René François Ghislain Magritte (21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well-known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images.-Wikipedia
To be honest I was always more impressed with the works of M.C. Escher, but when you look around and try to find other artists like Escher, Rene Magritte is a name that often pops up.
Rene Magritte paintings have that slightly out of whack quality that all surrealist images have. Rene Magritte paintings don’t quite have the same level of skill and talent as surrealist Master Salvidor Dali. I always got the feeling that Rene Magritte was in the process of learning his craft and that he never quite got it. The ideas a brilliant, I love the train coming out of the fireplace and image of raining men. The level of artistic skill always seemed a bit less than it could be.
Rene Magritte paintings always struck me as the work of a college student, as someone who never quite mastered the finer points of being an artist. Of course, it is possible that Rene Magritte made his art look exactly the way he wanted it to look. The Impressionists often had a very amateur quality to it as well, but that didn’t stop it from being art. The whole point of surrealism was that it was a realistic painting of an unreal world.
Some of my favorite Rene Magritte paintings are the ones where there is view from a window with an artist’s easel and canvas sit in front of it. The canvas would have an exact replica of the view out the window, so that you had to take a second look to notice it. There is something fun about being tricked when you look at a painting. Rene Magritte paintings are great at causing that sense of confusion while the logical mind tries to sort out what the artistic mind is seeing.
highly recommend to see a film about rene magritte.
Biography, art, history, life and much more:
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