Post by Jane on Feb 8, 2010 1:40:22 GMT -5
MAGRITTE
Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images. His intended goal for his work was to challenge observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality and force viewers to become hypersensitive to their surroundings. Magritte lived a quiet and "normal" life, married only one woman, and was very much a middle-class working man. Though connected to the movement, he separated himself from any the less provincial activities - preferring to work at home. Despite his seeming bougouise lifestyle, his works are extraordinary in their sense of fantasy and surreal reality. Magritte constantly challenged our preconceptions about reality. His works contain extraordinary juxtapositions of ordinary objects or an unusual context that gives new meaning to familiar things. By altering the scale of objects in his paintings, Magritte's work gives an immediate sense of surreal absurdity.
(Golconde)
(TII Resurrection Scene)
In Golconde, Magritte paints himself in endless repetition. In trench coat and bowler cap, he becomes a symbol for "everyman", perhaps commenting on the anonymity of city life.
Magritte constantly challenges our sense of time and space.
(Son of Man)
In Son of Man, Magritte painted a self-portrait. The painting consists of a man in a suit and a bowler hat standing in front of a small wall, beyond which is the sea and a cloudy sky. The man's face is largely obscured by a hovering green apple. "Applehead." On this painting, Magritte commented:
"At least it hides the face partly. Well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It's something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present."
This is part of a series of paintings where men are seen with objects in front of their faces, such as Familiar Objects. The figure is in a large, open space but he cannot see it: instead, he sees an enormous apple. To him, the apple is very large, but to the observer it is normal in size. There is also an enormous apple in The Listening Room. This raises the question of what is real about the apple, because we normally think of it as about the size of the apple as it appears to us in the picture, but to the man it is much bigger, so it calls a property of the apple into doubt. At the same time, it obscures what we think of as a large area, drawing attention to the man's perspective.
Additionally, the man's face is obscured, thereby obscuring his identity. When Magritte was a child, he witnessed the dead body of his suicidal mother being fished out of the Seine. Her nightdress obscured her face. There are a lot of issues involved in this experience: it was surreal, a pivotal moment in his life, a flashbulb memory and there are more abstract features of the experience. His mother had died, so it was a dead body, her identity, i.e. her face, was obscured, and had she been alive she would have been able to see him and the rest of the scene before her, but because she was dead, there was no "she" to do that. Like many other figures in Magritte's painting, the man is almost an object. He has no life as such, but is like a chesspiece - a manufactured object with rules to follow. The apple could be said to be more alive than he is.
(La Reproduction Interdite)
The work depicts a man standing in front of a mirror, but, whereas the book on the mantelpiece is reflected correctly, the man can see only the back of his head. "Man In The Mirror."
(Human Condition)
Magritte's intended goal for his work was to challenge observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality and force viewers to become hypersensitive to their surroundings. In the "Human Condition," ("Human Condition", as MJ mentions in TII) reality is pitted against its representation to see how well they match up. The painting of a landscape is placed before the window that opens up onto the landscape and the two appear to line up perfectly, except for the nagging suspicion that the so-called reality against which we measure the painted representation is nothing but a representation itself. What is the relationship between reality and image? Magritte makes us question whether the external world we take for reality is not merely an image itself. He messes with the system of things: his art points to an underlying disturbance rather than an underlying order (Mondrian). "Pictorial experience which puts the real world on trial . . ." He is the secret agent man, the sabateur who sabotages our sense of security about the reality of appearances and the appearance of reality. Notice the red curtains, which is a recurring theme in Magritte's works, as in MJ's TII.
And look at these paintings..
Notice anything?
Check out this image inspired by Magritte:
Notice the different hand colors on the Son of Man painting, as well as the MJ looking figure in the suitcase
"Son of Man" is featured in Michael's "Scream" video: Here
It appears when Michael switches on the TV. Here is a screenshot:
Art was certainly a large part of Michael's life.
Always love to hear your input ;D
Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images. His intended goal for his work was to challenge observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality and force viewers to become hypersensitive to their surroundings. Magritte lived a quiet and "normal" life, married only one woman, and was very much a middle-class working man. Though connected to the movement, he separated himself from any the less provincial activities - preferring to work at home. Despite his seeming bougouise lifestyle, his works are extraordinary in their sense of fantasy and surreal reality. Magritte constantly challenged our preconceptions about reality. His works contain extraordinary juxtapositions of ordinary objects or an unusual context that gives new meaning to familiar things. By altering the scale of objects in his paintings, Magritte's work gives an immediate sense of surreal absurdity.
(Golconde)
(TII Resurrection Scene)
In Golconde, Magritte paints himself in endless repetition. In trench coat and bowler cap, he becomes a symbol for "everyman", perhaps commenting on the anonymity of city life.
Magritte constantly challenges our sense of time and space.
(Son of Man)
In Son of Man, Magritte painted a self-portrait. The painting consists of a man in a suit and a bowler hat standing in front of a small wall, beyond which is the sea and a cloudy sky. The man's face is largely obscured by a hovering green apple. "Applehead." On this painting, Magritte commented:
"At least it hides the face partly. Well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It's something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present."
This is part of a series of paintings where men are seen with objects in front of their faces, such as Familiar Objects. The figure is in a large, open space but he cannot see it: instead, he sees an enormous apple. To him, the apple is very large, but to the observer it is normal in size. There is also an enormous apple in The Listening Room. This raises the question of what is real about the apple, because we normally think of it as about the size of the apple as it appears to us in the picture, but to the man it is much bigger, so it calls a property of the apple into doubt. At the same time, it obscures what we think of as a large area, drawing attention to the man's perspective.
Additionally, the man's face is obscured, thereby obscuring his identity. When Magritte was a child, he witnessed the dead body of his suicidal mother being fished out of the Seine. Her nightdress obscured her face. There are a lot of issues involved in this experience: it was surreal, a pivotal moment in his life, a flashbulb memory and there are more abstract features of the experience. His mother had died, so it was a dead body, her identity, i.e. her face, was obscured, and had she been alive she would have been able to see him and the rest of the scene before her, but because she was dead, there was no "she" to do that. Like many other figures in Magritte's painting, the man is almost an object. He has no life as such, but is like a chesspiece - a manufactured object with rules to follow. The apple could be said to be more alive than he is.
(La Reproduction Interdite)
The work depicts a man standing in front of a mirror, but, whereas the book on the mantelpiece is reflected correctly, the man can see only the back of his head. "Man In The Mirror."
(Human Condition)
Magritte's intended goal for his work was to challenge observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality and force viewers to become hypersensitive to their surroundings. In the "Human Condition," ("Human Condition", as MJ mentions in TII) reality is pitted against its representation to see how well they match up. The painting of a landscape is placed before the window that opens up onto the landscape and the two appear to line up perfectly, except for the nagging suspicion that the so-called reality against which we measure the painted representation is nothing but a representation itself. What is the relationship between reality and image? Magritte makes us question whether the external world we take for reality is not merely an image itself. He messes with the system of things: his art points to an underlying disturbance rather than an underlying order (Mondrian). "Pictorial experience which puts the real world on trial . . ." He is the secret agent man, the sabateur who sabotages our sense of security about the reality of appearances and the appearance of reality. Notice the red curtains, which is a recurring theme in Magritte's works, as in MJ's TII.
And look at these paintings..
Notice anything?
Check out this image inspired by Magritte:
Notice the different hand colors on the Son of Man painting, as well as the MJ looking figure in the suitcase
"Son of Man" is featured in Michael's "Scream" video: Here
It appears when Michael switches on the TV. Here is a screenshot:
Art was certainly a large part of Michael's life.
Always love to hear your input ;D