to texts by Claude Marci, the wife of Henri Jeanson, whose portrait had been painted by Magritte in the 1930s. Even though Breton by 1946 responded rather negatively to the subject of music with his essay Silence

3298-472: The 1998 documentary The Fear of God: 25 Years of "The Exorcist" , the iconic poster shot for the film The Exorcist was inspired by Magritte's The Empire of Light . In the 1992 movie Toys , Magritte's work was influential in the entire movie but specifically in a break-in scene, featuring Robin Williams and Joan Cusack in a music video hoax. Many of Magritte's works were used directly in that scene. In

3395-486: The 1999 movie The Thomas Crown Affair starring Pierce Brosnan , Rene Russo and Denis Leary , the Magritte painting The Son of Man was prominently featured as part of the plot line. Gary Numan 's 1979 album The Pleasure Principle was a reference to Magritte's painting of the same name. In John Green's novel (2012) and movie (2014), The Fault in Our Stars , the main character Hazel Grace Lancaster wears

3492-747: The Belgian Communist Party led by Joseph Jacquemotte , following a split from the Belgian Workers Party . At the time of its foundation, KPB/PCB had around 500 members. KPB/PCB became the Belgian section of the Communist International . The party gained parliamentary presence in 1925, as both Van Overstraeten and Jacquemotte were elected to the Chamber of Representatives . By 1935 KPB/PCB had 9 deputies in

3589-482: The Belgian infantry in the Flemish town of Beverlo near Leopoldsburg . In 1922, Magritte married Georgette Berger , whom he had met as a child in 1913. Also during 1922, the poet Marcel Lecomte showed Magritte a reproduction of Giorgio de Chirico 's The Song of Love (painted in 1914). The work brought Magritte to tears; he described this as "one of the most moving moments of my life: my eyes saw thought for

3686-671: The Chamber and 4 members in the Senate . In 1938 it had a membership of about 8,500. During the Second World War , the party had to go underground during German occupation. The party was also closely affiliated with the Partisans Armés , a resistance group during the occupation, however in 1943 much of the party leadership was arrested by German forces. After the end of the war, the party was strengthened and obtained 25% in

3783-463: The Communist painter, the justification of artistic activity is to create pictures that can represent mental luxury." While remaining committed to the political left, he thus advocated a certain autonomy of art. Spiritually, Magritte was an agnostic. Popular interest in Magritte's work rose considerably in the 1960s, and his imagery has influenced pop , minimalist , and conceptual art . In 2005 he

3880-593: The Communists. Surrealists have often sought to link their efforts with political ideals and activities. In the Declaration of January 27, 1925 , for example, members of the Paris-based Bureau of Surrealist Research (including Breton, Aragon and Artaud, as well as some two dozen others) declared their affinity for revolutionary politics. While this was initially a somewhat vague formulation, by

3977-540: The Dutch surrealist photographer Emiel van Moerkerken came to Breton, he did not want to sign the manifesto because he was not a Trotskyist. For Breton being a communist was not enough. Breton denied Van Moerkerken's pictures for a publication afterwards. This caused a split in surrealism. Others fought for complete liberty from political ideologies, like Wolfgang Paalen , who, after Trotsky's assassination in Mexico, prepared

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4074-731: The French Dora Maar , the American Man Ray , the French/Hungarian Brassaï , French Claude Cahun and the Dutch Emiel van Moerkerken . The word surrealist was first used by Apollinaire to describe his 1917 play Les Mamelles de Tirésias ("The Breasts of Tiresias"), which was later adapted into an opera by Francis Poulenc . Roger Vitrac 's The Mysteries of Love (1927) and Victor, or The Children Take Over (1928) are often considered

4171-490: The Horizon , and Styx 's album The Grand Illusion incorporating an adaptation of the painting The Blank Signature (Le Blanc Seing) . The Nigerian rapper Jesse Jagz's 2014 album Jagz Nation Vol. 2: Royal Niger Company has cover art inspired by Magritte's works. In 2015 the band Punch Brothers used The Lovers as the cover of their album The Phosphorescent Blues . The logo of Apple Corps , The Beatles ' company,

