Bronze; 248.00 \u00d7 177.00 \u00d7 99.50 cm<\/p>\n
1967<\/p>\n
In January 1967, seven months before his death, Magritte decided to produce sculptures based on his most emblematic paintings. He translated 8 of his works into large scale sculptures in 3 dimensions enabling him to express the true nature of his work with strange and incongruous objects and patterns.<\/p>\n
According to his merchant Iolas, Magritte had thought of painting a sky “a\u0300 la Magritte” on the biggest of curtains, the same way he had done in his paintings. One of the two preparatory drawings of the sculptures was reproduced in Iolas\u2019 catalogue and depicted a pencil drawing of the latter curtains. The artist\u2019s proof of this sculpture was sent in 1968 to Georgette Magritte, the artist\u2019s widow and was sold to London\u2019s Sotheby\u2019s during the dispersion of Magritte\u2019s workshop.<\/p>\n
The sculpture is based on La Joconde painting, 1960, composed of three independent curtains, one of which Magritte\u2019s works\u2019 inherent sky and clouds was painted upon, and a ringbell also found in many of Magritte\u2019s artworks. Magritte used this curtain motif in numerous paintings and drawings during the last decade of his life (L\u2019Image en soi, 1961, a similar composition painted for Andre\u0301 Breton, Le Beau Monde, 1962, La Peine perdue, 1962, commissioned by harry torczyner). The title was found by Suzi Gablick, an American historian of art that lived with the Magritte during the time of her work on the artist in that period.<\/p>\n
The painting therefore unites certain elements that are most reoccurring in Magritte\u2019s iconography (the sky, the sphere, the curtains), all represented on a neutral background unlike the other series of \u201ccurtains\u201d. The composition is dominated by these monumental curtains with which Magritte juxtaposes opposites (the paradox of hiding or revealing, the contrast between nature and human creations, the interiors and exteriors), and by confronting these elements Magritte evokes the essential surrealist paradigm. This paradigm consists of questioning ourselves on the purpose and significance that we attribute to different objects and to reveal new significances by placing these objects in different contexts. the central curtain with its harsh edges can evoke certain collages of cut paper produced during the 20s and Magritte had the following explanation regarding the mixture of the sky and the curtain: \u201cthe sky takes the shape of a curtain because it is hiding something… we are surrounded by curtains\u201d. Therefore, we can see through these curtains the deceptive nature of the painted object compared to what it really represents, thus explaining the \u201cstaging\u201d of the curtains similar to a theatre stage.<\/p>\n
The Belgian painter, graphic designer and sculptor studied at the Brussels Acad\u00e9mie des Beaux-Arts from 1916 to 1918, delving mainly into Futurism and Cubism. Then, in 1925, Magritte started to refine his style and the emerging Surrealism became a major inspiration. Therefore he moved to Paris in 1927, joined the Surrealists around Andr\u00e9 Breton and shaped the Surrealist movement together with artists such as Max Ernst and Salvador Dal\u00ed significantly.
\nThe magical effect of his works arises from the unexpected antagonism of everyday objects. He played with the proportions, interchanged material and combined real objects with abstract figures. Magritte tried to show the baffling and marvellous reality behind the mundane manifestation and to depict the mysterious nature of human perception and thinking. Therefore his oeuvre became an important source of inspiration for subsequent artist generations and influenced movements like Pop Art and conceptual art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Material Bronze; 248.00 \u00d7 177.00 \u00d7 99.50 cm Dating 1967 About the artwork In January 1967, seven months before his death, Magritte decided to produce sculptures based on his most emblematic paintings. He translated 8 of his works into large scale sculptures in 3 dimensions enabling him to express the true nature of his work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/art.thedoldergrand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/art.thedoldergrand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/art.thedoldergrand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art.thedoldergrand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art.thedoldergrand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/art.thedoldergrand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1196,"href":"https:\/\/art.thedoldergrand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/159\/revisions\/1196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art.thedoldergrand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/art.thedoldergrand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}