4268-796: The Julien Levy Gallery in New York , followed by an exposition at the London Gallery in 1938. Between 1934 and 1937, Magritte drew film posters under the pseudonym 'Emair' for the German sound film distributor Tobis Klangfilm . The Leuven City Archive preserves seven posters designed by Magritte. During the early stages of his career, the British surrealist patron Edward James allowed Magritte to stay rent-free in his London home, where Magritte studied architecture and painted. James

4365-491: The Lights (1938) has also been described as "American Surrealism", though it is also related to a theatrical form of cubism . In the 1920s several composers were influenced by Surrealism, or by individuals in the Surrealist movement. Among them were Bohuslav Martinů , André Souris , Erik Satie , Francis Poulenc , and Edgard Varèse , who stated that his work Arcana was drawn from a dream sequence. Souris in particular

4462-529: The Paris group announced: We Surrealists pronounced ourselves in favour of changing the imperialist war, in its chronic and colonial form, into a civil war. Thus we placed our energies at the disposal of the revolution, of the proletariat and its struggles, and defined our attitude towards the colonial problem, and hence towards the colour question. Communist Party of Belgium The Communist Party of Belgium ( Dutch : Kommunistische Partij van België , or KPB; French : Parti Communiste de Belgique , PCB)

4559-471: The Surrealist movement was not officially established until after October 1924, when the Surrealist Manifesto published by French poet and critic André Breton succeeded in claiming the term for his group over a rival faction led by Yvan Goll , who had published his own surrealist manifesto two weeks prior. The most important center of the movement was Paris , France. From the 1920s onward,

4656-438: The Surrealists in developing methods to liberate imagination. They embraced idiosyncrasy , while rejecting the idea of an underlying madness. As Dalí later proclaimed, "There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad." Beside the use of dream analysis, they emphasized that "one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical and startling effects." Breton included

4753-465: The artists' works integrate direct references and others offer contemporary viewpoints on his abstract fixations. Magritte's use of simple graphic and everyday imagery has been compared to that of the pop-artists . His influence in the development of pop art has been widely recognized, although Magritte himself discounted the connection. He considered the pop artists' representation of "the world as it is" as "their error", and contrasted their attention to

4850-584: The best examples of Surrealist theatre, despite his expulsion from the movement in 1926. The plays were staged at the Theatre Alfred Jarry , the theatre Vitrac co-founded with Antonin Artaud , another early Surrealist who was expelled from the movement. Following his collaboration with Vitrac, Artaud would extend Surrealist thought through his theory of the Theatre of Cruelty . Artaud rejected

4947-602: The book Ways of Seeing using images and ideologies regarding Magritte. Douglas Hofstadter 's 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach uses Magritte works for many of its illustrations. The Treachery of Images was used in a major plot in L. J. Smith 's 1994 novel The Forbidden Game . Magritte's imagery has inspired filmmakers ranging from the surrealist Marcel Mariën to mainstream directors such as Jean-Luc Godard , Alain Robbe-Grillet , Bernardo Bertolucci , Nicolas Roeg , John Boorman and Terry Gilliam . According to

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5044-413: The end of 1929, ending Magritte's contract income. Having made little impact in Paris, Magritte returned to Brussels in 1930 and resumed working in advertising. He and his brother, Paul, formed an agency which earned him a living wage. In 1932, Magritte joined the Communist Party , which he would periodically leave and rejoin for several years. In 1936 he had his first solo exhibition in the United States at

5141-515: The first Surrealist Manifesto), with the works themselves being secondary, i.e., artifacts of surrealist experimentation. Leader Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a revolutionary movement. At the time, the movement was associated with political causes such as communism and anarchism . It was influenced by the Dada movement of the 1910s. The term "Surrealism" originated with Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917. However,

5238-404: The first time". The paintings of the Belgian symbolist painter William Degouve de Nuncques have also been noted as an influence on Magritte, specifically the former's painting The Blind House (1892) and Magritte's variations or series on The Empire of Lights . In 1922–1923, Magritte worked as a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory, and was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926, when

5335-588: The idea of the startling juxtapositions in his 1924 manifesto, taking it in turn from a 1918 essay by poet Pierre Reverdy , which said: "a juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities. The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be−the greater its emotional power and poetic reality." The group aimed to revolutionize human experience, in its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects. They wanted to free people from false rationality, and restrictive customs and structures. Breton proclaimed that

5432-542: The idea that ordinary and depictive expressions are vital and important, but that the sense of their arrangement must be open to the full range of imagination according to the Hegelian Dialectic . They also looked to the Marxist dialectic and the work of such theorists as Walter Benjamin and Herbert Marcuse . Freud's work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to

5529-574: The influence of Miró and the drawing style of Picasso is visible with the use of fluid curving and intersecting lines and colour, whereas the first takes a directness that would later be influential in movements such as Pop art . Giorgio de Chirico, and his previous development of metaphysical art , was one of the important joining figures between the philosophical and visual aspects of Surrealism. Between 1911 and 1917, he adopted an unornamented depictional style whose surface would be adopted by others later. The Red Tower (La tour rouge) from 1913 shows

5626-529: The influence of fairground attractions on Magritte's art—from carousels and circuses to panoramas and stage magic. Contemporary artists have been greatly influenced by René Magritte's stimulating examination of the fickleness of images. Some artists who have been influenced by Magritte's works include John Baldessari , Ed Ruscha , Andy Warhol , Jasper Johns , Jan Verdoodt , Martin Kippenberger , Duane Michals , Storm Thorgerson , and Luis Rey . Some of

5723-492: The influences on Surrealism, examples of Surrealist works, and discussion of Surrealist automatism. He provided the following definitions: Dictionary: Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation. Encyclopedia: Surrealism. Philosophy. Surrealism

5820-578: The like. Examples include album covers such as Beck-Ola by The Jeff Beck Group (reproducing Magritte's The Listening Room ), Alan Hull 's 1973 album Pipedream which used The Philosopher's Lamp , Jackson Browne 's 1974 album Late for the Sky , with artwork inspired by The Empire of Light , Oregon 's album Oregon referring to Carte Blanche , the Firesign Theatre 's album Just Folks... A Firesign Chat based on The Mysteries of

5917-458: The line used to divide Dada and Surrealism among art experts is the pairing of 1925's Little Machine Constructed by Minimax Dadamax in Person (Von minimax dadamax selbst konstruiertes maschinchen) with The Kiss (Le Baiser) from 1927 by Max Ernst. The first is generally held to have a distance, and erotic subtext, whereas the second presents an erotic act openly and directly. In the second

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6014-452: The main route toward a higher reality. But—as in Breton's case—much of what is presented as purely automatic is actually edited and very "thought out". Breton himself later admitted that automatic writing's centrality had been overstated, and other elements were introduced, especially as the growing involvement of visual artists in the movement forced the issue, since automatic painting required

6111-415: The majority of Western theatre as a perversion of its original intent, which he felt should be a mystical, metaphysical experience. Instead, he envisioned a theatre that would be immediate and direct, linking the unconscious minds of performers and spectators in a sort of ritual event, Artaud created in which emotions, feelings, and the metaphysical were expressed not through language but physically, creating

6208-640: The most significant collections of dada and surrealist work in the United States, including dozens of oil paintings, gouaches, drawings, and bronzes by René Magritte. John de Menil and Dominique de Menil initiated and funded the catalogue raisonné of Magritte's oeuvre, published between 1992 and 1997 in five volumes, with an addendum in 2012. Major oil paintings in the Menil Collection include: The Meaning of Night (1927), The Eternally Obvious (1930), The Rape (1934), The Listening Room (1952), and Golconda (1953) which are typically exhibited

6305-586: The most." Back in Paris, Breton joined in Dada activities and started the literary journal Littérature along with Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault . They began experimenting with automatic writing —spontaneously writing without censoring their thoughts—and published the writings, as well as accounts of dreams, in the magazine. Breton and Soupault continued writing evolving their techniques of automatism and published The Magnetic Fields (1920). By October 1924, two rival Surrealist groups had formed to publish

6402-639: The movement spread around the globe, impacting the visual arts , literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory. The word surrealism was first coined in March 1917 by Guillaume Apollinaire . He wrote in a letter to Paul Dermée : "All things considered, I think in fact it is better to adopt surrealism than supernaturalism, which I first used" [ Tout bien examiné, je crois en effet qu'il vaut mieux adopter surréalisme que surnaturalisme que j'avais d'abord employé ]. Apollinaire used

6499-559: The musician, poet, and artist E. L. T. Mesens , painter and writer René Magritte , Paul Nougé , Marcel Lecomte , and André Souris . In 1927 they were joined by the writer Louis Scutenaire . They corresponded regularly with the Paris group, and in 1927 both Goemans and Magritte moved to Paris and frequented Breton's circle. The artists, with their roots in Dada and Cubism , the abstraction of Wassily Kandinsky , Expressionism , and Post-Impressionism , also reached to older "bloodlines" or proto-surrealists such as Hieronymus Bosch , and

6596-885: The parliamentary elections. The party participated in a coalition government with the socialists and the liberals from 1946 to 1947. On 18 August 1950 the party chairman, Julien Lahaut , was assassinated. In the mid 1960s the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 9,890. KPB/PCB lost its parliamentary presence in 1985. In 1989 KPB/PCB was divided into two separate parties, Kommunistische Partij in Flanders and Parti Communiste in Wallonia . Several foreign communist parties, American, British, German, French and Dutch, had branches in Belgium. 67,487 159,213 1.28% 3,02% 62,410 99,514 1.12% 1,79% In

6693-424: The poetic undercurrents, but also to the connotations and the overtones which "exist in ambiguous relationships to the visual images." Because Surrealist writers seldom, if ever, appear to organize their thoughts and the images they present, some people find much of their work difficult to parse. This notion however is a superficial comprehension, prompted no doubt by Breton's initial emphasis on automatic writing as

6790-799: The precursors of Surrealism. Examples of Surrealist literature are Artaud's Le Pèse-Nerfs (1926), Aragon's Irene's Cunt (1927), Péret's Death to the Pigs (1929), Crevel's Mr. Knife Miss Fork (1931), Sadegh Hedayat 's the Blind Owl (1937), and Breton's Sur la route de San Romano (1948). La Révolution surréaliste continued publication into 1929 with most pages densely packed with columns of text, but which also included reproductions of art, among them works by de Chirico, Ernst, Masson, and Man Ray. Other works included books, poems, pamphlets, automatic texts and theoretical tracts. Early films by Surrealists include: Famous Surrealist photographers are

6887-490: The production of fake Picassos, Braques , and de Chiricos—a fraudulent repertoire he was later to expand into the printing of forged banknotes during the lean postwar period. This venture was undertaken alongside his brother Paul and fellow Surrealist and "surrogate son" Marcel Mariën , to whom had fallen the task of selling the forgeries. At the end of 1948, Magritte returned to the style and themes of his pre-war surrealistic art. In France, Magritte's work has been showcased in

6984-446: The quarrel over the anteriority of Surrealism concluded with the victory of Breton, the history of surrealism from that moment would remain marked by fractures, resignations, and resounding excommunications, with each surrealist having their own view of the issue and goals, and accepting more or less the definitions laid out by André Breton. Breton's 1924 Surrealist Manifesto defines the purposes of Surrealism. He included citations of

7081-416: The so-called primitive and naive arts. André Masson 's automatic drawings of 1923 are often used as the point of the acceptance of visual arts and the break from Dada, since they reflect the influence of the idea of the unconscious mind . Another example is Giacometti's 1925 Torso , which marked his movement to simplified forms and inspiration from preclassical sculpture. However, a striking example of

7178-436: The spires of a castle are "painted" upon the ordinary streets which the canvas overlooks. In a letter to André Breton, he wrote of The Human Condition that it was irrelevant if the scene behind the easel differed from what was depicted upon it, "but the main thing was to eliminate the difference between a view seen from outside and from inside a room". The windows in some of these pictures are framed with heavy drapes, suggesting

7275-575: The stark colour contrasts and illustrative style later adopted by Surrealist painters. His 1914 The Nostalgia of the Poet (La Nostalgie du poète) has the figure turned away from the viewer, and the juxtaposition of a bust with glasses and a fish as a relief defies conventional explanation. He was also a writer whose novel Hebdomeros presents a series of dreamscapes with an unusual use of punctuation, syntax, and grammar designed to create an atmosphere and frame its images. His images, including set designs for

7372-452: The stars, solid structures, graffiti—become united in a single poetically disciplined image. The poetry of this image dispenses with any symbolic significance, old or new." René Magritte described his paintings as "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

7469-511: The term in his program notes for Sergei Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes , Parade , which premiered 18 May 1917. Parade had a one-act scenario by Jean Cocteau and was performed with music by Erik Satie . Cocteau described the ballet as "realistic". Apollinaire went further, describing Parade as "surrealistic": This new alliance—I say new, because until now scenery and costumes were linked only by factitious bonds—has given rise, in Parade , to

7566-644: The theories of Surrealism, and developed a variety of techniques such as automatic drawing . Breton initially doubted that visual arts could even be useful in the Surrealist movement since they appeared to be less malleable and open to chance and automatism. This caution was overcome by the discovery of such techniques as frottage , grattage and decalcomania . Soon more visual artists became involved, including Giorgio de Chirico , Max Ernst , Joan Miró , Francis Picabia , Yves Tanguy , Salvador Dalí , Luis Buñuel , Alberto Giacometti , Valentine Hugo , Méret Oppenheim , Toyen , and Kansuke Yamamoto . Later, after

7663-524: The transitory with his concern for "the feeling for the real, insofar as it is permanent." The 2006–2007 LACMA exhibition "Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images" examined the relationship between Magritte and contemporary art. The 1960s brought a great increase in public awareness of Magritte's work. Thanks to his "sound knowledge of how to present objects in a manner both suggestive and questioning", his works have been frequently adapted or plagiarized in advertisements, posters, book covers and

7760-548: The true aim of Surrealism was "long live the social revolution, and it alone!" To this goal, at various times Surrealists aligned with communism and anarchism . In 1924, two Surrealist factions declared their philosophy in two separate Surrealist Manifestos. That same year the Bureau of Surrealist Research was established and began publishing the journal La Révolution surréaliste . Leading up to 1924, two rival surrealist groups had formed. Each group claimed to be successors of

7857-408: The war upon the world. The Dadaists protested with anti-art gatherings, performances, writings and art works. After the war, when they returned to Paris, the Dada activities continued. During the war, André Breton , who had trained in medicine and psychiatry, served in a neurological hospital where he used Sigmund Freud 's psychoanalytic methods with soldiers suffering from shell-shock . Meeting

7954-497: The work of his later years. Politically, Magritte stood to the left, and retained close ties to the Communist Party, even in the post-war years. However, he was critical of the functionalist cultural policy of the Communist left, stating that "Class consciousness is as necessary as bread; but that does not mean that workers must be condemned to bread and water and that wanting chicken and champagne would be harmful. (...) For

8051-411: The young writer Jacques Vaché , Breton felt that Vaché was the spiritual son of writer and pataphysics founder Alfred Jarry . He admired the young writer's anti-social attitude and disdain for established artistic tradition. Later Breton wrote, "In literature, I was successively taken with Rimbaud , with Jarry, with Apollinaire, with Nouveau , with Lautréamont , but it is Jacques Vaché to whom I owe

8148-420: Was Les Chants de Maldoror , and the first work written and published by his group of Surréalistes was Les Champs Magnétiques (May–June 1919). Littérature contained automatist works and accounts of dreams. The magazine and the portfolio both showed their disdain for literal meanings given to objects and focused rather on the undertones; the poetic undercurrents present. Not only did they give emphasis to

8245-476: Was Trotskyist , communist , or anarchist . The split from Dada has been characterised as a split between anarchists and communists, with the Surrealists as communist. Breton and his comrades supported Leon Trotsky and his International Left Opposition for a while, though there was an openness to anarchism that manifested more fully after World War II. Some Surrealists, such as Benjamin Péret , Mary Low, and Juan Breá, aligned with forms of left communism . When

8342-634: Was 9th in the Walloon version of De Grootste Belg ( The Greatest Belgian ); in the Flemish version he was 18th. Magritte married Georgette Berger in June 1922. Georgette was the daughter of a butcher in Charleroi, and first met Magritte when she was 13 and he was 15. They met again seven years later in Brussels in 1920 and Georgette, who had also studied art, became Magritte's model, muse, and wife. In 1936, Magritte's marriage became troubled when he met

8439-678: Was a political party in Belgium from 1921 to 1989. The youth wing of KPB/PCB was known as the Communist Youth of Belgium . The party published a newspaper known as Le Drapeau Rouge in French and De Roode Vaan in Dutch. The Communist Party of Belgium was formed at a congress in Anderlecht , Brussels on 3–4 September 1921. KPB/PCB was formed through the unification of two groups, the Communist Party led by War Van Overstraeten and

8536-677: Was a better tactic for societal change than those of Dada, as led by Tzara, who was now among their rivals. Breton's group grew to include writers and artists from various media such as Paul Éluard , Benjamin Péret , René Crevel , Robert Desnos , Jacques Baron , Max Morise , Pierre Naville , Roger Vitrac , Gala Éluard , Max Ernst , Salvador Dalí , Luis Buñuel , Man Ray , Hans Arp , Georges Malkine , Michel Leiris , Georges Limbour , Antonin Artaud , Raymond Queneau , André Masson , Joan Miró , Marcel Duchamp , Jacques Prévert , and Yves Tanguy , Dora Maar As they developed their philosophy, they believed that Surrealism would advocate

8633-481: Was associated with the movement: he had a long relationship with Magritte, and worked on Paul Nougé 's publication Adieu Marie . Music by composers from across the twentieth century have been associated with surrealist principles, including Pierre Boulez , György Ligeti , Mauricio Kagel , Olivier Messiaen , and Thomas Adès . Germaine Tailleferre of the French group Les Six wrote several works which could be considered to be inspired by Surrealism , including

8730-536: Was born in Lessines , in the province of Hainaut in Belgium, in 1898. He was the oldest son of Léopold Magritte, a tailor and textile merchant, and Régina ( née Bertinchamps), who was a milliner before she got married. Little is known about Magritte's early life. He began lessons in drawing in 1910. On 24 February 1912, his mother died by suicide by drowning herself in the River Sambre at Châtelet . It

8827-752: Was impossible led to their break with the Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires, and the expulsion of Breton, Éluard and Crevel from the Communist Party. In 1925, the Paris Surrealist group and the extreme left of the French Communist Party came together to support Abd-el-Krim , leader of the Rif uprising against French colonialism in Morocco . In an open letter to writer and French ambassador to Japan, Paul Claudel ,

8924-520: Was inspired from Magritte's works. A street in Brussels has been named Ceci n'est pas une rue (This is not a street). The Magritte Museum opened to the public on 30 May 2009 in Brussels . Housed in the five-level neo-classical Hotel Altenloh, on the Place Royale, it displays some 200 original Magritte paintings, drawings and sculptures including The Return , Scheherazade and The Empire of Light . This multidisciplinary permanent installation

9021-563: Was natural there should be a rapid shuffling of the philosophy as new challenges arose. Artists such as Max Ernst and his surrealist collages demonstrate this shift to a more modern art form that also comments on society. Surrealists revived interest in Isidore Ducasse, known by his pseudonym Comte de Lautréamont , and for the line "beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella", and Arthur Rimbaud , two late 19th-century writers believed to be

9118-636: Was not her first suicide attempt. Her body was not discovered until 12 March. According to a legend, 13-year-old Magritte was present when her body was retrieved from the water, but recent research has discredited this story, which may have originated with the family nurse. Supposedly, when his mother was found, her dress was covering her face, an image that has been suggested as the source of several of Magritte's paintings in 1927–1928 of people with cloth obscuring their faces, including Les Amants . Magritte's earliest paintings, which date from about 1915, were Impressionistic in style. During 1916–1918, he studied at

9215-621: Was on artistic practices, in other places on political practices, and in other places still, Surrealist praxis looked to supersede both the arts and politics. During the 1930s, the Surrealist idea spread from Europe to North America, South America (founding of the Mandrágora group in Chile in 1938), Central America , the Caribbean , and throughout Asia, as both an artistic idea and as an ideology of political change. Politically, Surrealism

9312-492: Was once asked about this image, he replied that of course it was not a pipe—just try to fill it with tobacco. Magritte's work has been described by Suzi Gablik as "a systematic attempt to disrupt any dogmatic view of the physical world". Therefore, when Magritte painted rocks—which are commonly understood to be heavy, inanimate objects—he often painted them floating cloud-like in the sky, or painted scenes of people and their environment turned to stone. Among Magritte's works are

9409-412: Was taken up again by Apollinaire, both as subtitle and in the preface to his play Les Mamelles de Tirésias: Drame surréaliste , which was written in 1903 and first performed in 1917. World War I scattered the writers and artists who had been based in Paris, and in the interim, many became involved with Dada, believing that excessive rational thought and bourgeois values had brought the conflict of

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